Witchfinder Sam Alito has let stand a ruling from the 5th Circuit that essentially ends mass protests in three southern states:
[T]he Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will not hear Mckesson v. Doe. The decision not to hear Mckesson leaves in place a lower court decision that effectively eliminated the right to organize a mass protest in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.
Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act.
The article dryly notes that this is personal:
For the past several years, the Fifth Circuit has engaged in a crusade against DeRay Mckesson, a prominent figure within the Black Lives Matter movement who organized a protest near a Baton Rogue police station in 2016.
We now turn to the Pod Saves Whatevs newsletter because DeRay McKesson is one of their hosts:
At the 2016 protest, an unknown individual threw an unidentified rock-like object at a police officer (identified in official documents only as “Officer John Doe”) and suffered head, tooth, jaw, and brain injuries. The Fifth Circuit’s ruling could make protest organizers liable for what dissenting Fifth Circuit Judge Don Willett called the “unlawful acts of counter-protesters and agitators.” In layman’s terms: a progressive organizer like Mckesson could also be held financially responsible if a MAGA chud shows up and breaks the law. It’s a disastrous ruling all-around, overtly meant to suppress any left-leaning protests in three deep-red states.
If protest organizers can be sanctioned for the illegal action of any protest attendee, no one in their right mind would ever organize a political protest again, and somewhere Sam Alito is smiling.
And that is the kind of free speech our illegitimate and corrupt SCOTUS wants.
Republished with permission from Mock Paper Scissors.
