News & Commentary

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 Among the provisions the ACLU is asking to be repealed are a ban on texting by audience members at town council meetings and a prohibition on the mentioning of names of council members when residents address the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.”

The Rhode Island ACLU, in conjunction with its counterpart in Maine, today appealed the FBI’s refusal to release virtually any information that might indicate to what extent a federal program that allows for ethnic and racial mapping of local communities may be resulting in racial profiling in the two states. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed almost two years ago to learn about the controversial program, the two ACLU Affiliates received mostly blank pages from the FBI, including a censored census map of New England, leading to today’s appeal. According to a 2008 FBI operations guide, FBI agents have the authority to collect information about and map so-called “ethnic-oriented” businesses, behaviors, lifestyle characteristics and cultural traditions in communities with concentrated ethnic populations in order to assist the FBI’s “domain awareness” and “intelligence analysis” activities. The FOIA request was designed to find out how this mapping was taking place in Rhode Island. However, the very little information disclosed raises more questions than answers. For instance, one partially released document shows the FBI is using 2000 census data to track “foreign born” and “mixed ancestry” populations of some type in Rhode Island. It raises concerns that the FBI is profiling immigrant communities, but the FBI failed to provide any more information or indicate which populations it is tracking or why. Without this information, it is impossible to know whether the FBI is using its authority appropriately and constitutionally. This concern is not merely speculative. FBI documents obtained from other ACLU affiliates strongly suggest that the FBI is, in fact, profiling communities for suspicionless investigations on the basis of crude stereotypes. For example, a 2009 memorandum shows that the Detroit FBI sought to collect information about Middle-Eastern and Muslim communities in Michigan without any evidence of wrongdoing. And after noting that San Francisco “is home to … one of the largest ethnic Chinese populations outside mainland China,” two FBI memoranda from that city justified the opening of an investigation involving racial and national origin mapping because “[w]ithin this community there has been organized crime for generations.”                RI ACLU executive director Steven Brown said today: “It is essential to learn how, and to what extent, the FBI has been using this troubling authority here in Rhode Island. The FBI should be tracking true threats, not targeting entire communities based on race or ethnicity. If the businesses or lifestyles of Muslim or other local communities in the state are being racially profiled, at a minimum they have a right to know about it. Unfortunately, we know as little now as we did two years ago when we filed this request. This denial of the public’s right to know is completely unacceptable.” ACLU of Maine Executive Director Shenna Bellows added, “As our nation's leading law enforcement agency, the FBI should not be wasting resources by inappropriately mapping our communities on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion. Law enforcement programs based on evidence and facts are more effective than a system based on racial stereotypes or mass suspicion.”

The ACLU today filed a lawsuit in federal district court on behalf of a Cranston resident, seeking the return of a variety of lawfully possessed weapons that were seized from him almost nine months ago by police. The lawsuit, filed by RI ACLU volunteer attorney Thomas W. Lyons on behalf of Robert Machado, argues that the Cranston Police Department has violated his right to due process and his right to keep and bear arms by retaining his property without just cause. In September of last year, police and fire paramedics came to Machado’s house after receiving a call from a friend of his that he might be suicidal. Machado told the police that his friend had misconstrued a conversation they had had, but he agreed to be transported to Our Lady of Fatima Hospital for a mental health evaluation. The examination found no problems and he was promptly released from the hospital. Unbeknownst to Machado, however, police in the meantime seized for “safe keeping” from his home various weapons he lawfully possessed, including firearms and a collection of ceremonial samurai swords. Eager to have his possessions returned, Machado followed up by obtaining a letter from his psychotherapist that he had never “demonstrated suicidal tendencies or thoughts,” and “there should be no concern” returning his weapons. The police still refused to release them and advised Machado that he would need to obtain a court order to get them back. After further unsuccessful efforts to get his items returned, Machado contacted the ACLU. The lawsuit claims that the police department’s “customs, policies and practices” of requiring “weapons owners who are not charged with a crime to engage in formal litigation in order to recover their seized property” violates Machado’s due process rights as well as his Second Amendment rights. The suit seeks a court order declaring the police department’s practice unconstitutional and ordering the return of his weapons. ACLU attorney Lyons said today, “We hope this suit will ensure that Mr. Machado and his fellow citizens will no longer be exposed to violations of their constitutional rights.” Because other police departments may have similar unconstitutional policies, the ACLU expressed hope that the lawsuit would force other departments to reexamine them.