Judging Freedom - ANY Limits on Protesting_

Episode Date: May 10, 2022

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Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, May 10, 2022. It's about 2.20 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. Last night, the Senate of the United States unanimously passed legislation to authorize the United States Supreme Court Police, you know, the Supreme Court has its own police department, to leave the property of the Supreme Court and protect the justices and their families in their homes and as they travel. This is because the leaked draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito back in February, which, if it still stands, would invalidate Roe v. Wade, has so animated pro-abortion demonstrators that they have shown up at the homes of justices and have issued what can only be characterized as threats.

Now, there is a statute, a federal statute, that makes it a crime to threaten a judge or any federal official, makes it a crime to demonstrate in such a way as to interfere with the justices' performance of his or her official duties. I don't know that these demonstrators have reached that point. There obviously is a right to tranquility, to peace in the home. So we have two rights clashing. The right to tranquility in the home, which is an ancient common law right that everybody has. By common law, I mean inherited from the British system and never actually written down as a statute. And on the other hand, you have the First Amendment, which protects all speech, especially political speech, especially political speech about the policies and personnel of the government force these people who want to express their opinions about what the Supreme Court is about to do, to do so in front of the Supreme Court?

Or can they express their opinions wherever they want? The law is pretty clear. They can express their opinions wherever they want. The federal statute making it a crime to demonstrate in front of the home of a Supreme Court justice is unconstitutional. Again, there's such a thing as time, place, and manner. You can't show up at the bullhorn at three o'clock in the morning, but you can demonstrate at three in the afternoon. You have to stay on public property, which is what the sidewalk is and the street is. You can't go onto private property, that's trespassing. And you can't make the private property unusable by noise and other things. to peace in their homes and the right of the public to demonstrate in front of their homes. This is a bias in favor of the demonstrators. That's because of the First Amendment. The First

Amendment keeps the government out of the business of speech and forces the government, whose job it is to protect its high officials, to accommodate speech. So the government, probably the Justice Department, although it appears as though this is going to be the court itself through its own police department, must strike the right relationship. Again, it's not a balance, it's a bias between the justices' peace in their own homes and the demonstrators' right to express their opinions of those justices. The latter right is almost unlimited because it's protected by the First Amendment. I say almost because,

as indicated before, you can't go on private property. It's lamentable. It's sad that this is happening. It's all happening because somebody either committed a federal crime if they hacked into the Supreme Court computer system or violated the canons of legal ethics if they're a lawyer and were entrusted with this draft opinion and they gave it to somebody outside the circle of those to whom it has been entrusted. Hopefully, whoever this person is will be discovered. Again, if they're outside the Supreme Court circle of 50, the people who have legal access to these draft opinions, and they used a computer to obtain it, they can be prosecuted for computer hacking. If they're inside the circle of 50, the punishment is quite limited. It's firing from the federal government, and if a lawyer see Supreme Court justices in black SUVs and their children, just like you see the president, the vice president, and the speaker of the House. It's too bad that it's coming to this.

I wish people could be more civilized. I disagree with much of what the Supreme Court does and says, but I have you as my audience and all this nice equipment around me to let me communicate with people. But communication ought to be civilized. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.