Since the U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked early last month, there have been numerous protests outside some of the justice’s homes.
The concern for the justices also heightened last week as a man was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s residence after admitting to authorities that he was planning to assassinate the justice over the potential ruling on abortion.
Friday, during an appearance on Alabama Public Television’s “Capitol Journal,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall argued that President Joe Biden should “condemn” the protests and work with the Justice Department to shut them down.
“[M]aybe we can see an administration that now can condemn those protests themselves,” Marshall said, “to condemn these potential situations of violence and to allow for these justices to be able to make decisions free from those who are showing up at their home,”
He added. “We have a right to protest in this country, but yet that right to protest is still limited by reasonable restrictions that could be placed by governmental authorities, and this is one, it’s been criminalized at the federal level, and we need to make sure the federal government is enforcing the law.”
Marshall argued it was illegal to protest outside the residence of a Supreme Court justice and emphasized that the Biden administration should enforce the law.
“[W]hen we look at what has taken place with this arrest in D.C.,” he continued, “it should be incredibly disturbing to everybody because number one, Merrick Garland could have put his fingerprint directly on this by enforcing the law that exists. And we’ve already shown through the technology that the FBI has used in investigating those who were at the Capitol on January 6. We can figure out who was there to intimidate justices as a result of the leak of the opinion that’s coming out in the Mississippi case relating to Roe. v. Wade. There could be people arrested for violating federal law.”
He also argued that the Justice Department under Biden had the ability to shut down these illegal protests, but is simply deciding not to do so.
“They’ve not chosen to do it,” he said. “In fact, now they need to be able to understand it is important to go back and see what took place and are very strong in their efforts there. I mean, if they can send FBI agents to talk to parents that are showing up at school boards, we can do our job on those that are trying to intimidate Supreme Court justices and now potentially take their life.”
The attorney general also commented on the time he had protesters show up outside his home after he decided not to charge the officer who shot Emantic “E.J.” Bradford, Jr. in 2018.
“I did, yeah,” he responded. “Fortunately I was at church when they were there so they didn’t get to be there. In fact, they went to the wrong house to begin with, but I’ve experienced that personally and candidly it doesn’t do anything to impact my decision. I’m going to still do the right thing in the role that I play.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” Weekdays 9-11am on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
