Court Cases

This case challenges the Village of Palmetto Bay’s retaliation against an elected councilmember for his protected political speech. After Charlie Kirk’s death, Palmetto Bay Councilmember Steve Cody posted political satire critical of Kirk’s views on gun rights. In response, the Village Council removed Cody from a committee and rescinded related representative roles—despite acknowledging that Cody’s comments were protected by the First Amendment.

Our client Naples Pride, a nonprofit that provides services and hosts events for the LGBTQ+ community, filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Naples and its entities for denying the non-profit organization a special events permit to host a family-friendly drag performance in one of the city’s public parks as part of its annual Pridefest celebration. The city’s refusal to grant a permit was part of a years-long effort to target drag performances and LGBTQ+ pride events in violation of the First Amendment. The complaint was filed on April 10, 2025. The district court granted a preliminary injunction on May 12, 2025, but the Eleventh Circuit — in a split, 2-1 decision — placed a stay on that ruling on June 6, 2025, the day before the event. The event went forward on June 7 with the drag performance indoors.

Michael James Jackson was sentenced to death in May 2023. If his resentencing had taken place just one month earlier, before Florida’s capital-sentencing law changed in April 2023, eight votes for death would have meant that he lived. If the trial judge had correctly applied the amended law to apply only prospectively, as the Legislature unambiguously commanded, only a unanimous jury vote could have resulted in death. In either case, the very same eight- to-four jury vote would have saved Mr. Jackson’s life. And even this on-the-cusp vote might have tilted in favor of life if the trial court had not failed to instruct the jury that, under Florida law, a life recommendation would be binding. A continuance would have allowed the court to confirm—with model jury instructions that came out shortly after Mr. Jackson was sentenced—the arguments Mr. Jackson’s attorneys were making all along: that the jury could not be lawfully instructed that its life vote would be a mere recommendation subject to the court’s approval rather than a binding determination that the court could not modify. The ACLU is assisting in the appeal and entered appearances in September 2023. Our briefing contends that the trial court’s improvised and inaccurate jury instructions violated state law and Supreme Court precedent and that Florida’s new statute allowing non-unanimity in capital sentencing violates the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Briefing was complete in September 2024, and oral argument took place December 2024. The court issued its decision in December 2025, and we filed a motion for rehearing in January 2026.

On September 30, 2024, the Florida Department of Corrections issued a health services bulletin setting new rules for the medical care that would be provided to transgender people in its custody. Contrary to the medical mainstream, the bulletin suggests those seeking hormone therapy may have endured “short-termed delusions or beliefs which may later be changed and reversed” and recommended against providing any gender-affirming medical care unless extensive barriers were overcome. That same day, at Florida Department of Corrections facilities across the state, transgender inmates were rounded up and informed that FDC policy had been changed, “up to and including hormone therapy.” They were specifically told that they would no longer have access to clothing and grooming standards that accord with their gender identity and would have 30 days to comply. Transgender women like our clients Reiyn Keohane, Sasha Mendoza, and Sheila Diamond were told that those who did not cut their hair in compliance with male grooming standards would be forcibly shorn, and those who did not turn in their female undergarments and feminine canteen items would be disciplined. Transgender men like our clients Karter Jackson and Nelson Boothe were told that those who did not turn in their male undergarments and male canteen items would be disciplined. In October 2024, the ACLU filed emergency litigation on behalf of Reiyn — who has been receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy and clothing and grooming accommodations while in FDC custody since 2016—and a proposed class of transgender inmates with gender dysphoria, on the grounds that the new policy constitutes a violation of their Eighth Amendment right to medically necessary care. The ACLU previously filed a 2016 lawsuit on behalf of Reiyn that led to the now-rescinded policy permitting access to hormone therapy and female clothing and grooming accommodations for transgender women in FDC custody, which for more than six years permitted hundreds of transgender inmates to access needed gender-affirming care. On January 31, 2025, the district court denied the government’s motion to dismiss the case, and the parties proceeded to discovery. On October 22, 2025 the district granted class certification for all inmates in FDC custody with gender dysphoria who are denied social accommodations.

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.