{"id":3227,"date":"2011-01-27T15:46:56","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T20:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=3227"},"modified":"2011-01-27T15:47:39","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T20:47:39","slug":"city-to-seek-review-in-fired-police-captain%e2%80%99s-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=3227","title":{"rendered":"City To Seek Review In Fired Police Captain\u2019s Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY IRIS B. HOLTON<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sentinel City Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

The U. S. 2nd<\/sup> Court of Appeals recently ruled that a former Police Captain did not have to resign his post to run for mayor. Attorneys representing the City of Tampa will ask the panel of judges to review their decision.<\/p>\n

City Attorney, Chip<\/strong> Fletcher<\/strong> said, \u201cWe will be taking action during the specified time frame. We are asking the Court to take another look at the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorney Jerry Gerwirtz,<\/strong> Chief of Litigation with the City of Tampa said, \u201cThis is unusual for cases to take this long. It\u2019s not unusual for a case to be appealed.<\/p>\n

The case of Marion Lewis vs. the City of Tampa <\/em><\/strong>began in November 2006 when Lewis <\/strong>decided to run for the Office of Mayor. His supervisors said he had to resign as a Captain with the Tampa Police Department, under the \u201cResign To Run\u201d law. The law contends that an employee must resign if he is going to challenge his boss during an election.<\/p>\n

Lewis<\/strong> stated that he inquired at the Elections Office in Tallahassee and was told the law didn\u2019t apply to him. \u201cThe law means that if I were a deputy, I would have to resign if I wanted to run for Sheriff. But in this case, the Chief of Police is my boss and not the Mayor. <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>After Lewis<\/strong> qualified in January 2007, he contends that he was forced into retirement.<\/p>\n

In his first lower court appearance, Judge Marva Crenshaw <\/strong>ruled in favor of Lewis.<\/strong> However, the City filed an appeal and the trial court entered a partial [private]summary judgment in favor of the City. The trial court also denied Lewis\u2019s <\/strong>motion for summary judgment on an amended counterpetition.<\/p>\n

The Justices also wrote, \u201cWe conclude that the trial court erred in entering the final judgment that determined Lewis <\/strong>automatically resigned from his employment by filing his Oath of Candidate form. We therefore reverse the final judgment and remand with instructions that the trial court enter a final judgment on the City\u2019s complaint consistent with this opinion and consider the remaining allegations of Lewis\u2019s<\/strong> counterpetition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis <\/strong>stated that the City has ten calendar days to respond to the ruling. He further stated that the three-member judicial panel had reached a unanimous decision and that they could review their decision or chose to allow the ruling to stand.<\/p>\n

Prior to the ruling being handed down, Lewis<\/strong> withdrew from the 2011 Mayor\u2019s race, stating that he wasn\u2019t able to devote his undivided attention to the election because of the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Attorney Gerwirtz<\/strong> said that because the city is using in-house attorneys, the City has spent approximately $1,700 in legal fees on the case.[\/private]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor The U. S. 2nd Court of Appeals recently ruled that a former Police Captain did not have to resign his post to run for mayor. Attorneys representing the City of Tampa will ask the panel of judges to review their decision. City Attorney, Chip Fletcher said, \u201cWe will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}