C&P's Greg Lipper Quoted in NBC News Report on Federal Indictments of Protesters

Our partner Greg Lipper is quoted in Friday’s recent NBC article about how the Department of Justice has brought criminal rioting charges against protesters—without any evidence that the charged individuals were involved in any actual rioting or violence, and based solely on information from posts on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. The posts included a rudimentary napalm recipe that is widely available online and a tweet joking that its author is a local head of antifa.

Because these charges appear to be brought without the showing—required by the Supreme Court’s First Amendment decisions—that the speakers were “inciting or producing imminent lawless action,” the Justice Department has already dropped several of the cases. But as Greg points out, even indictments that later dismissed chill protected speech and thus have the effect of censoring vigorous advocacy:

Once the indictment happens, maybe the person is eventually cleared but it can be a long and expensive and scary process. Even an unsuccessful indictment is chilling someone’s speech.

Greg is an experienced criminal and First Amendment lawyer, and he represents protesters at trial and on appeal. Last fall he was co-counsel in a criminal jury trial on behalf of a Senate protester; he recently represented an individual charged with trespassing on White House property; and he currently represents, in a criminal appeal, a prominent anti-poverty protester who was arrested for protesting the policies and record of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. He has filed dozens of briefs in Supreme Court cases, including many in criminal, civil-rights, and First Amendment. And earlier in his career, he represented the Newspaper Association of America in seeking enactment of a federal reporters-privilege law and conducted pre-publication review of TV local news reports across the country.

Clinton & Peed remains committed to representing protesters, activists, and journalists—whether in criminal cases resulting from First Amendment activity, in civil-rights cases challenging restrictions on speech, and in non-litigation matters requiring advice or advocacy.