{"id":1906847,"date":"2023-03-29T20:41:05","date_gmt":"2023-03-30T00:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/doj-memos-dissuaded-marshals-from-arresting-protestors-at-scotus-justices-homes-sen-britt\/"},"modified":"2023-03-29T20:44:41","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T00:44:41","slug":"doj-memos-dissuaded-marshals-from-arresting-protestors-at-scotus-justices-homes-sen-britt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/doj-memos-dissuaded-marshals-from-arresting-protestors-at-scotus-justices-homes-sen-britt\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ Memos Dissuaded Marshals From Arresting Protestors at SCOTUS Justices\u2019 Homes: Sen. Britt"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdoj-memos-dissuaded-marshals-from-arresting-protestors-at-scotus-justices-homes-sen-britt%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1906847&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"post_content\">\n<div class=\"aplayer_app\" data-source=\"https:\/\/vs1.youmaker.com\/assets\/2023\/0329\/86a32585-9ae3-4ec2-8144-c7a7632405b0\/audio.mp3?length=3735981&#038;duration=311\"><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>A Senate Republican revealed during a March 28 budget hearing that an internal Department of Justice (DOJ) memo dissuaded U.S. Marshals from arresting protestors in violation of laws against picketing the homes of judges.<\/p>\n<p>The materials revealed during the hearing show that U.S. Marshals were explicitly directed to not arrest protestors at the homes of Supreme Court (SCOTUS) justices.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople want justice to be blind,\u201d said freshman Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who unveiled the findings during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.<\/p>\n<p>Section 1507 of the U.S. Code prohibits the picketing of SCOTUS justices or other federal judges to change the outcome of a legal case. But when protestors demonstrated at the homes of conservative justices to protest their leaked abortion decision in June 2022,\u00a0U.S. Marshals made few arrests in connection to the statute.<\/p>\n<p>This wasn\u2019t a mistake, Britt revealed. Rather, she showed that a DOJ memo had directly dissuaded agents from making arrests on the basis of Section 1507, instructing them to arrest protestors only as a \u201clast resort\u201d to protect the justices.<\/p>\n<p>Section 1507 explicitly prohibits \u201cpicketing\u201d or \u201cparading\u201d near the residences of judges or justices in order to influence the outcome of a case.<\/p>\n<p>A few weeks ago,\u00a0U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland fielded questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on his agency\u2019s failure to prosecute those picketing the homes of justices.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4462190\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><\/noscript> Pro-abortion protesters outside the home of U.S. Associate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in Chevy Chase, Md., on May 11, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>During that and other testimony, Garland has insisted that the decision to arrest protestors lies with U.S. Marshals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cU.S. Marshals have the authority to arrest anyone under that statute or any other federal statute,\u201d Garland said. \u201cThe attorney general does not make the decision to arrest. The Marshals on the scene\u2014they do make the decision of whether to arrest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Britt said the newly uncovered materials used to train Marshals to protect the homes of SCOTUS justices show that they were \u201cactively discouraged\u201d from making arrests on grounds of this statute.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose materials show that the Marshals likely didn\u2019t make any arrests because they were actively discouraged from doing so,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The training materials told the Marshals \u201cto avoid, unless absolutely necessary, any criminal enforcement action involving the protestors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Marshals were also told that \u201cmaking arrests and initiating prosecutions is\u00a0not\u00a0the goal of the [Marshal Service] presence at SCOTUS residences.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe \u2018not\u2019 is actually italicized and underlined,\u201d Britt noted.<\/p>\n<p>The next slide of the training stated \u201cnot to engage in protest-related enforcement actions, beyond those that were strictly and immediately necessary and tailored to ensure the physical security of the justices.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Marshals were also explicitly instructed to not enforce Section 1507, as training materials informed them that there \u201cmay be a First Amendment right\u201d to protest at the homes of SCOTUS justices.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRegardless, any arrests of protestors are a last resort to prevent physical harm to the justices or their families,\u201d the training materials read.<\/p>\n<h2>Garland Claims Ignorance<\/h2>\n<p>Garland also appeared before the panel on March 28 to testify on behalf of the DOJ for President Joe Biden\u2019s proposed budget.<\/p>\n<p>When grilled about the training materials, Garland claimed that he had never seen them before.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Attorney General, were you, at any point before your testimony in front of the Judiciary Committee, aware of these training materials or the fact that the Marshals had been heavily discouraged from making arrests under Section 1507?\u201d Britt asked.<\/p>\n<p>Garland said, \u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve seen this slide.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5094881\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><\/noscript> U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 1, 2023. (Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But Garland said despite appearances to the contrary, Marshals were still theoretically permitted to make arrests.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[The Marshals\u2019] first and principle job is to protect the lives and property of the members of the court,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Garland also said he was the first attorney general to ever order the Marshals to protect the homes of SCOTUS justices.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s their first priority,\u201d he said, \u201cbut that doesn\u2019t mean they are in any way precluded from bringing other kinds of arrests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Britt concluded her questioning with a plea for Garland to look into the issue and amend his comments to the Judiciary Committee if needed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s nothing to amend because I\u2019ve never seen those slides,\u201d Garland said.<\/p>\n<p>Britt said, \u201cIt\u2019s clear the Marshals were given a different directive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Garland has faced allegations of directing the DOJ to partisan ends from House Republicans, who are currently mounting a probe into the weaponization of the federal government. Critics have said that Garland didn\u2019t enforce Section 1507 because of sympathy with the protestors\u2019 left-wing positions; Garland has continuously claimed that he has no influence over arrests.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Senate Republican revealed during a March 28 budget hearing that an internal Department of Justice (DOJ) memo dissuaded U.S. Marshals from arresting protestors in violation of laws against picketing the homes of judges. The materials revealed during the hearing show that U.S. Marshals were explicitly directed to not arrest protestors at the homes of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":1906848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[22222,6135,22981,7076,5966,8744,20022,16835,7891,6994,7025],"class_list":["post-1906847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times","tag-arresting","tag-britt","tag-dissuaded","tag-doj","tag-homes","tag-justices","tag-marshals","tag-memos","tag-protestors","tag-scotus","tag-sen"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1906847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1906848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1906847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1906847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1906847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}