Judge sentences abortion rights protesters who disrupted US Supreme Court

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(Reuters) – A federal judge in Washington, DC, on Friday sentenced three women to unsupervised probation and barred them from entering U.S. Supreme Court grounds during his 2023 term after interrupting the arguments last fall in protest at the High Court’s ruling overturning the national abortion law.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Emily Patterson, Nicole Enfield and Rolande Baker to unsupervised probation until June 30, 2023, after pleading guilty to breaking a law against offensive speech and speech in the building of the court.

“I don’t condone what has been done here, but I understand it,” Mehta told the women. He said the United States had “a history of civil disobedience that has changed the fabric of our nation.”

He said he believed the 30-hour detention of the women after their arrest would deter them and others from similar actions, but he said he had to legally impose a probation period in order to ban them access to court.

The women were arrested on November 2, 2022, after individually standing up and speaking out against the June abortion ruling, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health during closing arguments in an unrelated case, according to court documents and audio of the arguments.

Nationwide protests erupted after an interim version of the US Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case was leaked last April, and again after the court released its decision in June. The ruling left abortion regulation to individual states, reversing the 1973 court ruling in Roe v. Wade.

Federal prosecutors had requested a year’s probation for each of the defendants, as well as an order requiring them to stay away from the Supreme Court building and grounds in Washington.

At Friday’s sentencing, the three women said they accepted responsibility for their actions but believed they were part of the country’s history of nonviolent civil disobedience against “immoral” laws.

Baker’s attorney with the Federal Public Defender’s Office in DC argued that one year of probation was unfair compared to the shorter sentences given to people who pleaded guilty to storming the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021.

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Jacqueline Thomson

Thomson Reuters

Washington, DC-based Jacqueline Thomsen covers legal news related to politics, the courts, and the legal profession. Follow her on Twitter at @jacq_thomsen and email her at [email protected].

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