Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca11-22-11421/USCOURTS-ca11-22-11421-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

---

[PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-11421

____________________

JAMES ERIC MCDONOUGH, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

CARLOS GARCIA, 

GARLAND WRIGHT, 

individually, 

CITY OF HOMESTEAD, 

a political subdivision of the State of Florida, 

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 1 of 33
2 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cv-21986-FAM

____________________

Before JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.

GRANT, Circuit Judge:

James McDonough, a self-styled citizen activist, was 

escorted out of a city council meeting in Homestead, Florida after 

he verbally attacked one of the council’s members. That removal, 

which the parties now agree was legal, was followed by a series of 

events that do not benefit from a similar posture of détente—an 

arrest for disorderly conduct, an indefinite ban from city hall, and 

an arrest for cyberstalking. 

This lawsuit challenges all three. McDonough first says the 

City and its officials violated the First Amendment by banning him 

from future meetings. Before we can consider that argument, we 

need to know what kind of public forum those meetings are, 

because the City’s ability to restrict McDonough’s speech depends 

almost entirely on the answer to that question. But that inquiry 

highlights an unresolved tension in our Circuit’s First Amendment 

jurisprudence. While the Supreme Court’s public forum 

framework has evolved substantially over the last forty years, our 

precedents have failed to keep pace.

It seems likely that the Supreme Court would treat the 

Homestead City Council meeting as a limited public forum. That 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 2 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 3

Court, however, has not specifically considered city council 

meetings—and this one has. Our earliest panel precedent treats a 

city council meeting reserved for the discussion of limited subjects

as a designated public forum, so the comparatively tougher 

standards for analyzing speech restrictions in that kind of forum 

must apply here. Following those standards, we reverse the district 

court’s grant of summary judgment for the City on the speech ban. 

But we affirm the district court’s summary judgment decision 

finding qualified immunity for the officer who enforced the City’s 

ban.

Moving on to the false-arrest counts, McDonough first 

argues that he should not have been arrested for disorderly conduct 

after he was removed from City Hall—even accepting as true the 

officers’ claims that he was grabbing his crotch and loudly cursing 

at them. Here, we agree. Our precedents show that yelling, 

cursing, and making obscene gestures toward police officers, 

without more, does not amount to probable cause for a disorderly 

conduct arrest. The arresting officers should have known this too, 

so we deny qualified immunity.

McDonough also argues that the City did not have probable 

cause to arrest him for cyberstalking. This time we disagree. 

Though it is a close question, it was not unreasonable for the City 

to interpret Florida’s cyberstalking statute as barring McDonough 

from targeting one of its officers with his series of posts. That 

means the City did have probable cause to arrest him for 

cyberstalking. We thus affirm in part and reverse in part. 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 3 of 33
4 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

I.

Homestead, Florida holds monthly city council meetings at 

its City Hall. During the comment portion of these meetings, 

members of the public are invited to speak for three minutes at a 

time on any matters “pertinent to the City.” James McDonough 

was a regular, attending and speaking at more than half of the 

meetings held between 2015 and 2017. But it did not always go 

smoothly; the City had stopped him from completing his remarks

several times.

Things came to a head during the July 2016 meeting. 

McDonough rose to address the council, and spoke for about twoand-a-half minutes without incident. He touched on various 

subjects, including alleged police misconduct, body cameras, and 

claims of nepotism within the police department. But toward the 

end of his allotted time, things took a turn for the worse.

McDonough loudly confronted a city councilman, launching a 

personal challenge: “The last point I’d like to hit off with is, Mr. 

Maldonado, you know I’d appreciate it if you got something to say 

to me, you can come say it in my face, and you don’t have to talk 

about me behind my back in public to other people.” Sergeant 

Garland Wright, who later testified that he took these comments 

as a threat, quickly approached the podium and ordered 

McDonough to leave. He characterized his action as a deescalatory tactic.

McDonough complied—at least with the instruction to 

leave. As he walked out of the auditorium, he threatened to “su[e]

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 4 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 5

the shit” out of Wright, and then annotated his departure with a 

description of Homestead police that was laced with curse words.

Meanwhile, the city council meeting continued without further 

disruption.

A month later, McDonough was back; he planned to attend 

the August city council meeting. But as soon as he arrived,

Sergeant Wright intercepted him. He informed McDonough that 

the City had issued a trespass order, which amounted to a blanket 

ban from the premises—including during city council meetings. 

When McDonough asked how he could get the ban lifted, Sergeant 

Wright told him to “write a letter.”

So far the exchange had been cordial, but as McDonough 

walked away he flipped his middle finger and said, “I’m leaving 

buddy, bye-bye.” What happened next is debated. Wright claims 

he observed McDonough stop, grab his crotch, and say “fuck you.” 

For his part, McDonough denies cursing or grabbing his crotch, 

though he admitted it was “possible” that Wright could have 

mistaken his taking his phone out for the more vulgar gesture.1 

Either way, the handful of other bystanders in the parking lot at the 

time seemed unconcerned about the interaction.

Sergeant Wright, however, did not take McDonough’s 

response lightly—he ordered him to stop and then arrested him for 

1 Because McDonough admits that Wright could have believed he saw him 

grabbing his crotch, we assume for this opinion that it happened. Even so, we 

note that the videos do not show McDonough doing anything resembling a 

crotch grab during this encounter.

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 5 of 33
6 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

disorderly conduct. Sergeant Carlos Garcia arrived on the scene 

later. After speaking with the arresting officers and reviewing 

surveillance video of the incident, Garcia informed McDonough 

that he was also under arrest for trespassing. Sergeant Garcia 

prepared McDonough’s arrest form, charging him with both 

crimes. Officers then took McDonough to the police station, 

where he was held overnight before being released on bond the 

next day.

After his release, McDonough decided to hash out his 

frustrations online. Over the course of about fifteen minutes, he 

made three posts on a law-enforcement blog referencing his 

August arrest, identifying by name one of the officers involved. He 

also posted a link to a public YouTube video featuring that officer’s 

public comments against body cameras. McDonough then 

challenged the same officer to wear a body camera, calling him a 

“frigging coward,” a “slipttail [sic],” and a “giant twat.” He warned

that “any further retaliation” would be dealt with “swiftly, harsly 

[sic], and lawfully.” McDonough closed by emphasizing that he 

would “be blasting [the officer’s] address.”

These blog posts did not sit well with the targeted officer, 

who later testified that he feared for his own safety and his family’s. 

The City again arrested McDonough, this time for cyberstalking 

and witness tampering. After a Miami-Dade Criminal Court judge 

agreed that probable cause supported the cyberstalking charge (but 

not the witness tampering one), McDonough bonded out.

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 6 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 7

The state attorney eventually dropped all criminal charges 

against McDonough. But that was not the end of the matter—once 

the state criminal case was over, this federal civil case began. 

McDonough sued the City of Homestead and four police officers 

involved in his arrests. After the district court dismissed claims 

against two of the officers, the lawsuit proceeded to summary 

judgment on the seven remaining counts. Count 1 alleged that

Sergeant Wright violated McDonough’s First Amendment rights 

when he removed him from the July city council meeting. Counts 

2 and 3 alleged that the City and Wright, respectively, violated 

McDonough’s First Amendment rights when Wright issued the 

August trespass order barring McDonough from future meetings. 

Count 4 alleged false arrest by the City when Wright and Sergeant 

Garcia arrested McDonough for disorderly conduct; Counts 5 and 

6 alleged violations of the Fourth Amendment by Wright and 

Garcia, respectively, for the same. Finally, Count 7 alleged false 

arrest by the City for the September cyberstalking arrest. The 

district court found for the defendants on all counts.

McDonough has abandoned Count 1, but appeals the 

district court’s rulings against Counts 2 through 7.

II.

We review a district court’s order granting summary 

judgment de novo. Brown v. Nexus Bus. Sols., LLC, 29 F.4th 1315, 

1317 (11th Cir. 2022). “We view the evidence in the light most 

favorable to the nonmoving party, and we draw all justifiable 

inferences in that party’s favor.” Id. at 1317–18 (quotation 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 7 of 33
8 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

omitted). “Summary judgment is proper ‘if the movant shows that 

there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant 

is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’” Id. at 1317 (quoting 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)).

III.

The first issue we consider is whether the City violated 

McDonough’s First Amendment rights when it barred him from 

attending city council meetings. We have long understood the 

commonsense point that the Constitution does not require the 

government to “grant access to all who wish to exercise their right 

to free speech,” no matter the setting, “without regard to the 

nature of the property or to the disruption that might be caused by 

the speaker’s activities.” Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. 

Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788, 799–800 (1985). Disallowing any limits 

whatsoever in all government spaces would often lead to chaos, 

and could even keep the government from fulfilling its lawful 

functions. But that is not a license to evade the First Amendment, 

which demands a close look when the government restricts speech. 

Enter forum analysis, which considers “when the Government’s 

interest in limiting the use of its property to its intended purpose 

outweighs the interest of those wishing to use the property for 

other purposes.” Id. at 800.

The government’s ability to impose restrictions on speech 

varies depending on the nature of the forum. See Keister v. Bell, 29 

F.4th 1239, 1251 (11th Cir. 2022); Perry Educ. Ass’n v. Perry Loc. 

Educators’ Ass’n, 460 U.S. 37, 44 (1983). So what type of forum are 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 8 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 9

the city council meetings here, and what is the proper legal test for

the City’s speech restrictions? These questions seem 

straightforward. But they are not—at least not here and not now.

The histories of First Amendment public forum doctrines here and 

in the Supreme Court are jagged, and they lead us to the somewhat 

uncomfortable conclusion that in this Circuit a city council 

meeting like the one McDonough wished to attend is a designated 

public forum.

We call that conclusion uncomfortable because if we were 

starting from scratch it might be more appropriate to define city 

council meetings as limited public forums, where regulations 

survive so long as they are reasonable and viewpoint neutral. But 

our Court’s earliest relevant precedent held that a city council 

meeting just like the one here was a designated public forum, 

which means the government’s authority to limit speech is itself 

quite limited. Because that same holding was reaffirmed after 

Supreme Court precedents that pointed to—but did not demand—

a different answer, we are bound by it here.

A.

The Supreme Court first outlined public forum doctrine in 

Perry Education Association v. Perry Local Educators’ Association. 

Synthesizing several decades’ worth of First Amendment 

jurisprudence, the Court set out three categories and explained that 

the government’s ability to restrict expressive activity would be 

different in each one. 460 U.S. at 45–46.

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 9 of 33
10 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

The first was the traditional public forum—places that “have

immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time 

out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, 

communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public 

questions.” Id. at 45 (quotation omitted). The quintessential 

examples are streets and parks. Id. Unsurprisingly, in this kind of 

forum the government’s ability to restrict speech is highly 

constrained. Regulations that depend on the content of speech 

need to satisfy strict scrutiny, which means they must be “necessary 

to serve a compelling state interest” and “narrowly drawn to 

achieve that end.” Id. As for content-neutral “time, place, and 

manner” regulations—when, where, and how speech can happen, 

regardless of the speaker’s message—the standard is somewhat 

looser. Even so, such rules must be “narrowly tailored to serve a 

significant government interest, and leave open ample alternative 

channels of communication.” Id.2

Next was the designated public forum, or “public property 

which the State has opened for use by the public as a place for 

expressive activity.” Id. Examples given by Perry include 

2 Those two standards, though similarly worded, are different. For a time, 

place, and manner restriction to be “narrowly tailored,” it “need not be the 

least restrictive or least intrusive means of” serving “the government’s 

legitimate, content-neutral interests.” Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 

781, 798 (1989). Instead, “narrow tailoring is satisfied so long as the regulation 

promotes a substantial government interest that would be achieved less 

effectively absent the regulation” and it does not “burden substantially more 

speech than is necessary to further” that interest. Id. at 799 (alteration adopted 

and quotation omitted). 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 10 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 11

“university meeting facilities,” “school board meeting[s],” and 

“municipal theater[s].” Id. at 45–46. These forums and others like 

them need not be held open indefinitely for public speech, the 

Supreme Court said, but when the government does choose to 

open a designated public forum, it is bound to respect the same 

First Amendment standards that applied in traditional public 

forums. Id. at 46. 

The third and final category described in Perry was the 

nonpublic forum. This type of forum is, as the name suggests, not 

really a public forum at all, and includes government property that 

“is not by tradition or designation a forum for public 

communication.” Id. The First Amendment, after all, “does not 

guarantee access to property simply because it is owned or 

controlled by the government.” Id. (quotation omitted). The 

internal school mail facility at issue in Perry was one such nonpublic 

forum; other examples are mailboxes, military bases, and jails. Id.; 

see also U.S. Postal Serv. v. Council of Greenburgh Civic Ass’ns, 453 U.S. 

114, 128–29 (1981); Greer v. Spock, 424 U.S. 828, 838 (1976); Adderley 

v. Florida, 385 U.S. 39, 47–48 (1966). For these, the Court said, the 

state can impose “reasonable” regulations on speech in order to 

“reserve the forum for its intended purposes,” but only if those 

restrictions are viewpoint neutral. Perry, 460 U.S. at 46. 

The Supreme Court followed this tripartite framework

without interruption for about a decade, until Rosenberger v. Rector 

& Visitors of University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995). There, the 

Supreme Court made an important shift—though without saying 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 11 of 33
12 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

so—setting out a fourth category, the limited public forum. Perry

had not recognized a separate category of “limited public forums.” 

But it did use that term to describe a subset of designated public 

forums, those “created for a limited purpose such as use by certain 

groups, or for the discussion of certain subjects.” Perry, 460 U.S. at

46 n.7 (citations omitted). To underscore the overlap, Perry 

recycled two of its examples of designated public forums as also 

being limited public forums: university meeting facilities and 

school board meetings. See id. And for these meetings, the 

government needed to respect the same First Amendment 

boundaries as in other designated public forums. See id. at 45–46, 

46 n.7. 

But in Rosenberger, the Court moved limited public forums 

into the nonpublic forum bucket. Rosenberger explained that in a 

“limited public forum”—one created “for certain groups or for the 

discussion of certain topics”—the government could enforce 

speech restrictions that were “reasonable in light of the purpose 

served by the forum” and did not discriminate on the basis of 

viewpoint. 515 U.S. at 829 (quotation omitted). This was the same 

test it had offered before for nonpublic forums. See Perry, 460 U.S. 

at 46.

Rosenberger cited two post-Perry cases to support this point. 

See 515 U.S. at 829 (citing Cornelius, 473 U.S. 788; and Lamb’s Chapel 

v. Ctr. Moriches Union Free Sch. Dist., 508 U.S. 384 (1993)). But both 

of them had outlined the same three-part forum analysis as Perry—

including a recognition that the stricter standard associated with 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 12 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 13

traditional public forums applied when the government designated 

a forum for open public expression.3 See Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 800; 

Lamb’s Chapel, 508 U.S. at 390–93. Cornelius, like Perry, identified 

school board meetings and municipal auditoriums as examples of 

designated public forums.4 Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 803. It reiterated 

that the reasonable-and-viewpoint-neutral test applied for 

“nonpublic forum[s].” See id. at 806. Lamb’s Chapel, for its part, 

simply quoted Cornelius for the same rule. 508 U.S. at 392–93. 

Neither established a new category of “limited public forums.”

Rosenberger thus represented a break from Perry and its 

progeny. Where Perry described limited public forums as a subset 

of designated public forums, Rosenberger said the test applied in 

limited public forums was the same as the test used in nonpublic

forums. So what probably read as a minor conceptual shift—after 

all, these categories are often based on a matter of degree—turned 

out to have major implications for the analysis courts use and the 

standards we set.

This doctrinal change came with its own growing pains. Just 

three years later, the Court appeared to walk back Rosenberger’s 

3 Same with International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee, which 

repeated Perry’s three-part framework but was uncited in Rosenberger. See 505 

U.S. 672, 678–79 (1992).

4 The Cornelius dissent, for what it is worth, explicitly used the term “limited 

public form” as a synonym for designated public forum, and there is no sign 

that the majority disagreed with that characterization. See Cornelius, 473 U.S. 

at 813 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (citing Perry, 460 U.S. at 48). 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 13 of 33
14 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

creation of the limited public forum. In Arkansas Educational 

Television Commission v. Forbes, the Court briefly returned to Perry’s 

three categories: traditional public forum, designated public forum, 

and nonpublic forum. 523 U.S. 666, 677–78 (1998). The Forbes

Court described a forum open only to “a particular class of 

speakers” as a type of designated public forum—consistent with 

Perry but contrary to Rosenberger, which called a forum reserved 

“for certain groups” a limited public forum. Id. at 678; see Perry, 460 

U.S. at 45–46, 46 n.7; Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 829.

But in 2001, Good News Club v. Milford Central School

cemented Rosenberger’s change. 533 U.S. 98. The Supreme Court

reaffirmed Rosenberger’s shift, applying the reasonable-andviewpoint-neutral standard to restrictions in a limited public 

forum. See id. at 106–07. The Court maintained its earlier standard 

for restrictions on speech in traditional or “open” (an apparent 

synonym for designated) public forums, describing those 

categories as “subject to stricter scrutiny than are restrictions in a 

limited public forum.” Id. at 106. So Perry’s early characterization 

of limited public forums as a specific subset of designated public 

forum was dead and gone—at least at the Supreme Court.

The characterization of the limited public forum as a 

category distinct from the designated public forum remains in force 

at the Supreme Court. So does the application of the reasonableand-viewpoint-neutral standard to restrictions on speech within 

that kind of forum. See, e.g., Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U.S. 

460, 470 (2009); Christian Legal Soc’y Chapter of the Univ. of Cal., 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 14 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 15

Hastings Coll. of the L. v. Martinez, 561 U.S. 661, 679 (2010). And in 

Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., the Court 

set out the limited public forum as a category independent from

both designated public forums and nonpublic forums. See 576 U.S. 

200, 215–16 (2015). That leaves, for today, four kinds of forums

recognized by the Supreme Court: the traditional public forum, the 

designated public forum, the limited public forum, and the 

nonpublic forum.5

B.

This Circuit’s public forum doctrine has also evolved—just 

not always in tandem with the Supreme Court’s. In 1989 we 

deemed a city commission meeting, which was open for public 

comment on agenda items, a designated public forum. Jones v. 

Heyman, 888 F.2d 1328, 1331 (11th Cir. 1989). Consistent with 

Perry, we held that content-based restrictions were subject to strict 

5 The Supreme Court has also said at times that there are only three, using the 

categories of “limited public forum” and “nonpublic forum” interchangeably. 

See Christian Legal Soc’y, 561 U.S. at 679 n.11 (recognizing traditional public 

forums, designated public forums, and limited public forums); Minnesota Voters 

All. v. Mansky, 138 S. Ct. 1876, 1885 (2018) (recognizing traditional public 

forums, designated public forums, and nonpublic forums); see also Am. Freedom 

Def. Initiative v. King Cnty., 136 S. Ct. 1022, 1022 (2016) (Thomas, J., dissenting 

from denial of certiorari) (noting that a “limited public forum” is “also called 

a nonpublic forum”). Perhaps it is irrelevant if the same test is applied to 

speech restrictions in either setting. But in any event, whether “the limited 

public forum” and the nonpublic forum are “distinct type[s] or merely a 

variant of one” another “is not important to our analysis.” Cambridge Christian 

Sch., Inc. v. Florida High Sch. Athletic Ass’n, 942 F.3d 1215, 1237 n.5 (11th Cir. 

2019).

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 15 of 33
16 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

scrutiny in this designated public forum, while content-neutral, 

time, place, and manner restrictions needed to be “narrowly drawn 

to achieve a significant governmental interest” and “allow 

communication through other channels.” Id. So far so good. 

Four years later, we correctly read Perry to say that one “kind 

of designated public forum is the limited public forum.” Crowder v. 

Hous. Auth. of Atlanta, 990 F.2d 586, 591 (11th Cir. 1993). We went 

on to hold that an auditorium in a public housing unit “was a 

limited public forum” because it was open for a wide range of 

activities. Id. All remained well because at that time both this 

Court and the Supreme Court considered limited public forums a 

type of designated public forum, subject to the same test. We 

struck down the regulations limiting the auditorium’s use for Bible 

studies. See id. at 592–93.

Trouble held off for a little over a decade.6 In 2004, nine 

years after Rosenberger made clear that restrictions in limited public 

forums should be evaluated for reasonableness and viewpoint 

neutrality (and three years after Good News Club did the same), this 

Court held that city council meetings were limited public forums. 

6 In 2003, sitting en banc, we explained that there were three forum categories: 

traditional public forum, designated public forum, and nonpublic forum. 

Atlanta J. & Const. v. City of Atlanta Dep’t of Aviation, 322 F.3d 1298, 1306 n.9 

(11th Cir. 2003) (en banc). We wrote that strict scrutiny applied to contentbased restrictions in traditional and designated public forums, while the 

reasonable-and-viewpoint-neutral test applied to restrictions in nonpublic 

forums. Id. at 1306–07. We made no mention at all of the limited public 

forum.

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 16 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 17

Rowe v. City of Cocoa, 358 F.3d 800, 802 (11th Cir. 2004) (quoting 

Crowder, 990 F.2d at 591). No problem there. But Rowe applied the 

designated forum test rather than the nonpublic forum test to this 

allegedly limited forum, saying that content-neutral restrictions on 

the time, place, and manner of speech “must be narrowly tailored 

to serve a significant government interest.” Id. at 802–03

(quotation omitted).7 This was consistent with Perry, as well as 

Jones and Crowder, but not with the more recent Rosenberger and 

Good News Club, which would have reviewed restrictions in a 

limited public forum only for viewpoint neutrality and

reasonableness in light of the forum’s purpose. In other words, our 

treatment of limited public forums diverged from that of the 

Supreme Court. 

By 2011, we had partially corrected course. In Bloedorn v. 

Grube, a case about a non-student seeking to preach on a public 

university’s campus, we articulated the difference between public, 

designated, and limited forums and described the tests applicable 

to each consistent with the Supreme Court’s latest explanation as 

laid out in Good News Club, Pleasant Grove City, and Christian Legal 

Society. See 631 F.3d 1218, 1225–26, 1230–32 (11th Cir. 2011). The 

university’s sidewalks, pedestrian mall, and rotunda were limited 

public forums because they were limited to use only by university 

community members, while the Free Speech Area open to outside 

7 Rowe did, we note, characterize the regulations that it approved as 

“reasonable and viewpoint neutral” in its concluding paragraph, despite 

having applied a different test in the analysis. Rowe, 358 F.3d at 804.

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 17 of 33
18 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

speakers was a designated public forum. Id. at 1232–34. We 

concluded that the university’s ban on outside speakers in the 

limited public forums reserved for university members was a 

reasonable, viewpoint-neutral restriction. See id. at 1235. And the 

requirement that outside speakers seek a permit to access the Free 

Speech Area was upheld as a content-neutral, time, place, and 

manner restriction narrowly tailored to the university’s significant 

interests in regulating competing uses of the space and maintaining 

campus safety, leaving open ample alternative channels for speech.

See id. at 1236–42. That was all consistent with Good News Club.

The problem is that Bloedorn did not cite or explain away Rowe, 

which came after Good News Club but still applied our earlier 

approach for limited public forums, categorizing them with 

designated public forums rather than nonpublic.

So, in the post-Good News Club era, this Court has had two 

inconsistent but concurrent approaches to analyzing limited public 

forums: Rowe, which requires content-neutral restrictions in a 

limited public forum to be narrowly tailored to a significant 

governmental interest (and implicitly requires strict scrutiny for

content-based restrictions), and Bloedorn, which reviews all 

restrictions only for viewpoint-neutrality and reasonableness. 

Compounding the confusion, Jones, our Circuit’s first case to 

address forum analysis—and dealing with a city commission 

meeting to boot—treated that meeting as a designated, rather than 

a limited, public forum, and accordingly reviewed a contentneutral decision for narrow tailoring to a significant governmental 

interest. Jones, 888 F.2d at 1331. So, between Jones, Rowe, and 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 18 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 19

Bloedorn, we have three combinations of labels and tests here: Jones, 

a designated public forum with heightened scrutiny; Rowe, a 

limited public forum with heightened scrutiny; and Bloedorn, a 

limited public forum with reasonableness review.8

C.

So where does that leave us? Both parties agree that the 

trespass order here was content neutral. McDonough, citing to 

Jones, argues that the Homestead city council meetings are a 

designated, or even traditional, public forum. If so, the trespass 

order would need to be narrowly tailored in service of a significant 

governmental interest and leave open ample alternative channels 

of communication. Perry, 460 U.S. at 45–46. McDonough argues 

that this is the appropriate standard. For the City’s part, it prefers 

Rowe’s characterization of the meetings as a limited public forum. 

8 One more of our decisions merits mention. In Barrett v. Walker County School

District, we analyzed a restriction on the public’s access to the “publiccomment portions of” a school board’s meetings. 872 F.3d 1209, 1219 (11th 

Cir. 2017). Barrett concluded, citing to Rowe, that the public-comment sessions 

are limited public forums. Id. at 1225 (citing Rowe, 358 F.3d at 802). But while 

Rowe would have required even content-neutral restrictions to meet narrow 

tailoring in service of a significant governmental interest, Barrett required 

content-based restrictions to be only “viewpoint neutral and reasonable in light 

of the forum’s purpose.” Id. (footnote omitted); see Rowe, 358 F.3d at 802–03. 

Moreover, Barrett never cited Jones—which called the public-comment period 

of a city-council meeting a designated public forum—even though Jones was 

directly on point. Perhaps that was because the parties had already agreed that 

the public-comment portion of the school board meeting was a limited, not 

designated, public forum. Barrett, 872 F.3d at 1224. But Barrett did not address, 

and thus could not resolve, the conflict in our precedents.

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 19 of 33
20 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

Even so, the City declines to endorse any particular standard for 

limited public forums, arguing that its actions did not violate the 

law no matter which test we apply.

The parties’ uncertainty reflects the fact that our caselaw 

does not offer an easy answer. Under the Supreme Court’s current 

framework, because the city council’s meeting procedureslimit the 

public comment period to matters “pertinent to the City,” it would 

appear that the city council meeting is a limited public forum. See 

Walker, 576 U.S. at 215. In such a forum, the less exacting 

reasonableness analysis should apply, whether for content-based or 

content-neutral restrictions, so long as those restrictions are 

viewpoint neutral. See Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 106–07. 

Jones, however, short-circuits our analysis. The city 

commission meeting there, which we deemed a designated public 

forum, was identical in all relevant respects to the one here, 

including that the public was invited to a city facility to speak only 

“on agenda items.” Jones, 888 F.2d at 1331. Given that it was a 

designated public forum, we went on to apply the standards used 

for that kind of forum—content-based restrictions were subject to 

strict scrutiny, while content-neutral restrictions needed to be 

narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest and 

leave open ample alternative channels of communication. Id.

The prior-panel precedent rule directs one course: it is “the 

firmly established rule of this Circuit that each succeeding panel is 

bound by the holding of the first panel to address an issue of law, 

unless and until that holding is overruled en banc, or by the 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 20 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 21

Supreme Court.” United States v. Hogan, 986 F.2d 1364, 1369 (11th 

Cir. 1993). Yes, “a subsequent panel is not obligated to follow a 

prior panel’s decision where an intervening Supreme Court 

decision establishes that the prior panel decision is wrong.” Id. But 

we cannot comfortably say that Jones and Crowder were abrogated 

by the Supreme Court’s subsequent change in its treatment of 

limited public forums, finalized in Good News Club. 

For one thing, Rowe, a decision this Court issued after

Rosenberger and Good News Club, applied the stricter legal test of 

Jones, rather than reasonableness review, to speech restrictions at a 

city council meeting. Rowe, 358 F.3d at 802–03. And no 

intervening Supreme Court precedents since Rowe explain the 

subsequent shift in the tests this Circuit has applied either to limited 

and designated public forums generally, or to speech restrictions in 

city council meetings specifically. For another, Jones and Good News 

Club agree on the test to be applied in a designated public forum—

strict scrutiny for content-based restrictions, narrow tailoring in 

service of a significant governmental interest for content-neutral 

restrictions—even if they might disagree on what types of 

government-owned spaces fall under that label. Last but not least, 

neither Good News Club nor Rosenberger dealt with a city council 

meeting—unlike both Jones and Rowe.

That means all of our not-quite-reconcilable precedents are 

not-quite-overruled. There is no way to chart a new path through 

our caselaw consistent with all of our precedents unless we twist

“a case in such a way as to avoid the more troublesome prospect of 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 21 of 33
22 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

dealing with the conflict of authority.” Hogan, 986 F.2d at 1369. 

Because “we cannot distinguish the facts” of Jones, we are obligated 

to apply it as “the precedent of the first panel to address the relevant 

issue.” Devengoechea v. Bolivarian Republic of Venez., 889 F.3d 1213, 

1227 (11th Cir. 2018).

D.

According to Jones, the city council meeting here is a 

designated public forum, so we apply the standards relevant to 

such a forum. We see no reason to upset the parties’ consensus 

that the trespass order was content neutral, because we conclude 

that the order fails even the test applied to content-neutral 

restrictions in a designated public forum.

Jones held that the government has a significant interest “in 

conducting orderly, efficient meetings of public bodies.” 888 F.2d 

at 1332–33. Even assuming that the City’s trespass order pursued 

this interest, it was not narrowly tailored to do so. Nor did it leave 

open ample alternative means for McDonough to speak.

By its terms, the order indefinitely barred McDonough from 

city hall, preventing him from attending all future city council 

meetings.9 Wright informed McDonough that his ability to return 

9 McDonough at one point in his brief describes this order as a “prior restraint” 

on his speech, a characterization that the City challenges. In support, 

however, he cites only a Sixth Circuit case dealing with a citywide nighttime 

noise ordinance. See Polaris Amphitheater Concerts, Inc. v. City of Westerville, 267 

F.3d 503, 506 (6th Cir. 2001). The Sixth Circuit found that the challenged 

regulation was not a prior restraint because it was content neutral, narrowly 

tailored, and did not vest any city officials with unbridled discretion—rejecting 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 22 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 23

and speak depended on his writing a letter—unmentioned were to 

whom the letter should be sent and what it should say. This 

sweeping, indefinite ban on McDonough’s attendance is not 

narrowly tailored—it “burden[s] substantially more” of 

McDonough’s speech “than is necessary to further” the City’s 

interest in avoiding disruption at its meetings. Ward, 491 U.S. at

799. The City was permitted to remove McDonough from the July 

meeting after he behaved disruptively. See Jones, 888 F.2d at 1333–

34. It was not permitted, however, to ban him from all future 

meetings, offering relief and readmission only if he “wrote a 

letter”—an action described in such vague terms as to be 

functionally meaningless.

Nor were the City’s proposed alternative channels for 

contacting the city council—email, physical mail, and phone 

calls—enough to preserve McDonough’s First Amendment rights. 

Public city council meetings are just that—public. An attendee’s 

interest in speaking may be as much to rally or inform other 

members of the public as to address the council members 

themselves. And it is certainly easier to hold the city council 

accountable in a public forum rather than a private one. The City’s 

trespass order against McDonough thus fails the scrutiny applicable 

a challenge often brought in the permitting or licensing context. Id. at 509. 

McDonough does not raise a similar substantive challenge in this appeal. In 

any event, we need not decide what amounts to a labeling dispute because 

prior restraint analysis already maps onto the tough standards that apply in 

traditional and designated public forums.

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 23 of 33
24 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

to content-neutral regulations for a designated public forum.10 We 

reverse the district court on Count 2.

IV.

Moving to McDonough’s other claims, Counts 4 and 7 are 

state-law false arrest claims against the City of Homestead for his 

August disorderly conduct arrest and his September cyberstalking 

arrest. For these claims, “probable cause constitutes an absolute 

bar.” Rankin v. Evans, 133 F.3d 1425, 1435 (11th Cir. 1998). 

Probable cause exists when “a reasonable officer could conclude 

that there was a substantial chance of criminal activity.” Garcia v. 

Casey, 75 F.4th 1176, 1186 (11th Cir. 2023) (alteration adopted and 

quotation omitted).

A.

The first question is whether the officers had probable cause 

to arrest McDonough for disorderly conduct. Florida law 

criminalizes conduct that constitutes “a breach of the peace or 

disorderly conduct.” Fla. Stat. § 877.03. But the Florida Supreme 

Court has limited that law’s application to unprotected speech—

10 One issue related to the trespass order remains. The City argues that it 

cannot be held liable under Section 1983 because the order did not represent 

an official policy of the City. As the district court found, either Chief of 

Homestead Police Alexander Rolle made the decision to bar McDonough 

under the final policymaking authority vested in the police department by city 

ordinance, or Chief Rolle had delegated this authority to Sergeant Wright, 

who made the final call. Either way the City is liable under Section 1983 

because a single decision by a final policymaker is sufficient for municipal 

liability. Mandel v. Doe, 888 F.2d 783, 793 (11th Cir. 1989).

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 24 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 25

words “which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite 

an immediate breach of the peace.” State v. Saunders, 339 So. 2d 

641, 644 (Fla. 1976) (alteration adopted and quotation omitted). 

Neither of those things even came close to happening. 

McDonough was arrested for swearing at Wright, flipping him the 

bird, and allegedly grabbing his crotch in the presence of a handful 

of peaceful onlookers, none of whom showed any reaction to his 

outburst.

Our disorderly conduct precedents instruct that assessing 

the existence of probable cause for a disorderly conduct arrest is a 

highly fact-intensive inquiry. But a few through lines in the 

doctrine dictate the outcome here. To start, mere words of anger, 

including profanity, directed at a police officer are not enough to 

sustain a disorderly conduct arrest. See Alston v. Swarbrick, 954 F.3d 

1312, 1319 (11th Cir. 2020); Gold v. City of Miami, 121 F.3d 1442, 

1446 (11th Cir. 1997). Nor are obscene gestures, whether alone or 

combined with verbal antagonism. Raising one’s middle finger or 

the equivalent is simply another way of saying “fuck you”—rude, 

but not illegal. Davis v. Williams, 598 F.2d 916, 919 n.5 (5th Cir. 

1979);11 see Sandul v. Larion, 119 F.3d 1250, 1252, 1255 (6th Cir. 

1997); Duran v. City of Douglas, 904 F.2d 1372, 1378 (9th Cir. 1990).

Finally, the presence of bystanders does not transform 

otherwise lawful conduct and speech into incitement. As Florida 

11 Decisions by the former Fifth Circuit handed down before October 1, 1981

are binding on this Court. Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1207 (11th 

Cir. 1981) (en banc).

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 25 of 33
26 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

courts have explained, “the mere fact that other people come 

outside or stop to watch what is going on is insufficient to support 

a conviction for disorderly conduct.” Barry v. State, 934 So. 2d 656, 

659 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2006) (citing Gonzales v. City of Belle Glade, 

287 So. 2d 669, 670 (Fla. 1973)). Incitement requires more: “some 

evidence that the crowd is actually responding to the defendant’s 

words in some way that threatens to breach the peace.” Id.

McDonough’s actions may not have been a particularly 

polite or respectful way to behave in public. But his behavior,

standing alone, does not provide probable cause for a disorderly 

conduct arrest. We reverse the district court on Count 4.

B.

By contrast, at the time of McDonough’s second arrest, this 

time for cyberstalking, the City did have probable cause to believe 

that he had committed the crime. Cyberstalking is defined by Fla. 

Stat. § 784.048(1)(d) as conduct communicating “words, images, or 

language” to a particular person through email or other electronic 

communication, “causing substantial emotional distress to that 

person and serving no legitimate purpose.” The statute omits 

“constitutionally protected activity such as picketing or other 

organized protests” from its ambit. Id. § 784.048(1)(b). Here, the

City argues that McDonough’s three blog posts—which identified 

and taunted a specific police officer, threatened to respond “swiftly 

and harsly [sic]” to further perceived provocations, and promised

to “blast” the officer’s home address—were enough to arrest him 

for cyberstalking.

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 26 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 27

An officer has probable cause for an arrest where the 

interpretation of an applicable criminal statute is “objectively 

reasonable,” even if erroneous. United States v. Braddy, 11 F.4th 

1298, 1308–09 (11th Cir. 2021). And that standard falls well short 

of what is required for a conviction. Though a close call, it was not 

unreasonable for these officers to regard McDonough’s internet 

posts as threats against the named officer. 

“True threats are serious expressions conveying that a 

speaker means to commit an act of unlawful violence,” and they 

have never been protected by the First Amendment. Counterman 

v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66, 74 (2023) (alteration adopted and quotation 

omitted). Disseminating a target’s address, in conjunction with

other evidence that the speaker intends harm to befall the target, 

can amount to such a threat. See, e.g., United States v. Turner, 720 

F.3d 411, 418–25 (2d Cir. 2013) (posts of several judges’ photos and 

work addresses on extremist-linked website, alongside text saying 

the judges deserved to die, constituted true threats); cf. United States 

v. White, 698 F.3d 1005, 1013–16 (7th Cir. 2012) (post on a white 

supremacist website included a juror’s photo, home address, and 

phone number); Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Williamette, Inc. 

v. Am. Coal. of Life Activists, 290 F.3d 1058, 1071–80, 1085–86 (9th 

Cir. 2002) (en banc) (wanted-style posters sharing targets’ photos

and addresses). Regardless of whether McDonough’s posts 

actually qualified as true threats, it was not unreasonable for the 

City’s officers to believe that they did. And we agree with the 

district court’s conclusion that his posts—especially the promise to 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 27 of 33
28 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

reveal the officer’s home address—could objectively inspire 

substantial emotional distress in their target.

McDonough’s last and best argument against his 

cyberstalking arrest is that three posts, made within fifteen 

minutes, do not constitute a “course of conduct” under the 

cyberstalking statute. The statute defines a “course of conduct” as 

“a pattern of conduct composed of a series of acts over a period of 

time, however short,” and McDonough argues that his three posts 

should count as only one act. Fla. Stat. § 784.048(1)(b).

Florida courts have considered a similar issue—but not until 

four years after McDonough’s arrest. In Krapacs v. Bacchus, a 

Florida appellate court found that tagging a target in repetitive 

social media posts over the span of four hours constituted a single 

act, rather than a series of acts. 301 So. 3d 976, 978–79 (Fla. Dist. 

Ct. App. 2020). By that standard, McDonough may be correct that 

his three rapid-fire posts should be considered a single act rather 

than a course of conduct. But whether probable cause exists 

depends on “the facts and circumstances within” the arresting 

officers’ knowledge “at the moment the arrest was made.” Beck v. 

Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 91 (1964). As of 2016, without the benefit of 

Krapacs, we cannot say that the City’s view that McDonough’s 

three separate posts constituted “a pattern of conduct composed of 

a series of acts over a period of time, however short,” was objectively 

unreasonable. Fla. Stat. § 784.048(1)(b) (emphasis added). We 

affirm the district court on Count 7.

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 28 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 29

V.

We now turn to the individual claims against the officers 

involved in McDonough’s arrests. Count 3 alleges that Wright 

violated McDonough’s First Amendment rights by issuing the 

trespass order barring McDonough from future city council 

meetings. Counts 5 and 6 allege that Wright and Garcia 

respectively violated McDonough’s Fourth Amendment rights by

falsely arresting him for disorderly conduct without probable 

cause. The district court granted summary judgment against 

McDonough on the basis of qualified immunity on all three counts. 

We affirm on Count 3 but reverse on Counts 5 and 6.

“Qualified immunity offers protection for government 

officials, acting within their discretionary authority, who are sued 

in their individual capacities as long as their conduct does not 

violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of 

which a reasonable person would have known.” Collier v. 

Dickinson, 477 F.3d 1306, 1307 (11th Cir. 2007) (footnote and 

quotation omitted). Once the official has established that he was 

acting within the scope of his discretionary authority, the burden 

shifts to the plaintiff to show that there was a violation of a 

constitutional right and that the right at issue was clearly 

established when the violation occurred. Gilmore v. Hodges, 738 

F.3d 266, 272 (11th Cir. 2013).

Plaintiffs can make that showing in one of three ways. First, 

they can point to a materially similar decision, whether from the 

Supreme Court, this Court, or the supreme court of the state in 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 29 of 33
30 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

which the case arose. Powell v. Snook, 25 F.4th 912, 920 (11th Cir. 

2022). Second, they can show that a “broader, clearly established 

principle should control the novel facts of the case.” Id. (quotation 

omitted). Third, they can convince us—though this happens only 

rarely—that the alleged conduct “so obviously violates the 

constitution that prior case law is unnecessary.” Id. (alteration 

adopted and quotation omitted). Under the second and third 

methods, we look for obvious clarity: “a principle or provision so 

clear that, even without specific guidance from a decision involving 

materially similar facts, the unlawfulness of the officer’s conduct is 

apparent.” Id.

A.

First, we consider whether Sergeant Wright was shielded by 

qualified immunity when he barred McDonough from city hall. 

Whatever else you could say about our earlier excavation of this 

Circuit’s public forum precedents, it would be impossible to assert 

that any of it was “clearly established.” We thus affirm the district 

court’s grant of summary judgment to Wright on Count 3—

McDonough’s First Amendment claim—on the basis of qualified 

immunity.

B.

The answer looks different for the claims against the officers 

responsible for McDonough’s disorderly conduct arrests. For 

qualified immunity, “an officer need not have actual probable 

cause, but only ‘arguable’ probable cause.” Brown v. City of 

Huntsville, 608 F.3d 724, 734 (11th Cir. 2010). Officers can show 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 30 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 31

that arguable probable cause exists when “a reasonable officer, 

looking at the entire legal landscape at the time of the arrests, could 

have interpreted the law as permitting the arrests.” Garcia, 75 F.4th 

at 1186 (quotation omitted). The “arguable probable cause inquiry 

in a false arrest case is no different from the clearly established law 

inquiry.” Id. at 1187.

Here, however, even that standard is not met. First, 

Sergeant Wright’s arrest of McDonough for disorderly conduct 

was based on cursing, flipping the bird, and crotch-grabbing. 

Eleventh Circuit caselaw has long established that directing 

profane language toward police officers, whether or not in the 

presence of witnesses, does not constitute disorderly conduct. 

Alston, 954 F.3d at 1319; Gold, 121 F.3d at 1446.

What’s more, expression remains protected by the First 

Amendment whether communicated through words or their 

physical equivalent. Davis, 598 F.2d at 919 n.5. That goes for 

raising the middle finger as well as other profane gestures like 

grabbing one’s crotch. See id. Based on this Circuit’s precedent, 

any reasonable officer would know that raising the middle finger is

speech protected by the First Amendment. 

Finally, as explained above, Florida law has clearly 

established that the mere presence of bystanders is not enough to 

provide probable cause for a disorderly conduct arrest without 

evidence that the actions “were more than annoying to those 

around them.” Gonzales, 287 So. 2d at 670; see Barry, 934 So. 2d at 

659. So the fact that there were bystanders does not rescue

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 31 of 33
32 Opinion of the Court 22-11421

Wright’s qualified immunity claim. For all these reasons, Wright 

did not have even arguable probable cause to arrest McDonough 

for disorderly conduct.

For his part, Garcia objects to being lumped in with Wright. 

After all, he says, he arrived on the scene only after McDonough 

had already been arrested. It’s true—an officer who participates in 

an arrest but lacks “the requisite information to put him on notice 

that an unlawful arrest was occurring or had occurred” cannot be 

held secondarily liable. Wilkerson v. Seymour, 736 F.3d 974, 980 

(11th Cir. 2013). The problem for Garcia is that he was not a bit 

player. He authored McDonough’s arrest report, attesting that he 

had “just and reasonable grounds to believe and does believe” that 

McDonough had committed the crime of disorderly conduct. To

support the charge, he wrote that McDonough “grabbed his 

genitals,” “raised his right middle finger” and “yelled, ‘fuck you’!” 

And the basis for Garcia’s knowledge? He spoke to Wright and 

personally reviewed the City’s surveillance tapes, which captured 

the incident (and show, to be candid, even less of a ground for 

arrest than Wright’s already insufficient description of the events).

In other words, Garcia’s understanding of McDonough’s 

conduct was identical to Wright’s. If Wright should have known 

that there was no probable cause to arrest McDonough, the same 

goes for Garcia. But Garcia nevertheless participated in the arrest 

and wrote the report while “fully aware” that the basis for the 

arrest was insufficient. See Wilkerson, 736 F.3d at 980. We thus 

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 32 of 33
22-11421 Opinion of the Court 33

reverse the district court’s qualified immunity dismissal on Counts 

5 and 6.

* * *

We affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment 

to the City on Count 7—the cyberstalking false arrest claim—and 

to Wright on Count 3—the First Amendment claim. We reverse

the grant of summary judgment to the City on Counts 2 and 4, the 

First Amendment and disorderly conduct false arrest claims, 

respectively. We also reverse the grants of summary judgment to 

Wright and Garcia on Counts 5 and 6, the Fourth Amendment 

claims. Accordingly, we remand the case to the district court for 

further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED AND REMANDED IN 

PART.

USCA11 Case: 22-11421 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2024 Page: 33 of 33