Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal today reversed a Sarasota circuit court ruling that had barred the public from seeing records gathered by the Sarasota Police Department during its 2023 criminal investigation of Christian Ziegler, the former chair of the Republican Party of Florida, and had ordered most of those records destroyed.
The unanimous decision in Florida Center for Government Accountability, Inc. v. Ziegler, No. 2D2024-1806, is a victory for the Florida Center for Government Accountability (FLCGA), its executive director Michael Barfield, and media organizations Gannett Co., The McClatchy Company and Scripps Media, which intervened in the case to defend the public’s constitutional right of access.
“This ruling reaffirms a principle that has anchored Florida law for more than a century: records created or received by government in the course of its official business belong to the public,” said Michael Barfield, FLCGA’s executive director, who represented himself in the appeal. “A politically connected couple asked a court to invent two brand-new exemptions to the Public Records Act and to order the destruction of evidence gathered by police. The appellate court said, correctly, that only the Legislature can create exemptions, and that courts must apply the law as written even when the subject of the records is a powerful public figure.”
Why This Matters
Had the trial court’s ruling stood, any subject of a closed criminal investigation could have gone to court to keep police files hidden from the public and to have them destroyed, simply by claiming after the fact that the warrants were too broad. Public officials would have gained a powerful new tool to bury records of their own conduct.
“Florida’s public records law works only when someone is willing to enforce it,” Barfield said. “Government agencies did not defend the public’s rights in this case. The police department and the State Attorney’s Office did not even appear in the appeal. It fell to a small nonprofit and its media partners to stand up for the constitutional right of every Floridian to see what their government is doing.”
Background
In late 2023, Sarasota police investigated Christian Ziegler on allegations of sexual battery and, later, video voyeurism, obtaining search warrants for his cellphone, Google Drive and Instagram account. The State Attorney declined to file charges in March 2024. Ziegler and his wife, Sarasota County School Board member Bridget Ziegler, then sued the police department and the State Attorney’s Office to keep the investigative records secret.
FLCGA, Barfield and the media companies intervened as defendants and carried the fight for disclosure through expedited discovery and a full trial. In July 2024, the circuit court ruled for the Zieglers, holding that the search warrants violated the Fourth Amendment, that the data was Mr. Ziegler’s “property” that must be returned, and that text messages between the couple were shielded by the spousal privilege. The court permanently enjoined release of the records and ordered them destroyed.
The Ruling
Writing for a unanimous panel, Chief Judge Lucas held that the circuit court “machinated unwritten exemptions into the Public Records Act out of unpled, inapplicable Fourth Amendment arguments and an equally inapplicable rule of evidence.” Among the court’s key conclusions:
- The data police copied, flagged as relevant and reviewed during the investigation are public records under Chapter 119, and “there is no statutory exemption for public records that were allegedly obtained in violation of a person’s Fourth Amendment rights.”
- The Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule “only applies in criminal trials” and cannot be used by a third party to “thwart a public records request.” Anyone who believes a search was unlawful may sue under federal civil rights law, as Mr. Ziegler has separately done, but may not block the public’s access to records.
- The spousal privilege is a rule about testimony in court, “not a law that limits public access to records,” and “no Florida statute recognizes . . . ‘marital communications’ as a public records exemption.”
- Courts have no authority to weigh public policy against disclosure: “Perhaps a spousal communication exemption (or, for that matter, a Fourth Amendment violation exemption) to the Public Records Act would be good public policy. Or perhaps it would be a terrible idea. . . . Regardless, the judiciary has no power to make public policy.”
The court also cast serious doubt on whether the Zieglers had standing to sue at all, noting that “no Florida court has ever held that a third party has standing to contest a public records request by virtue of a purported property right in their digital information,” and that the Public Records Act itself forbids custodians from suing the people who request records.
The case now returns to the circuit court for further proceedings consistent with the opinion.
Accountability Is Not Free
Winning this case took more than two years of litigation, expedited discovery, a multi-day trial, an appellate record, briefing and oral argument before the Second District. That work was done largely without compensation and at real cost to a nonprofit newsroom whose mission is to hold Florida’s government accountable.
Cases like this are why FLCGA exists, and they are expensive. Every public records fight requires legal research, filing fees, transcripts, expert review and hundreds of hours that could otherwise go to reporting. FLCGA takes on these battles because the alternative is a government that decides for itself what the public is allowed to know.
If you believe Floridians deserve access to the records their tax dollars create, please consider supporting FLCGA’s public records litigation and the investigative journalism of the Florida Trident with a tax-deductible contribution at [donation URL]. Your support keeps the courthouse doors open for the next fight.
About the Florida Center for Government Accountability
The Florida Center for Government Accountability is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to government transparency and accountability in Florida. FLCGA publishes the Florida Trident, focused on investigative accountability reporting, and litigates to enforce the public’s constitutional right of access to government records and meetings under Article I, Section 24, of the Florida Constitution and Chapter 119, Florida Statutes.
The Florida Center for Government Accountability was represented on appeal by Morgan R. Bentley, David A. Wallace and Kaylin Humerickhouse of Bentley Goodrich Kison, Sarasota. Gannett, McClatchy and Scripps were represented by James B. Lake and Mark R. Caramanica of Thomas & LoCicero PL, Tampa.
The opinion is available here.
This article first appeared on Florida Trident and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
