Court Cases

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Tallahassee Bail Fund against Gwendolyn Marshall, the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller for Leon County. The lawsuit challenges Clerk Marshall’s enforcement of Florida Statute § 903.286, which improperly confiscates charitable organizations’ money to punish them for helping accused persons access their freedom. This statute violates the Eighth Amendment by allowing clerks to use cash bail to impose criminal penalties on innocent parties, such as bail funds, which deprives them of the money that makes their operation possible. Our complaint was filed in August 2022. Summary-judgment briefing was completed in February 2023. On September 28, 2023, the court denied the motions for summary judgment, permitting some claims to proceed to trial. A trial was held on February 15, 2024, and on February 20, 2024, the district court ruled in our favor, holding the state statute unconstitutional as applied to our client, the Tallahassee Bail Fund. In practical terms, this means that when the Bail Fund deposits cash with the clerk to bail a person out of jail, the clerk can no longer keep it to pay that person’s fines, fees, and court costs if they later plead guilty. Instead, that money will go back to the Bail Fund, allowing them to use it to bail another person out of jail. This ruling will reduce wealth-based detention in Leon County. The government appealed, and we then cross-appealed.

The Southern Legal Counsel, ACLU of Florida, and pro bono attorney Andy Pozzuto filed filed a federal class action lawsuit against the city of Ocala on behalf of more than 200 other similarly situated homeless persons who have been arrested for sleeping or resting in public areas.

The ACLU, ACLU of Florida, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a natural-born U.S. citizen who was unlawfully detained and nearly deported as a result of a Florida sheriff’s improper collaboration with ICE.