Florida
Court sends case of prosecutor suspended by DeSantis back to trial judge
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A Democratic Florida prosecutor suspended by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis will get another chance to show his political advocacy was protected by the First Amendment and could not be the basis for his removal, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case involving ex-prosecutor Andrew Warren back to a trial judge in Tallahassee to determine if the governor’s suspension was improperly focused on statements Warren signed along with other prosecutors opposing certain legislation to criminalize abortion and gender care.
DeSantis, a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, cited those advocacy statements in his August 2022 suspension of Warren, whom he replaced with Republican Suzy Lopez as the Tampa-based state attorney. Warren, who had been elected twice, recently announced he would not run again this year.
In his January ruling in Warren’s lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle agreed with Warren’s contention that the advocacy statements were protected by the First Amendment but that DeSantis would likely have suspended him anyway for other reasons.
The 11th Circuit vacated that decision and instructed Hinkle to hold further proceedings in which DeSantis would have to show that the suspension was based on issues with Warren’s actual performance and policies in office, not just his political advocacy.
“The First Amendment prevents DeSantis from identifying a reform prosecutor and then suspending him to garner political benefit,” Circuit Judge Jill Pryor wrote in the 59-page ruling. “The First Amendment protects his signing the transgender care and abortion statements.”
The ruling adds that “neither statement referred to a specific Florida law. To the contrary, the statements, which addressed national audiences, contained language inapplicable to Florida.”
Warren said in an email that he hopes the ruling leads his return to his position as state attorney.
“This is what we’ve been fighting for from the beginning — the protection of democracy. We look forward to returning to the District Court to obtain the relief that has been denied to me and all the voters of Hillsborough County for 17 months: reinstating the person elected by the voters,” Warren said.
DeSantis Press Secretary Jeremy Redfern said the governor’s office adamantly disagrees with the appeals court, contending the ruling sets a “dangerous precedent” that could permit politically-motivated prosecutors to ignore laws they oppose.
“A state prosecutor’s declared commitment to not enforce the laws of this state is not protected by the U.S. Constitution. The federal appeals court is flat wrong to have concluded otherwise,” Redfern said in an email. “It’s disappointing that a federal appellate court would excuse such a blatant violation of that prosecutor’s oath to defend Florida law.”
Last year, the Florida Supreme Court refused to reinstate Warren, saying he had waited too long to file a petition.
Warren’s suspension was the first one made by the Republican governor involving Democratic elected state attorneys. Last year, DeSantis suspended Monique Worrell, who was the state attorney for the Orlando area. Worrell is challenging the decision before the Florida Supreme Court.
Alabama
Lawsuit: Prisoners’ bodies returned without heart, other organs
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The bodies of two men who died while incarcerated in Alabama’s prison system were missing their hearts or other organs when returned to their families, a federal lawsuit alleges.
The family of Brandon Clay Dotson, who died in a state prison in November, filed a federal lawsuit last month against the Alabama Department of Corrections and others saying his body was decomposing and his heart was missing when his remains were returned to his family.
In a court filing in the case last week, the daughter of Charles Edward Singleton, another deceased inmate, said her father’s body was missing all of his internal organs when it was returned in 2021.
Lauren Faraino, an attorney representing Dotson’s family, said via email Wednesday that the experience of multiple families shows this is “absolutely part of a pattern.”
Dotson, 43, was found dead on Nov. 16 at Ventress Correctional Facility. His family, suspecting foul play was involved in his death, hired a pathologist to do a second autopsy and discovered his heart was missing, according to the lawsuit. His family filed a lawsuit seeking to find out why his heart was removed and to have it returned to them.
“Defendants’ outrageous and inexcusable mishandling of the deceased’s body amounts to a reprehensible violation of human dignity and common decency,” the lawsuit states, adding that “their appalling misconduct is nothing short of grave robbery and mutilation.”
Dotson’s family, while seeking information about what happened to his heart, discovered that other families had similar experiences, Faraino said.
The situation involving Singleton’s body is mentioned in court documents filed by Dotson’s family last week. In the documents, the inmate’s daughter Charlene Drake writes that a funeral home told her that her father’s body was brought to it “with no internal organs” after his death while incarcerated in 2021.
She wrote that the funeral director told her that “normally the organs are in a bag placed back in the body after an autopsy, but Charles had been brought to the funeral home with no internal organs.” The court filing was first reported by WBMA.
A federal judge held a hearing in the Dotson case last week. Al.com reported that the hearing provided no answers to the location of the heart.
The lawsuit filed by Dotson’s family contended that the heart might have been retained during a state autopsy with intent to give it to the medical school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham for research purposes.
Attorneys for the university said that was “bald speculation” and wrote in a court filing that the university did not perform the autopsy and never received any of Dotson’s organs.
Florida
Lawsuit against school district that banned books can move forward, judge rules
PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — A lawsuit can move forward against a Florida Panhandle school district over its removal of books about race and LGBTQ+ identities from library shelves, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II, based in Pensacola, ruled that the writers’ group PEN America, publisher Penguin Random House, banned authors and parents have standing to pursue their claims under the First Amendment’s free speech protections, while denying a claim under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
“We are gratified that the Judge recognized that books cannot be removed from school library shelves simply because of the views they espouse, and are looking forward to moving forward with this case to protect the constitutional rights of the plaintiffs,” attorney Lynn Oberlander said in a statement.
The federal lawsuit alleges the Escambia County School District and its School Board are violating the First Amendment through the removal of 10 books.
PEN America, which has tracked school book bans, advocates for literary freedoms and has a membership of 7,500 writing professionals, including authors whose books have been removed or restricted in the school district. Penguin Random House, a massive publisher, has published books that have been removed or restricted by the district.
The lawsuit says the removals stem from objections from one language arts teacher in the county, and in each case the school board voted to remove the books despite recommendations from a district review committee that deemed them educationally suitable.
The teacher’s formal objections to the books appear to draw on materials compiled by a website that creates reports on books it deems ideologically unsuitable for children, according to the lawsuit.
In one example it cites, the teacher admitted she had never heard of the book “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky, but filed an objection that contained excerpts and phrasing from the book ban website.
Among the other removed books are “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison, “The Nowhere Girls,” by Amy Reed, and “Lucky,” by Alice Sebold. The lawsuit said more than 150 additional books are under review by the school board.
Attorneys for the Escambia County School District did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The suit does not name Gov. Ron DeSantis as a defendant, though the Republican has championed policies that allow the censorship and challenging of books based on whether they are appropriate for children in schools.
DeSantis, who is running for president, has leaned heavily into cultural divides on race, sexual orientation and gender to attract conservative voters in the Republican primary elections, though he and others trail significantly behind former President Donald Trump.
Washington
Starbucks sued by consumer group that calls its claim of ethical sourcing false and misleading
A consumer advocacy group filed a lawsuit against Starbucks on Wednesday, saying the company’s claim that its coffee is ethically sourced is false and misleading.
The National Consumers League cited media reports of abuses on farms that supply coffee and tea to Starbucks. The group said the cases cast doubt on Starbucks’ packaging, which states that the company is “committed to 100% ethical coffee sourcing.”
Starbucks said Wednesday it was aware of the lawsuit and will “aggressively defend against the asserted claims.” The lawsuit was filed in Superior Court in the District of Columbia.
Among the incidents cited in the lawsuit was a 2022 case in which police rescued 17 workers — including three teenagers — from a coffee farm in Brazil where they were made to work outdoors without protective equipment and lift 130-pound sacks of coffee. The case was covered by Repórter Brasil, a group of journalists that investigates workers’ rights and environmental issues.
Starbucks said Wednesday it had no information about that case.
“We take allegations like these extremely seriously and are actively engaged with farms to ensure they adhere to our standards,” the company said.
The lawsuit also cites a 2023 report by the BBC exposing rampant sexual abuse and grueling working conditions on the James Finlay tea plantation in Kenya. James Finlay was a supplier to Starbucks at the time, but Starbucks said Wednesday it no longer buys tea from that plantation.
Starbucks buys around 3% of the world’s coffee. The company says it works with 400,000 farmers in more than 30 countries.
Starbucks developed ethical sourcing guidelines in 2004 and uses third parties to verify conditions at its suppliers. The company says it has zero tolerance for child labor and requires farmers to provide a safe, fair and humane working environment.
But the National Consumers League said Starbucks is misleading consumers by failing to disclose that its certification program doesn’t guarantee ethical sourcing.
The group is asking the court to stop Starbucks from engaging in deceptive advertising and require it to run a corrective ad campaign.
“Starbucks’ failure to adopt meaningful reforms to its coffee and tea sourcing practices in the face of these critiques and documented labor abuses on its source farms is wholly inconsistent with a reasonable consumer’s understanding of what it means to be ‘committed to 100% ethical’ sourcing,’” the group said in its court filing.
Court sends case of prosecutor suspended by DeSantis back to trial judge
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A Democratic Florida prosecutor suspended by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis will get another chance to show his political advocacy was protected by the First Amendment and could not be the basis for his removal, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case involving ex-prosecutor Andrew Warren back to a trial judge in Tallahassee to determine if the governor’s suspension was improperly focused on statements Warren signed along with other prosecutors opposing certain legislation to criminalize abortion and gender care.
DeSantis, a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, cited those advocacy statements in his August 2022 suspension of Warren, whom he replaced with Republican Suzy Lopez as the Tampa-based state attorney. Warren, who had been elected twice, recently announced he would not run again this year.
In his January ruling in Warren’s lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle agreed with Warren’s contention that the advocacy statements were protected by the First Amendment but that DeSantis would likely have suspended him anyway for other reasons.
The 11th Circuit vacated that decision and instructed Hinkle to hold further proceedings in which DeSantis would have to show that the suspension was based on issues with Warren’s actual performance and policies in office, not just his political advocacy.
“The First Amendment prevents DeSantis from identifying a reform prosecutor and then suspending him to garner political benefit,” Circuit Judge Jill Pryor wrote in the 59-page ruling. “The First Amendment protects his signing the transgender care and abortion statements.”
The ruling adds that “neither statement referred to a specific Florida law. To the contrary, the statements, which addressed national audiences, contained language inapplicable to Florida.”
Warren said in an email that he hopes the ruling leads his return to his position as state attorney.
“This is what we’ve been fighting for from the beginning — the protection of democracy. We look forward to returning to the District Court to obtain the relief that has been denied to me and all the voters of Hillsborough County for 17 months: reinstating the person elected by the voters,” Warren said.
DeSantis Press Secretary Jeremy Redfern said the governor’s office adamantly disagrees with the appeals court, contending the ruling sets a “dangerous precedent” that could permit politically-motivated prosecutors to ignore laws they oppose.
“A state prosecutor’s declared commitment to not enforce the laws of this state is not protected by the U.S. Constitution. The federal appeals court is flat wrong to have concluded otherwise,” Redfern said in an email. “It’s disappointing that a federal appellate court would excuse such a blatant violation of that prosecutor’s oath to defend Florida law.”
Last year, the Florida Supreme Court refused to reinstate Warren, saying he had waited too long to file a petition.
Warren’s suspension was the first one made by the Republican governor involving Democratic elected state attorneys. Last year, DeSantis suspended Monique Worrell, who was the state attorney for the Orlando area. Worrell is challenging the decision before the Florida Supreme Court.
Alabama
Lawsuit: Prisoners’ bodies returned without heart, other organs
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The bodies of two men who died while incarcerated in Alabama’s prison system were missing their hearts or other organs when returned to their families, a federal lawsuit alleges.
The family of Brandon Clay Dotson, who died in a state prison in November, filed a federal lawsuit last month against the Alabama Department of Corrections and others saying his body was decomposing and his heart was missing when his remains were returned to his family.
In a court filing in the case last week, the daughter of Charles Edward Singleton, another deceased inmate, said her father’s body was missing all of his internal organs when it was returned in 2021.
Lauren Faraino, an attorney representing Dotson’s family, said via email Wednesday that the experience of multiple families shows this is “absolutely part of a pattern.”
Dotson, 43, was found dead on Nov. 16 at Ventress Correctional Facility. His family, suspecting foul play was involved in his death, hired a pathologist to do a second autopsy and discovered his heart was missing, according to the lawsuit. His family filed a lawsuit seeking to find out why his heart was removed and to have it returned to them.
“Defendants’ outrageous and inexcusable mishandling of the deceased’s body amounts to a reprehensible violation of human dignity and common decency,” the lawsuit states, adding that “their appalling misconduct is nothing short of grave robbery and mutilation.”
Dotson’s family, while seeking information about what happened to his heart, discovered that other families had similar experiences, Faraino said.
The situation involving Singleton’s body is mentioned in court documents filed by Dotson’s family last week. In the documents, the inmate’s daughter Charlene Drake writes that a funeral home told her that her father’s body was brought to it “with no internal organs” after his death while incarcerated in 2021.
She wrote that the funeral director told her that “normally the organs are in a bag placed back in the body after an autopsy, but Charles had been brought to the funeral home with no internal organs.” The court filing was first reported by WBMA.
A federal judge held a hearing in the Dotson case last week. Al.com reported that the hearing provided no answers to the location of the heart.
The lawsuit filed by Dotson’s family contended that the heart might have been retained during a state autopsy with intent to give it to the medical school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham for research purposes.
Attorneys for the university said that was “bald speculation” and wrote in a court filing that the university did not perform the autopsy and never received any of Dotson’s organs.
Florida
Lawsuit against school district that banned books can move forward, judge rules
PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — A lawsuit can move forward against a Florida Panhandle school district over its removal of books about race and LGBTQ+ identities from library shelves, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II, based in Pensacola, ruled that the writers’ group PEN America, publisher Penguin Random House, banned authors and parents have standing to pursue their claims under the First Amendment’s free speech protections, while denying a claim under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
“We are gratified that the Judge recognized that books cannot be removed from school library shelves simply because of the views they espouse, and are looking forward to moving forward with this case to protect the constitutional rights of the plaintiffs,” attorney Lynn Oberlander said in a statement.
The federal lawsuit alleges the Escambia County School District and its School Board are violating the First Amendment through the removal of 10 books.
PEN America, which has tracked school book bans, advocates for literary freedoms and has a membership of 7,500 writing professionals, including authors whose books have been removed or restricted in the school district. Penguin Random House, a massive publisher, has published books that have been removed or restricted by the district.
The lawsuit says the removals stem from objections from one language arts teacher in the county, and in each case the school board voted to remove the books despite recommendations from a district review committee that deemed them educationally suitable.
The teacher’s formal objections to the books appear to draw on materials compiled by a website that creates reports on books it deems ideologically unsuitable for children, according to the lawsuit.
In one example it cites, the teacher admitted she had never heard of the book “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky, but filed an objection that contained excerpts and phrasing from the book ban website.
Among the other removed books are “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison, “The Nowhere Girls,” by Amy Reed, and “Lucky,” by Alice Sebold. The lawsuit said more than 150 additional books are under review by the school board.
Attorneys for the Escambia County School District did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The suit does not name Gov. Ron DeSantis as a defendant, though the Republican has championed policies that allow the censorship and challenging of books based on whether they are appropriate for children in schools.
DeSantis, who is running for president, has leaned heavily into cultural divides on race, sexual orientation and gender to attract conservative voters in the Republican primary elections, though he and others trail significantly behind former President Donald Trump.
Washington
Starbucks sued by consumer group that calls its claim of ethical sourcing false and misleading
A consumer advocacy group filed a lawsuit against Starbucks on Wednesday, saying the company’s claim that its coffee is ethically sourced is false and misleading.
The National Consumers League cited media reports of abuses on farms that supply coffee and tea to Starbucks. The group said the cases cast doubt on Starbucks’ packaging, which states that the company is “committed to 100% ethical coffee sourcing.”
Starbucks said Wednesday it was aware of the lawsuit and will “aggressively defend against the asserted claims.” The lawsuit was filed in Superior Court in the District of Columbia.
Among the incidents cited in the lawsuit was a 2022 case in which police rescued 17 workers — including three teenagers — from a coffee farm in Brazil where they were made to work outdoors without protective equipment and lift 130-pound sacks of coffee. The case was covered by Repórter Brasil, a group of journalists that investigates workers’ rights and environmental issues.
Starbucks said Wednesday it had no information about that case.
“We take allegations like these extremely seriously and are actively engaged with farms to ensure they adhere to our standards,” the company said.
The lawsuit also cites a 2023 report by the BBC exposing rampant sexual abuse and grueling working conditions on the James Finlay tea plantation in Kenya. James Finlay was a supplier to Starbucks at the time, but Starbucks said Wednesday it no longer buys tea from that plantation.
Starbucks buys around 3% of the world’s coffee. The company says it works with 400,000 farmers in more than 30 countries.
Starbucks developed ethical sourcing guidelines in 2004 and uses third parties to verify conditions at its suppliers. The company says it has zero tolerance for child labor and requires farmers to provide a safe, fair and humane working environment.
But the National Consumers League said Starbucks is misleading consumers by failing to disclose that its certification program doesn’t guarantee ethical sourcing.
The group is asking the court to stop Starbucks from engaging in deceptive advertising and require it to run a corrective ad campaign.
“Starbucks’ failure to adopt meaningful reforms to its coffee and tea sourcing practices in the face of these critiques and documented labor abuses on its source farms is wholly inconsistent with a reasonable consumer’s understanding of what it means to be ‘committed to 100% ethical’ sourcing,’” the group said in its court filing.
