Supreme Court declines to hear appeal from Black Lives Matter organizer facing damages suit

Source: CNN Politics

Published 10:06 AM EDT, Mon April 15, 2024


CNN — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from Black Lives Matters organizer DeRay Mckesson, letting stand a lower court’s decision that some critics fear could wind up limiting the First Amendment rights of Americans to organize protests against the government and police.

The upshot is that Mckesson’s case will return to a lower court for further review.

There were no noted dissents but Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote separately and said that lower courts would be able to take into account a separate First Amendment decision from the court last term that could work in Mckesson’s favor.

The Baton Rouge protest at issue in the case followed the 2016 killing of Alton Sterling, a Black resident shot and killed by police. Since then, protests erupted in cities across the nation – some of which turned violent – in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/15/politics/deray-mckesson-first-amendment-supreme-court/index.html