Fane Lozman's case went to the jury; result returned quickly

Jane Musgrave of the Post has this story about Fane Lozman's lawsuit against the city of Riviera Beach. Yesterday, Jane Musgrave wrote this about the Lozman trial, just as it was going to the jury. From the article:

Since 2006, Lozman attended 121 council meetings and spoke 296 times, Bedard [attorney Ben Bedard] told jurors. “Does that sound like someone whose First Amendment rights are being impeded?” he asked.

The trial is unusual for many reasons. For starters, Lozman, a former Marine who made millions by inventing a financial tracking software program, is representing himself. Further, it isn’t often someone sues a city for First Amendment violations much less is afforded a month-long trial.

To illustrate the complex issues swirling around the case, it took U.S. District Judge Daniel Hurley nearly three hours to explain the legal aspects of the case to the jury of six men and two women — a process that usually takes about 45 minutes. After the lengthy jury instructions consumed most of the afternoon, jurors elected to return today [12/16] to begin deliberations.

The lawsuit by Mr. Lozman is about the First Amendment and free speech in a city government setting. For those of you unfamiliar with city commission meetings there are two types of public comment. The first is near the beginning of the meeting where the public gets to comment on anything not on the meetings agenda that day. And then there is comment opportunity after each item on the agenda. In Lake Worth for instance, when you enter the commission chambers you'll find these blue cards: 

In the excerpt above Jane Musgrave wrote that Mr. Lozman "attended 121 council meetings and spoke 296 times."

I have been to a Riviera Beach City Commission meeting representing a client on a zoning matter many years ago, but have never witnessed Mr. Lozman commenting at their meetings. I have however had Mr. Lozman as a guest on my podcast High Noon in Lake Worth. During our talk, Mr. Lozman came across as reasonable and highly intelligent, although some in Riviera Beach would disagree with my assessment. 

The reason I note the unusually high number of public comments by Mr. Lozman is that we had our own issue with "free speech" here in Lake Worth. In Lake Worth we have our own gregarious gadfly, Mr. Timm. I don't have a count of Mr. Timm's public comments at Lake Worth city commission meetings but suspect Mr. Timm may have Mr. Lozman beat in the public comment count. He offers some observations that are worthwhile, others maybe not as much, but he still has the right to his two minutes on any agenda item on which he wishes to speak.

There are some in Lake Worth who believe Mr. Timm's First Amendment rights were violated. Watch Mr. Timm here and I'll explain why this is not the case at all.

After watching the video please refer back to the comment card above with the rules for public comment. One such rule is this: "The result of inappropriate outbursts or interruptions will be immediate removal from the meeting escorted by a Police Officer."

Mr. Timm was commenting on an agenda item. Mayor Pam Triolo explicitly explained that only comments about the voting experience that day, August 26th, would be permitted. The result of the vote was not the agenda. The mayor made that very clear at the outset of the agenda item.

My point here is this, the First Amendment and the right of Free Speech is not all-encompassing. There are guidelines on free speech. From Jane Musgrave's article she quotes the Riviera Beach attorney Ben Bedard:

“He [Fane Lozman] wants to fight. He wants to debate. He wants to create a disturbance,” Bedard said, offering commentary to a video that showed one heated exchange between Lozman and council members. “It’s his conduct that’s causing the issue, not the viewpoint he’s expressing.”