Polk Law Blog

Commentary from Polk County, Florida attorney Kemp Brinson

Tag: first amendment

Atheists of Florida Amend Lakeland Complaint to Address Changes to Invocation Policy

The Atheists of Florida have amended their complaint in their lawsuit against the  City of Lakeland seeking to have the invocations conducted by the Lakeland City Commission held unconstitutional. Download Documents: First Amended Complaint and Verification Exhibit A – letter number 1 Exhibit B – letter number 2 Exhibit C – new invocation policy My previous [...]

Read the Resolution of Lakeland City Commission re Invocations

The Ledger is reporting that the Lakeland City Commission has passed a resolution concerning their invocation policy. (UPDATE 8/3/2010: The Ledger has a more detailed article this morning.) The new policy is clearly designed to help the City get out of the recent lawsuit filed by the Atheists of Florida. You can read the draft [...]

Atheist Group Sues Lakeland: Initial Analysis of the Lawsuit

A group called the Atheists of Florida announced that they have filed suit in U.S. District Court in Tampa against the City of Lakeland challenging the City’s current practice of having invocations before the start of its city commission meetings. The group posted a copy of the complaint on their website, but it is not signed and does [...]

Legal Status of Prayer at School Board (and Lakeland City Commission) Meetings – Part II

Welcome to Part II! For the lazy, here’s the summary: The law is different here in Florida than in other places, the school board was on questionable legal grounds, the Lakeland City Commission is probably OK but could use some improvement, and we have definitely not seen the last legal development on this issue.

Legal Status of Prayer At School Board Meetings – Part I

This is Part I. Part II has now been published. Many of my post  ideas come from issues covered by the local press and this is no exception. Relatively recently, the Ledger ran a fantastic article about prayer at government meetings in Polk County. The article focused primarily on the school board. The article includes [...]