Civil rights lawyers seeking a temporary restraining order against an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades say that "Alligator Alcatraz" detainees have been barred from meeting attorneys, are being held without any charges and that a federal immigration court has canceled bond hearings. The immigration attorneys argued Monday during a virtual hearing that the detainees' constitutional rights were being violated and that 100 detainees already had been deported from "Alligator Alcatraz." Lawyers who have shown up for bond hearings for "Alligator Alcatraz" detainees have been told that the immigration court doesn't have jurisdiction over their clients, and the civil rights attorneys demanded that federal and state officials identify an immigration court that has jurisdiction over the detainees so it can start accepting petitions for bond. "This is an emergency situation," Eunice Cho, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, said during the hearing in federal court in Miami. "Officers at 'Alligator Alcatraz' are going around trying to force people to sign deportation orders without the ability to speak to counsel." But Nicholas Meros, an attorney representing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the situation had evolved since the civil rights groups' lawsuit was filed July 16. Videoconference rooms had been set up so detainees can talk to attorneys, and in-person meetings between detainees and attorneys had started. "There have been a number of facts that have changed," Meros said during Monday's hearing. U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz, an appointee of President Donald Trump, didn't make an immediate ruling. He asked the civil rights attorneys to refile their complaint to consolidate their pleadings as a request for a preliminary injunction, and he set a briefing schedule that will end with an in-person court hearing on Aug. 18. The judge warned that his role was to provide relief to any proven constitutional violations and said that "attempts to transform the court into the warden of 'Alligator Alcatraz' is not going to happen here." The judge also allowed the civil rights groups to argue for the release of any agreements between the federal and state governments showing who has authority over the detention center, a murky issue since it opened a month ago. Knowing more about any agreements "would be good for all sides since the court may be walking into a bit of a black hole about the interplay between the federal and state authorities and certainly jurisdictional concerns," Ruiz said. "And that's part of the problem — who is doing what in this facility?" The lawsuit is the second one challenging "Alligator Alcatraz." Environmental groups last month sued federal and state officials asking that the project built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades be halted because the process didn't follow state and federal environmental laws. Attorneys for the state of Florida and federal government have argued in both cases that the federal court's southern district in Florida was the wrong venue since the airstrip is located in neighboring Collier County, which is a part of the middle district, even though the property is owned by Miami-Dade County. They also argued that decision-making took place in Tallahassee, which is in the northern district. A hearing over whether the southern district venue is proper in the environmental case is set for Wednesday. "All the activities that plaintiffs allege harm their interests — construction, paving, detention — occurred in the Middle District, not in the Southern District. And all the relevant decision-making occurred in either the Middle District or the Northern District of Florida," U.S. Department of Justice attorneys said Friday in a court filing for the environmental lawsuit. Critics have condemned the facility as a cruel and inhumane threat to detainees, while DeSantis and other Republican state officials have defended it as part of the state's aggressive push to support President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has praised Florida for coming forward with the idea, as the department looks to significantly expand its immigration detention capacity. At a news conference in Panama City Beach on Monday, DeSantis said he hoped the pace of deportations picked up at the facility. "The reality is, if you don't support sending somebody back to their own country who came in illegally and has already been ordered that they're violating the law and ordered to be removed, if you don't support that, then you are for an open border," DeSantis said. "I reject that. That is not how a country can operate."

Famous for his fearless bravado as a pro wrestler, Hulk Hogan won one of his most notable victories in a Florida courtroom by emphasizing his humiliation and emotional distress after a news and gossip website published a video of Hogan having sex with a friend's wife. A 2016 civil trial that pitted the First Amendment against the privacy rights of celebrities ended with a jury awarding Hogan a whopping $140 million in his lawsuit against Gawker Media. Though both parties later settled on $31 million to avoid protracted appeals, the case put Gawker out of business. It also ensured Hogan, who died Thursday at age 71, and his legal team would have a long-term impact on media law. The case showed that, in certain circumstances, celebrities could persuade a jury that their right to privacy outweighs the freedom of the press — even when the published material was true. The case put media outlets on notice that "the public doesn't necessarily like the press," especially when reporting intrudes into intimate details of even public figures' private lives, said Samantha Barbas, a University of Iowa law professor who writes about press freedoms and First Amendment issues. She said it also emboldened celebrities, politicians and others in the public spotlight to be more aggressive in suing over unflattering news coverage — as seen recently in President Donald Trump's pursuit of court cases against the Wall Street Journal, ABC and CBS. "I think the lasting effect of the Hulk Hogan case was it really started this trend of libel and privacy lawsuits being weaponized to kind of take down these media organizations," Barbas said. Hogan wept hearing the verdict in a case that was 'real personal' Video posting Hogan, whose given name was Terry Bollea, sued Gawker for invading his privacy after the website in 2012 posted an edited version of a video of Hogan having sex with the wife of his then-best friend, Florida-based radio DJ Bubba The Love Sponge Clem. Clem gave his blessing to the coupling and recorded the video that was later leaked to Gawker. Hogan insisted he was unaware the intimate encounter was being filmed. The former WWE champion testified that he was "completely humiliated" when the sex video became public. Hogan's lead trial attorney, Ken Turkel, recalled Thursday how his muscular, mustachioed client cried in court as the jury verdict was read. "To him the privacy part of it was integral. It was important," Turkel said. "Eight-year-old kids were googling 'Hulk Hogan' and 'Wrestlemania,' and they were getting a sex tape. That was hurtful to him in a real personal way." The three-week trial was closely followed far beyond the courtroom in St. Petersburg, Florida, as thousands of wrestling fans, First Amendment watchers and others stayed glued to their screens as the trial was streamed live online. Salacious details emerged about Hogan's sex life as jurors and spectators viewed. images of him in thong underwear. Other testimony focused on how New York-based Gawker practiced journalism differently than traditional news outlets. And Hogan explained to the jury about the difference between his wrestling persona and his private life. Lawsuit’s sposnor Another detail that dropped after the trial: Hogan's legal team had been bankrolled by Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire and PayPal co-founder. Gawker had publicly outed Thiel as gay in 2007. Thiel said funding Hogan's lawsuit was "less about revenge and more about specific deterrence." The jury ultimately rejected arguments by Gawker's attorneys that Hogan's sex tape was newsworthy and that publishing it, no matter how distasteful, was protected speech under the First Amendment. "Now more people, including judges, understand that it's possible to sue someone for revealing something truthful, as long as that something is deeply personal and its publication is highly offensive," said Amy Gajda, a Brooklyn Law School professor who followed and wrote about the case against Gawker. News outlets still have broad legal protection for publishing information about public figures, even things that would generally be considered private, Gajda said "As long as there is news value in what is published and the media can argue that effectively, they can get a privacy case dismissed very early on," she said.

A state judge has stayed an upcoming execution in Alabama to evaluate whether the man is too mentally ill to be put to death. The judge temporarily stayed the Aug. 21 execution of David Lee Roberts until it can be established whether he has a "rational understanding" of what is to happen to him. "Or similarly put, the issue is whether the petitioner's concept of reality is so impaired that he cannot grasp the execution's meaning and the purpose or the link between his crime and its punishment," Marion County Circuit Judge Talmage Lee Carter wrote in the July 10 order. Carter said the execution will be on hold until a report from the Alabama Department of Mental Health is finished. It is not immediately clear how long that will take. Roberts was convicted of killing Annetra Jones in 1992 by shooting her in the head. His execution was scheduled to be carried out by nitrogen gas, a method Alabama began using last year. Attorneys representing Roberts argue that his death sentence should be suspended due to severe illness. Roberts has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis, hears voices and is delusional, they said in a court filing. He also recently attempted to burn tattoos off his arm and leg because he believed they "are trying to control his thoughts," his lawyers said. "This evidence demonstrates Mr. Roberts is incompetent to be executed because his delusions prevent him from having a factual or rational understanding of the reason," they said. The Alabama attorney general's office is not appealing the stay. The state asked that the competency evaluation by expedited. Case law The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states cannot execute prisoners who are insane and do not understand their impending execution and the reasons for it. However, state law does not provide a clear standard on what courts must find in determining someone's competency to be executed. In 1992, Roberts, now 59, was a houseguest at Jones' boyfriend's home in Marion County. Prosecutors said that on the afternoon of April 22, he came to the home, packed his belongings, stole money and shot Jones three times in the head with a .22 caliber rifle while she slept on the couch. He then set the house on fire after dousing Jones' body and the floor with a flammable liquid, prosecutors said. Jurors convicted Roberts of capital murder and voted 7-5 to recommend that he receive life in prison without parole. A judge overrode that and sentenced him to death. Alabama no longer allows judges to override jury sentences in capital cases.