This week, a federal court in Louisiana dismissed a lawsuit against protest organizer DeRay Maxson, ending a years-long case that threatened to freeze speech protected by the First Amendment.
In July 2016, Baton Rouge police shot and killed Alton Sterling, a black man who was taking CDs outside a convenience store and pinned him to the ground. The shooting sparked protests across the country.
Days later, protesters clashed with police at a Black Lives Matter march in front of the Baton Rouge Police Department, sometimes throwing water bottles. Officer John Ford was allegedly hit in the head by a rock or piece of concrete thrown by a protester, causing severe head injuries and a knocked out tooth. The protester has never been identified, but he is not Maxson, the activist who allegedly organized the protest.
Regardless, Ford (originally identified as “Officer Jane Doe”) sued Mckesson in November 2016. [his] While Ford admitted that Maxson never committed an act of violence or even directly encouraged violence, he claimed in an amended complaint that Maxson “testified” the violence during the interview.
In September 2017, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana granted McKesson’s motion to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning Ford could not refile the lawsuit.
Citation by Chief Justice Brian A. Jackson NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware (1982), in which the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that “the right of association does not lose all constitutional power simply because some members of the group may engage in conduct that is itself unprotected or advocate doctrine that is not protected, including violence. Protect”. Jackson wrote that because Ford “failed to raise sufficient, inconclusive factual allegations that tended to suggest that McKesson exceeded the scope of protected speech,” “McKerson cannot comment on the conduct of others with whom he was associated. Take responsibility.
But in December 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned the rejection and sent the case back to the district court for retrial. “McKerson ignored the foreseeable risk of violence posed by his actions and failed to exercise reasonable care in conducting the demonstration,” majority Judge E. Grady Jolly wrote. “McKerson has a duty to DOE not to negligently contribute to the commission of a third-party crime. A jury may find that the violent confrontation with police was a foreseeable consequence of the negligent direction of the protest.”
“It is an evasion for protest leaders to be held accountable for ‘negligence in protest’ due to violent acts by hooligan attackers. Claiborne Hardware and conflicts head-on with fundamental principles of the Constitution,” Justice Don Willett said in his dissent. “This bizarre theory would weaken the civil rights movement that shuts down America’s streets and imposes devastating financial liability on citizens who exercise core First Amendment freedoms.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Justice Sonia Sotomayor mentions 2023 Supreme Court ruling countryman v. colorado. “The court explained that ‘the First Amendment excludes punishment [for incitement]whether civil or criminal, unless the speaker’s words “intended” (not just possibly) to cause imminent disorder,” Sotomayor wrote.
This week, the district court again ruled in McKesson’s favor, finding Ford’s claims insufficient under both Louisiana law and the First Amendment, and again dismissing his lawsuit with prejudice. In its decision, the court even spelled out the absurdity of some of the lawsuit’s basic claims.
“According to defendant, he ‘did not engage in any acts of violence’ during the protests,” Jackson wrote again for the majority. “Plaintiff attempted to rebut this, responding that defendant ‘may have thrown a water bottle at the officer,’ and citing the brief, in which plaintiff argued that because police and plaintiff saw defendant retrieve a bottle of water,”[o]ne can be inferred [Defendant] A bottle of water was probably thrown at the police.[he] never seen [Defendant] Throw a water bottle” but no one told me [him]’The defendant did so.
“The Supreme Court has long recognized that peaceful protestors cannot be held liable for the unintentional, unlawful actions of others, and we are pleased to see district courts reach the same conclusion,” said David Cole, legal director of the American Bar Association. Cole said.
In fact, this decision is a positive outcome. But the case dragged on for a long time. In his statement, Mckesson called it “a grueling eight-year process” – eight years in which an injured police officer sought to use the legal system to punish him, even though he was never accused of direct violence. At the time, court rulings could not reach agreement on whether nonviolent protests were actually protected by the First Amendment.
