[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-12171

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

JAMES F. LEWIS, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

KEITH REYES, 

Sergeant,

KARL MURKLAND, 

Officer,

GREGG DUDLEY, 

LAKE COUNTY FLORIDA SCHOOL DISTRICT, 

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

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2 Opinion of the Court 23-12171

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 5:22-cv-00650-JA-PRL

____________________

Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

James Lewis was arrested for trespass when he refused to 

leave school property after school authorities repeatedly requested 

that he do so. Lewis brought suit against the state officials involved 

in his arrest and the school district for violating his constitutional 

rights. The district court dismissed his suit for failure to state a 

claim. Because Lewis has not alleged any facts sufficient to show a 

constitutional violation, we affirm. 

I.

James Lewis, a self-proclaimed journalist, decided to stand 

on the sidewalk outside of an elementary school and film the traffic 

during school dismissal.1 While filming, Lewis complained about 

the traffic to Sergeant Keith Reyes, who was on duty directing 

traffic that day. Reyes calmly told Lewis that officers were doing 

their best to address the traffic. 

Principal Gregg Dudley then came outside and asked Lewis 

why he was at the school. Lewis told Dudley that he was there to 

1 The following facts are from Lewis’s video recording, which he provided as 

part of his complaint. 

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monitor the traffic, and that he wanted to make a public records 

request. Dudley responded that all public records requests must be 

made with the district office, but Lewis insisted on making his 

request at the school. Dudley and Reyes eventually walked away 

from Lewis and onto school property. 

Undeterred, Lewis again approached Dudley and Reyes, 

reasserting his same request for public records. Dudley and Reyes 

informed Lewis that he was on school property, and Dudley 

reiterated that public records requests must be made at the district 

office. He repeatedly asked Lewis to leave, but Lewis refused and

instead continued to request public records. Dudley informed

Reyes that he wanted to trespass Lewis from the school. Reyes 

asked Lewis for identification, which Lewis refused to provide. 

The two argued until Lewis walked away. 

Lewis, though, continued to film; when one parent asked

Lewis to stop filming his children, Lewis began arguing with him. 

At that point, Reyes approached Lewis and arrested him for 

trespass. Lewis soon complained that the handcuffs were too tight. 

Reyes responded that the handcuffs were okay, but Lewis raised 

the same complaint while he was being driven to jail by Reyes and

Officer Karl Marklund. Marklund responded that the handcuffs

would be removed at the jail. 

Lewis was charged with trespassing on school grounds in 

violation of Fla. Stat. § 810.097. He admitted guilt to this charge, 

but still brought § 1983 claims against Reyes, Marklund, Dudley, 

and the Lake County Florida School District for violating his 

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constitutional rights. He alleged that Dudley violated his First and 

Fourteenth Amendment rights by trespassing him while he was 

engaging in protected First Amendment activity. He claimed that 

Reyes and Marklund violated his Fourth and Fourteenth

Amendment rights by unlawfully arresting him without probable 

cause and using excessive force. He also asserted that the District 

failed to properly train Dudley as the custodian of public records. 

And he argued that all of the defendants retaliated against him for 

exercising his First Amendment rights. The district court dismissed 

his claims for failure to state a claim. Lewis now appeals. 

II.

We review a district court’s ruling on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion 

to dismiss de novo, “accepting the allegations in the complaint as 

true and construing them in the light most favorable to the 

plaintiff.” Hill v. White, 321 F.3d 1334, 1335 (11th Cir. 2003). “But 

where a video is clear and obviously contradicts the plaintiff’s 

alleged facts, we accept the video’s depiction instead of the 

complaint’s account and view the facts in the light depicted by the 

video.” Baker v. City of Madison, 67 F.4th 1268, 1277–78 (11th Cir. 

2023) (citation omitted). To decide whether a complaint properly 

states a claim, a court must first disregard any conclusory 

allegations and then determine whether any remaining factual 

allegations, if assumed as true, “plausibly give rise to an entitlement 

to relief.” McCullough v. Finley, 907 F.3d 1324, 1333 (11th Cir. 2018) 

(quotation omitted). 

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III.

Section 1983 allows state officers and municipalities to be 

held liable for constitutional violations. An arrest without a 

warrant or probable cause “violates the Constitution and provides 

a basis for a section 1983 claim.” Miller v. Harget, 458 F.3d 1251, 

1259 (11th Cir. 2006) (quotation omitted). An officer has probable 

cause for an arrest “when the facts and circumstances within the 

officers’ knowledge, of which he or she has reasonably trustworthy 

information, would cause a prudent person to believe, under the 

circumstances shown, that the suspect has committed, is 

committing, or is about to commit an offense.” Id. (quotation 

omitted). 

Florida law authorizes an officer to “arrest either on or off 

the premises and without warrant any person the officer has 

probable cause for believing has committed the offense of trespass 

upon the grounds of a school facility.” Fla. Stat. § 810.097(4). A 

person commits a trespass if he “enters or remains upon the 

campus or other facility of a school after the principal of such 

school” has “directed such person to leave such campus or facility 

or not to enter upon the campus or facility” Id. § 810.097(2). 

Lewis’s rights under the First Amendment, Fourth 

Amendment, and Fourteenth Amendment were not violated 

because probable cause supported his arrest. First, state law 

authorized Dudley to ask Lewis to leave school property, and it 

provides that Lewis committed trespass by refusing to comply with 

those requests. See id. § 810.097. Lewis does not challenge this law 

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or argue that it is unconstitutional.2 And because Lewis committed 

trespass by refusing to comply with Dudley’s requests to leave 

school property, Reyes and Murkland had probable cause to arrest 

him. See Miller, 458 F.3d at 1259. Lewis’s arrest was thus 

constitutional, and he provides no factual basis to support his claim 

that the defendants’ conduct was in retaliation for his speech rather 

than his unauthorized presence on school grounds in violation of 

Florida law. 

Lewis’s failure-to-train and excessive force claims also fail

because he does not plausibly allege a constitutional violation. 

Lewis argues that the District is liable because it failed to 

adequately train Dudley about public records requests. But Florida 

law only requires that a custodian of public records “acknowledge 

requests to inspect or copy records promptly and respond to such 

requests in good faith.” Fla. Stat. § 119.07(1)(c). Based on the facts 

alleged, Dudley complied with that requirement—he 

acknowledged Lewis’s public records request and instructed him 

on the appropriate means for making that request. Lewis thus 

failed to allege sufficient facts supporting any violation. Lastly, 

Lewis’s excessive force claim fails because the fact that his

handcuffs were tight is not enough to support an allegation of 

2 Even if Lewis did take issue with Florida’s trespass law, the fact that it may 

have incidentally affected his First Amendment activities does not make its 

enforcement a constitutional violation. See Adderley v. Florida, 385 U.S. 39, 47–

48 (1966). 

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excessive force. See Gold v. City of Miami, 121 F.3d 1442, 1446–47 

(11th Cir. 1997). 

* * *

Lewis failed to provide sufficient facts supporting any 

constitutional violation by the defendants. The district court did 

not err, then, in dismissing his claims. We AFFIRM. 

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