Executive Summary

Why this case matters

Sheets v. Jimenez is useful for the police-facility side of the right-to-record problem, but it must be cited carefully because the opinion is unpublished and nonprecedential. The Eleventh Circuit reaffirmed the general rule from Smith v. City of Cumming that recording public officials on public property implicates the First Amendment, while emphasizing that the validity of a restriction depends on the forum in which it operates.

Andrew Bryant Sheets, a self-described “government accountability journalist,” challenged enforcement of a Punta Gorda ordinance restricting unconsented audio and video recording inside city-owned, controlled, or leased property. The ordinance exempted public meetings and law-enforcement activities, but otherwise allowed officials to require a person to stop recording or leave.

Sheets alleged that Officer Kelvin Jimenez required him to leave the Punta Gorda Public Safety Complex while he was recording and that Officer Dylan Renz later participated in a trespass-related response. He argued that invited television news crews had been allowed to record inside the building while he was not.

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed dismissal. It relied on prior Eleventh Circuit authority treating the police department as a limited public forum and the ordinance as viewpoint neutral and reasonable. It also held that Sheets failed to plausibly allege viewpoint discrimination because the invited news crews were not similarly situated comparators and because his own pleadings did not connect Jimenez’s actions to Sheets’s claimed government-accountability viewpoint.

Core holding

In this unpublished decision, the court held that the general First Amendment right to record public officials remains subject to forum-specific restrictions. Inside a police facility treated as a limited public forum, a viewpoint-neutral and reasonable recording restriction may be enforced, and a selective-enforcement claim requires facts showing genuinely comparable speakers or viewpoint-based treatment.

The Punta Gorda Recording Ordinance

Punta Gorda City Ordinance § 15-48(e) prohibited video or sound recording within city-owned, controlled, or leased property without the consent of persons whose voices or images were being recorded.

The ordinance contained exceptions for public meetings and for law-enforcement activities. It also provided that a person who continued unconsented recording after being advised of the restriction could be asked to leave and, if the person refused, could be treated as a trespasser.

The Eleventh Circuit noted that the ordinance had already been held viewpoint neutral and reasonable in prior litigation. That background shaped the court’s analysis of Sheets’s later selective-enforcement theory.

Operational significance

The constitutional question is not simply whether recording is generally protected. Agencies must also identify the forum, the scope of the facility rule, the governmental purpose served by the rule, and whether enforcement is viewpoint neutral.

The Public Safety Complex Encounter

Sheets entered the Punta Gorda Public Safety Complex in August 2020 while seeking to file a complaint. He encountered a television news crew that officers had allowed into back-office areas to film a story unrelated to government accountability.

Sheets began recording the news crew with a body camera. According to his complaint, Officer Jimenez asked him to step outside because he was recording. After several requests, Sheets complied. Jimenez then blocked him from re-entering while he continued to record.

Sheets contrasted his treatment with that of the invited news crew and argued that the difference reflected hostility toward his government-accountability journalism.

Later records referenced repeated instances of Sheets entering the lobby and recording in violation of facility rules. His complaint also challenged a trespass warning and alleged that Officer Renz was responsible for it.

The court concluded, however, that documents Sheets himself incorporated into the pleadings showed Renz did not actually issue the trespass warning, defeating that theory at the pleading stage.

Pleading lesson

Materials incorporated into a complaint can defeat conclusory allegations when the attached documents contradict the pleaded theory. That procedural point was significant to the dismissal of the claim against Renz.

Forum Analysis Inside a Police Facility

The Eleventh Circuit began with Smith v. City of Cumming, which recognizes a general First Amendment right to record information about what public officials do on public property, particularly matters of public interest, subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions.

The court then emphasized that the validity of a speech restriction depends on the forum in which it applies.

For a limited public forum, restrictions must be viewpoint neutral and reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum. The court also invoked the government’s recognized authority to control access to government workplaces in order to avoid interference with employees performing official duties.

In its analysis, the court treated the police department as a limited public forum and noted that unconsented recording inside the police department building was prohibited.

Doctrinal rule

Public access to a government building does not automatically convert every interior space into a traditional public forum. A police department may be treated as a limited public forum, allowing reasonable and viewpoint-neutral restrictions tied to the purpose and operation of the facility.

Why the Viewpoint-Discrimination Claim Failed

Sheets argued that Officer Jimenez enforced the ordinance against him because of his viewpoint as a government-accountability journalist.

The Eleventh Circuit found the allegations insufficient. According to the court, Sheets did not plausibly allege that he communicated that viewpoint to Jimenez during the encounter or that the topic was discussed. The complaint instead described Jimenez as repeatedly expressing concern about Sheets’s recording activity.

The court also rejected Sheets’s effort to rely on invited television news crews as comparators. Those crews had been granted permission to enter and film news stories inside the facility. Sheets, by contrast, had not sought or received permission and was using a body camera to record people inside the facility.

Because the invited media and Sheets were not similarly situated with respect to consent and access, the different treatment did not plausibly demonstrate viewpoint discrimination.

Comparator principle

Different treatment is not automatically viewpoint discrimination. The relevant comparison is between speakers engaged in materially similar conduct under materially similar access and permission conditions.

Municipal Liability and Failure to Train

Sheets also sued the City of Punta Gorda under Monell, alleging deliberate indifference and failure to train city employees concerning viewpoint discrimination.

The Eleventh Circuit held that the municipal claim failed first because Sheets had not adequately pleaded an underlying constitutional violation.

The court also concluded that his allegations did not plausibly identify a deficient training program, a pattern of constitutional violations, or facts showing the City knew of and disregarded a training deficiency likely to produce First Amendment violations.

Disposition

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed dismissal with prejudice of the third amended complaint and affirmed denial of reconsideration.

What Sheets Does—and Does Not—Establish

Important limits

The opinion is expressly marked “NOT FOR PUBLICATION” and is unpublished/nonprecedential.
It does not displace the published Eleventh Circuit holding in Smith v. City of Cumming recognizing a First Amendment right to photograph or videotape police conduct.
The case concerns recording inside a police/public-safety facility, not recording officers from a public sidewalk or street.
The court relied on forum doctrine and treated the police department as a limited public forum.
The opinion does not establish that every police-station lobby restriction is automatically constitutional.
The viewpoint claim failed in part because the alleged comparators had permission to record and therefore were not similarly situated.
The case resolved pleading sufficiency; it was not a trial finding that every factual allegation by Sheets was false.
Because it is nonprecedential, agencies should use the case as persuasive operational guidance and cite published Eleventh Circuit authority for controlling propositions.

Agency Guidance

1. Distinguish outside from insideRecording from a sidewalk and recording inside a police facility present materially different forum and operational questions.

2. Define the forum preciselyIdentify whether the location is a public sidewalk, public lobby, limited-access lobby, employee workspace, secure corridor, booking area, evidence area, or another functional space.

3. Keep rules viewpoint neutralA facility rule should regulate conduct, access, privacy, security, or operations—not whether the recorder praises or criticizes the agency.

4. Apply permission rules consistentlyIf invited media receive access unavailable to others, document the consent, purpose, escort, and scope of that access so the distinction is operational rather than viewpoint based.

5. Do not confuse public access with unlimited expressive useA lobby may be open for police business without being opened for every form of expressive activity.

6. Articulate why the restriction is reasonableConnect recording limits to privacy, workflow, victim protection, investigative integrity, security, or another legitimate function of the facility.

7. Preserve the published-law hierarchyUse Smith for the controlling Eleventh Circuit right-to-record baseline; treat Sheets as nonprecedential facility-specific guidance.

8. Train for consistent enforcementSelective or ad hoc enforcement creates avoidable viewpoint-discrimination arguments even when the underlying facility rule is facially valid.

Primary Sources and Further Reading

Eleventh Circuit official opinion — unpublished: Sheets v. Jimenez, No. 25-12844 (11th Cir. May 29, 2026).

Published controlling Eleventh Circuit baseline: Smith v. City of Cumming.