TRESPASS WARNING RESULTS IN CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

WRITTEN BY: CHRISTOPHER MIMS
Managing Editor
May 20, 2009

The Shores Communicator has received a copy of a letter that was received by a Shores homeowner, currently under a trespass warning preventing him from access to the Riverview Club facilities. The trespass warning was issued within days of the homeowner uncovering election tampering by the Service Corporation Election Co-Chair as well as a police report filed against the community General Manager by the homeowner's wife. Some of the details contained within the letter have been withheld for legal purposes.

American Civil Liberties Union
Northeast Florida Regional Office
4830 Atlantic Boulevard
Jacksonville, FL 32207

May 8, 2009

Dear Mr. XXXX

This office has been forwarded your complaint regarding a Civil Rights violation. After reviewing your complaint, dated April 27, 2009, it is our initial opinion that the trespass injunction that you have received is unlawful under both the Florida State and United States Constitutions as well as Florida State law. It appears that your rights under the United States Constitution, specifically, the First Amendment, Right to Peaceably Assemble and the Fourteenth Amendment, No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, have been violated. Although it is not the position of the ACLU to involve itself in localized community disputes, it is the involvement of the St. John's County Sheriff's Department in this localized community dispute that is our concern.

The community association's involvement in this case will be reviewed only to the extent of determining if *collusion, factual misrepresentations or malicious prosecution claims were met in determining the actions of the St. John's County Sheriff's Department.

Furthermore, an arrest under the trespass injunction would constitute an unlawful restraint as well as wrongful imprisonment under the guidance of both State and Federal law. Any further impedance on your Constitutional rights should be forwarded to this office immediately. Your case number is XXX-X-XXXXX-XX.

Please provide our office with the following information and a list of all parties a subject thereto. Additionally, please reference your case number with all future correspondences.

Sincerely,

Name and requested information has been withheld.

*Collusion is an agreement, usually secretive, which occurs between two or more persons to deceive, mislead, or defraud others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically involving fraud or gaining an unfair advantage.