Yes, experts say protests at SCOTUS justices’ homes appear to be illegal
As Republicans and others cry foul over pro-Roe v. Wade protests at Supreme Court justices’ private homes, Democrats have been forced into a tough spot. The White House has taken to saying that such protests by its abortion rights allies are okay as long as they are peaceful.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), meanwhile, cited the protests outside his own home.
“There’s protests three, four times a week outside my house,” Schumer said Tuesday. “The American way to peacefully protest is okay.”
But while protest is indeed ingrained in American democracy, legally speaking the comparison between protesting a politician at home and a member of the judiciary at home is inexact. And experts say the latter category of protests is likely illegal regardless of how peaceful the demonstrations are.
At issue is a statute enacted in 1950, 18 U.S. Code § 1507. The law states that it is illegal, “with the intent of influencing any judge,” to:
picket or parade “in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer”
“or with such intent” to resort “to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence”
Tabatha Abu El-Haj, an expert on protest rights at Drexel University’s law school, said that the current protests at justices’ homes qualify under the statute and that the statute, if tested, would likely be found constitutional.
“The statute would seem to apply both because … they appear to be picketing and parading with the relevant intent and at the relevant locations,” Abu El-Haj said, “but also because the statute has a catch-all ‘resorts to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence.’ ”
Timothy Zick of the College of William & Mary agreed.
“The conduct appears to be within the statute’s prohibition,” Zick said. “Picketing includes activities such as demonstrating and protesting. The court has upheld properly tailored restrictions on pickets that target a particular home.”
While the Supreme Court has rarely dealt with this specific statute, it has upheld similar ones.
In 1988′s Frisby v. Schultz, the court upheld a local Wisconsin law that banned protesting targeted at a specific home, as long as protesters were allowed to march through a neighborhood.
Two decades earlier, in 1965, the court upheld a Louisiana law that echoed the federal law’s prohibition on picketing at a court. The laws were enacted amid an outcry over allies of Communist Party defendants picketing federal courthouses.
“A State may adopt safeguards necessary and appropriate to assure that the administration of justice at all stages is free from outside control and influence,” the court ruled in Cox v. Louisiana. “A narrowly drawn statute such as the one under review is obviously a safeguard both necessary and appropriate to vindicate the State’s interest in assuring justice under law.”
That case didn’t deal specifically with banning protests outside the home of a judge or another party to a legal proceeding — but it did uphold a law that would seem to involve less potentially problematic efforts to influence them. And the court has repeatedly suggested protests of legal proceedings should be considered differently, since protests could possibly impact nonpolitical proceedings or even inject merely the appearance of political influence or intimidation into decisions that should be based solely on the law, not public opinion.
“There is no room at any stage of judicial proceedings for such intervention; mob law is the very antithesis of due process,” the justices wrote in Cox.
They added at another point that “entirely different considerations would apply if, for example, the demonstrators were picketing to protest the actions of a mayor or other official of a city completely unrelated to any judicial proceedings.”
There are instances in which the Supreme Court has limited restrictions on protesting the judiciary, though they don’t appear entirely applicable to the present case.
moar @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/11/protest-justice-home-illegal/