On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from a Black Lives Matter leader who was found liable by a lower court for a random activist’s attack on a police officer during a protest he organized. A Baton Rouge officer sued civil rights organizer Deray Mckesson in 2016 following a protest in which the law enforcement member sustained vicious injuries.
According to the unnamed police officer, an unidentified individual in the crowd of protestors hurled a “rock-like” object, which caused severe injuries, such as knocking teeth out and leaving him with a brain injury. Per the lawsuit, Mckesson should have anticipated that the protest would turn violent based on the precedent set by other events at the time.
“The pattern was set: out-of-state protesters representing BLM fly into a town, gather, block a highway, engage and entice police, loot, damage property, injure bystanders, injure police. By July 9, 2016, when McKesson organized the Baton Rouge protest/riot—he had no reason to expect a different outcome—police will be injured,” the officer’s legal team wrote.
Reportedly, the case had already been through several reviews in lower courts. Last year, the Fifth Circuit determined that the case would proceed further because the anonymous officer had successfully claimed that Mckesson had “directed his own tortious activity” that created the violent environment.
The appeals court suggested that the organizer had incited violence through “organiz[ing] and direct[ing] a protest… such that it was likely that a violent confrontation with the police would result.” However, Mckesson’s legal team disagrees with this assertion.
Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued on behalf of Mckesson that the claims made against their client violate his First Amendment rights. The ACLU further claims the lower court ruling contradicts judicial precedent set by the Supreme Court, arguing that it could “chill” activities protected by freedom of speech all around the country.
However, the Supreme Court refused to take up the case earlier this week. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor claimed that while the court denied the case, it “expresses no view of about the merits of Mckesson’s case.” Sotomayor further argued that the court’s recent ruling in Counterman v. Colorado should set a precedent for how lower courts review Mckesson’s case. Supposedly, this ruling now makes it more difficult to convict a person of making a violent threat.
“Although the Fifth Circuit did not have the benefit of this Court’s recent decision in Counterman when it issued its opinion, the lower courts now do. I expect them to give full and fair consideration to arguments regarding Counterman’s impact in any future proceedings in this case,” Sotomayor said after the decision not to review the case.
Mckesson stated the case brought against him, suggesting it was intentionally trying to dissuade citizens from attending protests. “The goal of lawsuits like these is to prevent people from showing up at a protest out of the fear that they might be held responsible if anything happens. But people don’t need to be afraid to show up. The Constitution still protects our right to protest,” Mckesson said.
Featured image credit: Manfred Werner (Tsui) – CC by-sa 4.0, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Lives_Matter_Vienna_2020-06-04_41.jpg
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