WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday cleared a lawsuit against a Black Lives Matter activist who led a protest in Louisiana that injured a police officer. Civil rights groups and free speech advocates have warned that the lawsuit threatens the right to protest.
The justices rejected an appeal by DeRay Mckesson in a case stemming from a 2016 protest over the police killing of a Black man in Baton Rouge.
At an earlier stage in the case, the Supreme Court noted that the issue was “fraught with implications for First Amendment rights.”
The justices did not explain their action Monday, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a brief opinion saying lower courts should not read too much into it.
The court’s denial today expresses no opinion on the merits of Mckesson’s claim,” Sotomayor wrote.
At the Baton Rouge protest, the officer was hit by a “rock-like” object thrown by an unknown protester, but he sued Mckesson in his role as a protest organizer.
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2017, but a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the officer should be able to argue that Mckesson did not exercise reasonable care in leading protesters to a highway and setting up of a police confrontation in which the officer, identified in court papers only as John Doe, was injured.
Judge Don Willett wrote in a dissenting opinion: “He deserves justice. Officer Doe can no doubt charge the rock thrower. But I don’t agree that he can accuse Mckesson as a protest leader.”
If it decides to move forward with the lawsuit, it would deter people from protesting, the American Civil Liberties Union wrote, on behalf of Mckesson.
“Given the prospect that an individual protest participant might violate the law, only the most fearless citizens would exercise their rights if doing so risked personal liability for the misconduct of third parties,” the ACLU told the court.
Lawyers for the officer had urged the court to dismiss the appeal, noting that the protest illegally blocked the highway and that Mckesson did nothing to deter the violence that took place.