The Department of Justice today filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in support of a lawsuit by plaintiffs Ron Givens and Christine Bish, two individuals seeking to hold peaceful in-person protests of 500 to 1,000 people with social distancing on the grounds of the California State Capitol Building.
In its friend-of-the-court brief in the Ninth Circuit, the United States explains that the district court wrongly denied plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief against California’s total ban on peaceful protests. While States have broad authority to protect the public during the COVID-19 pandemic, the First Amendment does not give them carte blanche to ban peaceful public protests and rallies. The brief also explains that the real and legitimate national outcry over George Floyd’s tragic killing has shown the importance of peaceful public protests to maintaining our civic fabric—and has highlighted the extreme nature of a blanket protest ban in California. Going forward, it could raise First Amendment concerns if California were to hold other protests, such as those proposed by the plaintiffs in this lawsuit, to a different standard.
“Political speech in traditional public gathering spaces is at the core of the First Amendment’s protection of speech and assembly,” said Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband of the Civil Rights Division. “Moments of national trial reinforce the importance of the right of the people peaceably to speak and assemble. For more than two centuries, the First Amendment has endured, and it has helped preserve the United States of America as a beacon of hope and liberty for our people and for oppressed people all over the world. The right to protest government peacefully is at the heart of who we are as a people. Today’s filing by the Justice Department makes clear that the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and the rest of the Bill of Rights' protections remain in full force and effect at all times.”

More at: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/depar...ifornias-covid