Filing # 190270318 E-Filed 01/22/2024 04:39:53 PM

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE

11TH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND
FOR MIAMI-DADE COUNTY,
FLORIDA

CASE NO.: 2024-000793-CA-01

WILLIAM FULLER
MARTIN PINILLA II, and
DENISE GALVEZ TURROS

Plaintiffs,

vs.

THE CITY OF MIAMI and

JOE CAROLLO

Defendants.

_________________________/
EMERGENCY MOTION TO EXPEDITE PROCEEDINGS AND
REMOVE JOE CAROLLO FROM THE MIAMI CITY COMMISSION

Plaintiffs respectfully move this Honorable Court for an order setting “speedy hearing” for

no later than March 7, 2024 under Florida Statute § 86.111, and an “immediate hearing” under the

principles enunciated in Fla. Stat.§102.168(7) and Fla. R. Jud. Admin. 2.215(h), in order to

determine if Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo “shall forthwith forfeit his or her office or

employment.” City of Miami Charter, Citizens’ Bill of Rights.

1. The City of Miami Charter provides that any public official “who is found by the

court to have willfully violated” certain rights—including “interfer[ing] with the right[ ] of

freedom of speech”—“shall forthwith forfeit his or her office or employment.” City of Miami

Charter, Citizens’ Bill of Rights (emphasis added).

2. “Forthwith” means “immediately” and “without any delay.” MERRIAM-WEBSTER,

“Forthwith,” at http://tinyurl.com/yt26uc7t (Jan. 19, 2024); accord BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY,

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“Forthwith” (11 ed. 2019) (“immediately” or “without delay”); AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY

OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, “Forthwith” (5th ed. 2022) (“at once; immediately”).

3. In even run of the mill declaratory judgment actions the “court may order a speedy

hearing of an action for declaratory judgment and may advance it on the calendar. Fla. Stat. §

86.111.

4. This case is much more urgent. In fact, Fla. Stat. §102.168(7) provides that a

taxpayer contesting a public official’s election to office “is entitled to an immediate hearing.” And

the Florida Rules of Judicial Administration state that “[e]very judge has a duty to expedite priority

cases” and that “[p]articular attention must be given to . . . challenges involving elections”). Fla.

R. Jud. Admin. 2.215(h)

5. Here, removal of an elected official found by a court to have willfully violated the

right to freedom of speech is even more urgent than an action contesting the election of a public

official or enforcing a public records request. For instance, a contested election usually involves

the counting of votes or a candidate’s residency, not the willful violation of the fundamental rights

that all U.S. citizens have under the U.S. Constitution, as this case does.

6. This action can be set for a hearing in as little as 30 days, as it not only requires no

discovery, but it does not even require any testimony or other evidence, because it presents pure

legal issues over which there can be little dispute, and because the prejudice inflicted on Plaintiffs

and the public outweigh any possible justification for any additional undue delay.

7. First, the fact that City of Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo violated the freedom

of speech of Plaintiffs Fuller and Pinilla has already been established by virtue of a unanimous

jury verdict and entry of a federal court’s final judgment following a multi-week trial which

expressly found that Defendant “Joe Carollo intentionally commit[ed] acts that violated [Plaintiff

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Fuller and Pinilla’s] right to free speech.” Fuller, et al. v. Carollo, No. 18-CV-24190 (S.D. Fla.)

(“Fuller I”). That judgment cannot be questioned but rather must be enforced by this Court. As the

First District Court of Appeals has held: “Supremacy Clause considerations require that the

judgment of the federal court be respected” and a “fully enforceable federal judgment that

overrides any conflicting state law or state court order.” Fla. Dept. of Health and Rehab. Services

v. State, 616 So. 2d 66, 68–69 (Fla. 1st DCA 1993) (quoting Badgley v. Santacroce, 800 F.2d 33

(2d Cir. 1986)).

8. Second, although Carollo has indicated that he may challenge Plaintiffs’ standing,

that is also a legal question requiring no discovery or evidence.

9. For instance, the Charter provides: “Residents of the City shall have standing to

bring legal actions to enforce the City Charter, the Citizens' Bill of Rights, and the Miami-Dade

County Citizens' Bill of Rights as applied to the City.” There is no dispute that Plaintiff Denise

Galvez Turros is a resident of the City of Miami and thus has standing under the plain terms cited

above.

10. There is no dispute that Plaintiffs Fuller and Pinilla were the Plaintiffs in the Fuller

v. Carollo trial who were injured by Carollo’s intentional violation of their rights to free speech,

and whether that injury provides standing to enforce the Bill of Rights in the Miami Charter is a

pure legal question.

11. Contrary to any argument that Carollo may raise to the contrary, the fact that the

City of Miami Charter confirms that its residents have standing to sue to enforce its provisions in

no way limits standing to exclude traditional standing principles that grant standing to

non-residents like Fuller and Pinilla, who were injured when Carollo’s First Amendment retaliation

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campaign targeted the multitude of businesses and properties that they own and operate in the City

of Miami.

12. Third, a hearing on removal forthwith is even more critical in this case as Defendant

Carollo has only accelerated and expanded his First Amendment retaliation campaign against

Plaintiffs.

13. Thus, every day that Carollo impermissibly remains in office as a City of Miami

Commissioner represents another day that he is capable of wielding unauthorized power to chill

the free speech and political association rights of every Miami resident. In other words, allowing

such a patent abuse of municipal authority to persist not only presents a direct threat to Plaintiffs

in this case, but also discourages other members of the public from similarly exercising their

constitutional rights in opposition to Carollo, causing widespread and irreparable harm to the

community in clear contravention of the foundational principles enshrined in the City of Miami

Charter and United States Constitution. See, e.g., Otto v. City of Boca Raton, Fla., 981 F.3d 854,

870 (11th Cir. 2020) (citing cases) (“‘[D]irect penalization’ of protected speech” by government

officials, . . . ‘for even minimal periods of time,’ constitutes a per se irreparable injury”).

14. Fourth, any delay in rendering the relief sought by the Plaintiffs in this case would

be detrimental to the parties and the public. The elected officials subject to the removal provisions

of the Citizens’ Bill of Rights in the City of Miami Charter under term limits, including Defendant

Carollo, whose current term in office is scheduled to expire in 2025, merely a year away. If elected

officials like Carollo are permitted to drag their feet to evade a timely, final adjudication of

declaratory actions like this one, then it will deprive citizens of judicial guidance on substantial

questions that are subject to repetition, while also undermining the remedial and deterrent effects

that the Citizens’ Bill of Rights are intended to advance.

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 15. In sum, the federal proceedings which ultimately resulted in a final adjudication

that Carollo intentionally violated Plaintiff and Fuller’s First Amendment rights in Fuller I were

burdened by five years of prejudicial delay that Carollo managed to impose over Plaintiffs’

objections, while he continued to engage in punitive measures to further chill their freedom of

speech and political association in the interim. Now that Fuller I has finally concluded with a

finding that Carollo intentionally violated the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,

this Court should not countenance any further gratuitous delay in imposing the consequences of

Carollo’s misconduct that are mandated under the City of Miami Charter.

16. Thus, particularly given the absence of any good-faith legal or factual disputes in

this case, and because it concerns an issue of manifest public interest—the holding of public office

by an elected official found by a federal court to have intentionally violated free speech rights

protected by the United States Constitution and City of Miami Charter—Plaintiffs respectfully

request a final hearing on legal argument forthwith, or immediately, and by no means later than

March 7, 2024, consistent with numerous provisions of Florida law. See City of Miami Charter,

Citizens’ Bill of Rights (“Any public official, or employee who is found by the court to have

willfully violated this section shall forthwith forfeit his or her office or employment”) (emphasis

added); Fla. Stat. § 86.111 (“The Court may order a speedy hearing of an action for a declaratory

judgment and may advance it on the calendar”) (emphasis added); Fla. R. Jud. Admin. 2.215(h)

(“Every judge has a duty to expedite priority cases,” and “[p]articular attention must be given

to . . . challenges involving elections”) (emphasis added); cf. Fla. Stat. § 102.168(7)

(“Any . . . taxpayer presenting such an [election] contest to a circuit judge is entitled to an

immediate hearing”) (emphasis added); Fla. Stat.§ 119.11(1) (“Whenever an action is filed to

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enforce [a public records request], the court shall set an immediate hearing, giving the case

priority over other pending cases”) (emphasis added).

WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs respectfully request that this Court set this action for declaratory

relief for a “speedy hearing” and “advance it on the calendar” to ensure its prompt resolution by

no later than March 7, 2024.

Dated: January 22, 2024

Respectfully submitted,

AXS LAW GROUP, PLLC

2121 NW 2nd Ave, Suite 201
Miami, Florida 33127
Telephone: (305) 297-1878

By: /s/ Jeffrey W. Gutchess

Jeffrey W. Gutchess, Esq.
Florida Bar No. 702641
jeff@axslawgroup.com
eservice@axslawgroup.com

Counsel for Plaintiffs

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I hereby certify that a true and correct copy of this Emergency Motion to Expedite was

personally served on the parties along with the Summons and Compliant and that, on January 22,

2024, a true and correct copy of the foregoing was electronically filed with the Clerk of the Court

by using the Florida eportal system, which will send a notice of electronic filing to all counsel and

parties of record.

By: /s/ Jeffrey W. Gutchess

Jeffrey W. Gutchess