Polk Law Blog

UPDATE: Much of what appears below is incorrect because it was based on erroneous information indexed by the Clerk of Court before the Complaint was made available. See my next post for more details.  Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this month, I wrote about my thoughts concerning the arrest of EllenBeth Wachs, the legal affairs coordinator for the Atheists of Florida, Inc. She has been charged with holding herself out as qualified to practice law. Yesterday, my post was quoted in an op-ed by Glenn Marston in The Ledger, who was critical of the charges. A lively discussion followed on the Ledger’s Facebook-linked comment system.

I had intended to post some of the documents filed in the case with my last post, but never got around to doing so. Here they are:

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A lot has happened in a very short amount of time on the legal issues involving the Polk County charter provisions that limit commissioners to two terms and that reduce their salary to about half what state law requires.

In my initial post, which was quoted in a Ledger editorial, I disagreed with the conclusion of the County Attorney, who opined that both the term limit and salary provision were unconstitutional. After additional consideration, I stand behind that conclusion, subject to the complexities noted below. I think that the term limit provision would be held unconstitutional under clear Florida Supreme Court precedent, and that the pay provision of the charter would be upheld as Constitutional, although with less certainty.

I will depart slightly from my earlier analysis and state that the matter is not one that is clearly resolved. It is quite possible that a court may see this a little differently than I do.

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So I was at the used bookstore yesterday and happened upon a most interesting volume of legal wit published in 1890 entitled: Legal Hygiene; or How to Avoid Litigation, Transcript of a Series of Lectures of Interest to all Persons who have Property or Expect to Acquire Any. The author is “A.J. Hirschl of the Iowa Bar”. Read the rest of this entry »

The State Attorney’s Office is proceeding with its prosecution of EllenBeth Wachs, legal affairs coordinator for the Atheists of Florida, Inc., a co-plaintiff in its lawsuit against the City of Lakeland concerning pre-commission meeting invocations.

The charges are based on Fla. Stat. sec. 454.23, which states: Read the rest of this entry »