Anti-Picketing Laws To Be Enforced Outside The Homes Of SC Justices

Louisiana

The Chief Security Officer of the Supreme Court recently requested the officials of Maryland and Virginia to enforce anti-picketing laws to protect the Supreme Court justices. In a bunch of letters that were sent to officials of Maryland on Friday, Gail Curley- the Marshal at the Court, stated that threatening activity had been increased at the homes of the SCJs since May, ever since Politico reported the disclosure of a draft opinion regarding the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. In this letter that was sent to Republican Governor Larry Hogan, Curley cited the old Maryland law that prohibited one from picketing before private homes. 

Anti-Picketing Laws To Be Enforced In Maryland

Curley also wrote that for quite some weeks now, a large group of protestors kept chanting slogans, banging drums, and using bullhorns outside the Justices’ homes in the state. Just this week, close to 75 protestors kept picketing loudly at one of the homes of the Justice in Maryland for around 20-30 minutes in the evening, after which they picketed at another Justice’s home for 30 more. Here, the crowd grew to around 100 people, and then returned to the first house to picket for another 20 minutes. And this is exactly the kind of behavior that was prohibited under the Anti-Picketing law of Maryland and Montgomery County. 

Curley has been heading the investigation into the disclosure of the opinion and mentioned that the state and country anti-picketing laws definitely provided law enforcement with the tools to prevent any form of picketing activity at the homes of the Justices, and they should be enforced without any form of delay. The debate over the protests at the houses of the Supreme Court Justices and the Supreme Court itself has risen since the draft opinion was disclosed.