News & Commentary

The Rhode Island ACLU has today filed a “friend of the court” brief in the U.S. Supreme Court, supporting Governor Lincoln Chafee’s legal appeal seeking to prevent the surrender of murder suspect Jason Wayne Pleau to federal authorities to face a potential death penalty.

The following statement was issued today by the ACLU of RI in response to the Cranston sex discrimination controversy. The issue arose when a local parent-teacher organization, with initial support from the school, organized a “father-daughter dance” for girls attending the school, and a “mother-son” outing to a Pawtucket Red Sox baseball game for the boys:

The Narragansett Town Council has tentatively agreed to resolve a lawsuit filed by the ACLU in April on behalf of three URI pharmacy graduate students who received tickets for parking their cars overnight on their street even though they had a permit to do so.

With numerous amendments to the state’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA) taking effect on September 1st, the Rhode Island ACLU today has published a brochure advising people of their rights under the statute. The brochure is posted on the Affiliate’s website, along with information explaining in detail how people can go about requesting records from public bodies under the revised law.

Reviewing a year’s worth of data, the Rhode Island ACLU reported today that gay and lesbian couples have emphatically said “I Don’t!” to the state’s civil union law. According to statistics obtained from the RI Department of Health, a total of only 68 couples obtained civil union licenses in the first year of the law, which took effect July 1, 2011. By contrast, when civil union laws took effect earlier this year in two states with similar populations to Rhode Island, Hawaii reported the issuance of at least 106 civil union licenses, and Delaware reported more than 85, in the first month alone.

Six community and civil rights organizations have urged the Providence City Council to reject a proposal from Councilman Davian Sanchez to institute a nighttime curfew for juveniles. In a letter to Council members, the groups said the proposal “makes every teenager out at night a criminal suspect.” The organizations – Youth in Action, Providence Youth Student Movement, Direct Action for Rights and Equality, the Rhode Island ACLU, Olneyville Neighborhood Association, and the Univocal Legislative Minority Advisory Coalition, acknowledged the good intentions behind the proposal, but said “its enactment will exacerbate community relations between the police and the city’s youth.” Excerpts from the letter appear below:

The Rhode Island ACLU today joined with affiliates in 37 other states in filing open records requests with local police departments and state agencies to find out how they use automatic license plate readers (ALPR) to track and record Americans’ movements.

A proposed revision to the Providence City Charter could essentially allow “the Mayor and the City Council to flout any laws they wish to,” the Rhode Island ACLU argued in testimony submitted to a Providence City Council committee last night.

The Rhode Island ACLU has called on police departments in the state to adopt clear policies recognizing the First Amendment right of members of the public to video and tape record police activity. In a letter sent to police chiefs in Rhode Island, the ACLU noted recent developments in the law that made adoption of such a policy an important way to ensure that police officers are aware of, and do not violate, the free speech rights of residents.