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The Rhode Island ACLU has filed a motion in R.I. Superior Court, asking that the state be held in contempt or subject to a restraining order for ignoring the dictates of a September 15th court ruling addressing the legality of Governor Donald Carcieri’s controversial “immigration executive order” requiring all vendors and contractors with the state to participate in the federal employment authorization system known as E-Verify.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a court brief seeking to beat back an effort to overturn a state law that protects an individual’s right to an abortion.

As questions swirl around the suicide of a man being held in solitary confinement at the ACI last week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island today filed a “friend of the court” brief supporting an ACI inmate’s constitutional challenge to his confinement in solitary for over a year as a violation of the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has today intervened in the pending litigation between the state of Rhode Island and the Narragansett Indians over the highly publicized state police raid of the Indians’ smoke shop last month. The ACLU affiliate, joined by its National office, has filed a “friend of the court” brief in U.S. District Court in support of the Tribe’s legal arguments. The brief was prepared by National ACLU staff attorney Stephen Pevar who, as the author of The Rights of Indians and Tribes, has literally written the book on the subject.

Supporting the public’s right to know, the Rhode Island ACLU has today filed a brief urging the R.I. Supreme Court to reverse the imposition of $15,000 in fines against Attorney General Patrick Lynch for public comments he made during the “lead paint public nuisance” case. The brief argues that the fines violated not only Lynch’s First Amendment right to free speech, but also the public’s right to hear the “views of attorneys concerning pending litigation in which the attorneys are involved.”