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Church's lawsuit against Sheriff Hall dismissed
The Northern District of Florida has dismissed a lawsuit filed against Sheriff Wendell Hall and the Santa Rosa County Jail Interfaith Ministries Board.
Senior Judge William Stafford issued the dismissal on May 9.
The First Apostolic Church of Milton and its pastor Larry Webb, filed a federal lawsuit against the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office where it was alleged Sheriff Hall and the SRCJIMB violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, the Civil Rights Act, the Religious Land Use and Institutional Persons Act, and the First Amendment.
With this dismissal the SRC Jail Interfaith Ministries Board hopes to move forward in its efforts to minister to the needs of those incarcerated at the Santa Rosa County Jail.
“I am very pleased with the outcome,” said Bishop Cecil Downing, who serves as the President of the SRC Interfaith Ministries Board. “We would never, at any time, want to fight with a fellow brother in the Lord. I hate that this misunderstanding had to come to this point.
“I still have a strong love and admiration for Pastor Webb. I have no animosity towards him, and I hope we can still be friends”
The focus of the lawsuit filed by Webb and the First Apostolic Church appeared to be centered on the Church’s faith based alcohol substance abuse program.
According to Jail Chaplin Morgan Miller when the lawsuit was first filed, the dispute centered on when the jail changed treatment programs.
“They were running the “ACTS” classes and we stopped getting the class rosters as of April 2009,” Miller said. “Because of this issue the board voted to use another chemical treatment service.
“The First Apostolic Church still has members on the board and Pastor Webb comes in every Thursday night. This is just all related to the ‘ACTS’ class.”
Santa Rosa County’s “Inter Faith” Board works to make sure all religious denominations are serviced at the jail.
Miller noted Baptist, Apostolic, Methodist, Catholic, Pentecostal, and Christian faiths are represented as well as other denominations including those of the Muslim and Jewish faiths.
“We don’t have the time and space to set up services for all faiths and denominations,” Miller said. “We use the inner faith approach, but if someone wants to speak to a preacher from a specific faith then I will contact who they request.”
Webb, who has never returned messages left by the Press Gazette since the lawsuit was filed, did issue a statement though his attorney who was representing the church.
“The Alcohol Chemical Treatments Series (“ACTS”) Program is an award winning faith based program approved by the Department of Corrections and offered in a dozen facilities in the State of Florida, and hundreds of correctional facilities across the country.” said Pastor Webb in a released statement at the time the lawsuit was filed. “We are involved mostly in the re-entry program for the Florida Department of Corrections. We have over 400 inmates participating through my Church alone a week, and I do nine ACTS classes Monday through Friday at five different facilities.”
According to Miller and Downing no one with the SRC Jail interfaith Ministries Board was allowed to work with these classes except for those affiliated with First Apostolic Church.
The program the Santa Rosa County “Inter Faith” Board switched to is one called, The Most Excellent Way.
“This is not just a program to help with chemical dependency by all dependency’s,” Miller said. “It deals with those who feel like they are addicted to porn, alcohol, drugs, smoking, and other issues through a faith based program.
“The difference here is this program is open to all pastors and lay people to help, where the ‘ACTS’ program was something administered only by the pastor and members of the Apostolic Church.”
Due to this switch, Pastor Webb feels his group has been singled out over a disagreement over doctrine, which led to the lawsuit.
“We have put 11000 volunteer hours in the past four years, and over 3300 participants in the program,” Webb said. “The program has never been barred from any facility in the State of Florida, other than in Santa Rosa County. In the vast majority of instances we are invited into the facilities by prison and jail officials.
“We are a court approved substance abuse treatment program, and at the time we were barred from the jail some inmates had been court ordered to participate.”
Santa Rosa County Sheriff Wendell Hall did not release a statement concerning the dismissal but did indicate through a release from Sgt. Scott Haines that he would be seeking reimbursement for all legal costs that were incurred by the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office in order to dismiss the allegations made against him and the Sheriff’s Office.
When the lawsuit was filed Carolyn Jones, Esq, commented on the basis of Webb and the Church’s lawsuit.
“There is no legitimate explanation for what happened here…other than religious discrimination,” said Jones, local counsel for Golding PC, New York in its Jacksonville, Fla., office. “Inmates have been denied religious classes which are a crucial step in their rehabilitation and reintegration into society…
“We are also looking at whether religious rights have been denied to inmates, and we suspect that there has been an improper establishment of religion by officials adopting one side of a purely religious dispute.”
