I Hope I'm Not Going Soft, But...

...I think the Rhode Island Chapter of the ACLU is right, as I said a year ago, about the town of Narragansett's "orange-sticker" policy for regulating house party nuisances being unconstitutional.

I know the penalty of having an orange sticker placed on your door is a small one, but in our system of government, no penalty, no matter how small, can be applied by the government in the absence of some form of due process which allows citizens to make their case about whether law-enforcement actions were justified or not. And that's a major part of the ACLU argument here...

The “unruly gatherings” ordinance violates the plaintiffs’ right to procedural due process. Both liberty and property interests are implicated. The act of affixing a 10 inch by 14 inch orange sticker to the front door of a rental property is left to the sole discretion of the police with no opportunity for a hearing either before or after the posting of the orange sticker.