Court Cases

In February and August 2024, the ACLU of Florida submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to ICE seeking information related to individuals’ detention in ICE custody at the Baker County Detention Center in Macclenny, Florida. These records have been sought as part of our efforts to monitor conditions at Baker and similar facilities and provide advocacy surrounding such conditions, given that, through various investigations, we have discovered that Baker has consistently failed to ensure the safety and well-being of people in ICE detention, in violation of the 2019 National Detention Standards. The records sought will significantly contribute to the public’s understanding of Baker’s use of solitary confinement and use of force against individuals detained there, as well as Baker’s provision of mental health care for individuals detained there. After ICE failed to timely produce the requested records, we filed the lawsuit on October 24, 2024.

After a state circuit-court judge in Orlando overturned a racial discrimination jury verdict and directed a verdict for the defense, attorney Jerry Girley, who represented the plaintiff, criticized the judge and the legal system on a radio show. His daughter Brooke, who is also an attorney but did not work on the case, also made comments on social media critical of the judge and legal system. Both argued that the legal system discriminates against Black people and does not provide equal justice. The Florida Bar sought to punish both for their speech, and the referee in the case imposed 30-day suspensions of their licenses. On June 24, 2024, the ACLU filed amicus briefs in Florida Supreme Court in support of both attorneys, arguing that the First Amendment protects their speech. While the First Amendment grants the government some latitude to regulate attorneys’ commercial speech, general First Amendment principles apply to a lawyer’s expressive speech, including their political speech, absent special circumstances inapplicable to the Girleys. The Girleys’ criticism of the judge and the legal system was political speech entitled to the strictest First Amendment protections.

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.

Decarceration has always been an emergency, a life and death proposition, but COVID-19 makes this effort intensely urgent.