News & Commentary

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.

The Rhode Island ACLU has called on the South Kingstown Town Council to revise various informal policies and procedures that impose unconstitutional restrictions on the free speech rights of citizens at town council meetings. Among the provisions the ACLU is asking to be repealed are a ban on texting by audience members at town council meetings and a prohibition on the mentioning of names of council members when residents address the Town Council during public comment periods.

At a court hearing today on the ACLU’s request for a preliminary injunction, the state and the Providence Police Department have agreed not to arrest and/or prosecute the plaintiffs in an ACLU lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a state law that makes it a felony for any person required to register as a sex offender to reside within 300 feet of any school. Across the country, experts involved in the treatment of sex offenders, as well as victims’ rights groups, have opposed sex offender residency laws as being ineffective, counter-productive, and potentially more, rather than less, harmful to public safety. The three plaintiffs face potential homelessness if the law is enforced against them. Two of them have development disabilities and are living in Warren Manor, an assisted living facility in Providence operated by NRI Community Services, a provider of mental health and substance abuse treatment. They are not even subject to community notification requirements. RI ACLU volunteer attorney Kate Godin said today: “I am very pleased that, at least for the foreseeable future, our clients will not face any action that could lead to homelessness or their reinstitutionalization. We remain prepared to take further action if any other offenders are similarly threatened with arrest under the statute while this lawsuit is pending.” Among the groups that have publicly raised concerns locally about broad sex offender residency laws are the RI Disability Law Center, the RI Coalition for the Homeless, and Day One Rhode Island. A year before the Rhode Island law was enacted, the Rhode Island Sex Offender Management Task Force prepared a draft statement on residency restrictions that noted that “research shows that sex offenders with residential and family stability (which can be disrupted by such restrictions) are less likely to commit new sex offenses.” Even though the plaintiffs have been in their residences for some time with the full knowledge of probation and police officials, the Providence Police Department notified them last month that if they did not move out within 30 days, they risked being arrested under the statute. At the time the suit was filed, Chris Stephens, the President/CEO of NRI Community Services noted that some of the residents at Warren Manor were placed there by the state probation and parole office, and that “subjecting them to arrest and eviction is not only contrary to their medical needs and increases their risk of  homelessness, but it categorically does nothing to make the community safer.” Judge Sarah Taft-Carter ordered briefs to be filed in the case by August17th.

The Rhode Island ACLU today filed a lawsuit in R.I. Superior Court challenging the constitutionality of a state law that makes it a felony for any person required to register as a sex offender to reside within 300 feet of any school. Across the country, experts involved in the treatment of sex offenders, as well as victims’ rights groups, have opposed sex offender residency laws as being ineffective, counter-productive, and potentially more, rather than less, harmful to public safety. The lawsuit, filed by ACLU volunteer attorney Katherine Godin, is on behalf of three plaintiffs who face potential homelessness if the law is enforced against them.

In response to a lawsuit the ACLU filed in January, the General Assembly has favorably amended a state law that had been interpreted to bar the media from running advertisements containing the names and photographs of public officials without their permission. As a result, the ACLU is voluntarily dismissing the lawsuit as moot.

The ACLU released this brief statement yesterday in response to Barrington Police Chief John LaCross, criticizing Caleb Chafee’s decision to exercise his Fifth Amendment rights when interviewed by police about a party he attended where alcohol was allegedly served:

In striking down three of the four challenged provisions in Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, today’s Supreme Court decision sends an important message that states wanting to act as immigration enforcement officers face severe constitutional obstacles in doing so. For those of us concerned about racial profiling in the state, the decision provides further reason to enact strong legislation to keep local police out of the immigration business.

Seven organizations today sent a letter to Providence Commissioner of Public Safety Steven Pare, criticizing the city police department’s plans to engage in an aggressive “stop and frisk” program in response to a recent spate of gun violence in the city. Deploring the racial profiling inherent in such police practices, the groups’ letter stated: “Stepping up the humiliating and dehumanizing questioning and frisking of our minority youth without cause is a simplistic approach to a complex problem and one that we believe will do more harm than good.”