WASHINGTON (WGNO) –– The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review an appeal by a Black Lives Matter activist, allowing the case against him to move forward in the lower courts.
The lawsuit claims that after the 2016 police killing of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, an officer was injured by a protestor. The officer, who goes by the name “John Doe” in court documents, sued an organizer of the protest, DeRay Mckesson.
Doe says Mckesson organized the protest in a way “that he knew, or should have known, that violence would likely ensue.” The person who injured Doe is still unknown.
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2017, but two years later, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Doe could sue Mckesson. However, they sought an opinion from Louisiana Supreme Court justices.
The state Supreme Court justices ruled 6-1 on an opinion in 2022 that Doe could move forward with the case.
The question at hand is whether protest organizers can be held liable for illegal activity; the constitutional right to protest is not.
In a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union, Mckesson said, “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.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a brief explaining that the higher court’s decision expresses no view on the merits of the case. She points to the precedent set by a 2023 ruling, which says the First Amendment prohibits holding anyone liable for negligence regarding speech.
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