Georgia high court upholds dismissal of lawsuit over protests at state Capitol

October 31st, 2024

Then-Georgia State Sen. Nikema Williams, D- Atlanta, talks to a colleague on the floor of the Georgia State Senate Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore

Georgia’s highest court on Thursday upheld a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Democratic U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, Democratic State Rep. Park Cannon and several others who were arrested while protesting at the Georgia Capitol.

Williams, who was a state senator at the time, was among 15 people arrested in November 2018 while calling for uncounted ballots to be tallied. Unofficial election results at the time showed Republican Brian Kemp with a slim lead over Democrat Stacey Abrams in the race for governor, but Abrams maintained that enough uncounted absentee, mail-in and provisional ballots remained to force a runoff. Kemp was ultimately declared the winner and became governor.

Separately, Cannon was arrested March 25, 2021, after knocking on the door of the governor’s office as he made livestreamed comments in support of a sweeping new election law he’d just signed.

Williams and Cannon, both Democrats, and several others sued the Georgia Department of Public Safety officers who were involved in the arrests or who they said were responsible for enforcement decisions. They argued that the law used to arrest them violated free-speech protections in the Georgia Constitution and is unconstitutionally vague. They also argued that the law was unconstitutionally used on them because they had no intention to disrupt a session of the General Assembly and did not do so.

A Fulton County superior court judge dismissed those claims. The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously upheld that dismissal.

Justice John Ellington wrote in the opinion that the allegations in the lawsuit were not sufficient to support a declaration that the law “is facially unconstitutionally overbroad or vague under Georgia law.”

“Construed according to their plain and unambiguous terms, these provisions do not prohibit a substantial amount of protected speech relative to their plainly legitimate sweep of prohibiting conduct likely to prevent or disrupt legislative business,” Ellington wrote.

Presiding Justice Nels Peterson wrote a concurring opinion that identified constitutional problems with the law, saying “the State should not confuse this limited victory with a clean bill of health for the statute.”

“The statute is seriously flawed. Those charged with its enforcement should take care to avoid those flaws, and the General Assembly should seriously consider revising it,” he wrote.