News & Commentary

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of a 110-year-old statute that declares inmates serving life sentences at the ACI to be “dead in all respects” with respect to “all civil rights.” The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court by ACLU cooperating attorneys Sonja Deyoe and Lynette Labinger, is on behalf of two ACI inmates who are barred from pursuing legal actions against the Department of Corrections in court because of the “civil death” law. According to the lawsuit, Rhode Island may be the only state in the country still enforcing a law like this, whose origins date back to ancient English common law.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today announced the favorable settlement of a lawsuit it filed two years ago against a Smithfield ordinance that the ACLU argued was an attempt to undermine the state’s medical marijuana law by imposing significant burdens on patients’ access to treatment. Under the settlement agreement, the Town has agreed to repeal the ordinance and pay $30,000 in attorneys’ fees.

A recently-filed ACLU class-action lawsuit challenging the government’s practice of denying due process to detained immigrants could directly affect the continued jailing of some of the immigrant detainees now being held at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls.

In a case with major implications for the medical privacy rights of Rhode Islanders, the ACLU of Rhode Island has today joined with the National ACLU, four other ACLU Affiliates, and the New Hampshire Medical Society in filing a “friend of the court” brief arguing that law enforcement agents need a judicial warrant in order to obtain information from state prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) databases.

The American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project and the ACLU of Rhode Island have today filed a “friend of the court” brief in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island in an important immigration case in which the federal government is claiming that a person who will likely be tortured if he is extradited back to his home country cannot rely on that fact to prevent his return to that country. The ACLU brief calls that position “incorrect.”

The ACLU of Rhode Island today settled a federal lawsuit against the City of Cranston, successfully challenging its selective enforcement of ordinances barring the placement of commercial advertisements on city property. The suit was filed two filed years ago by ACLU volunteer attorney Richard A. Sinapi on behalf of Stephen Hunter, a lawyer who was threatened with fines if he did not take down signs advertising his business that he had posted at various intersections throughout the city – even though there were dozens of other advertising signs posted at the same locations and many hundreds more citywide, which were left untouched and not cited.

UPDATE (4/5/19): The newly constituted Wyatt Detention Facility Board voted to terminate its contract with ICE and have all ICE detainees moved out within 7 days. We are awaiting more information.

In a major blow to the public’s right to know, RI Superior Court Judge Melissa Long today ruled that the Pawtucket Police Department is not required, pending further court proceedings, to release reports of police officer misconduct that are generated by its Internal Affairs Division (IAD). Instead, the judge concluded that additional hearings are necessary to determine whether the records must be released under the state’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA).

The ACLU of Rhode Island today voluntarily dismissed a lawsuit filed against the Department of Corrections (DOC) in January, which challenged the lack of adequate heat for more than a month and a half in cell blocks at the ACI’s Intake Center.