The U.S. Supreme Courtroom turned down a request on Monday to listen to an enchantment from a former New Mexico county commissioner who was faraway from workplace after participating within the Jan. 6 riots on the Capitol.
Couy Griffin, previously a commissioner in New Mexico’s Otero County and the founding father of “Cowboys for Trump,” was convicted in 2022 of trespassing on the Capitol. That very same yr, Mr. Griffin turned the primary public official in additional than a century to be disqualified due to a constitutional ban on insurrectionists holding workplace contained in a provision of the 14th Modification.
As is its customized, the courtroom gave no causes for turning away the enchantment. The order on Monday implies that Mr. Griffin will stay barred from working or holding public workplace in New Mexico.
The Supreme Courtroom declined to listen to Mr. Griffin’s enchantment two weeks after it mentioned Colorado couldn’t use that very same provision to cease former President Donald J. Trump from showing on the state’s presidential main poll. The Colorado Supreme Courtroom — taking up a case that was introduced by six Colorado voters — had dominated in December that Mr. Trump had engaged in rebel and was barred from holding public workplace.
In overturning that call, the 9 justices unanimously sided with Mr. Trump, saying states couldn’t bar presidential candidates from ballots, although there was disagreement among the many justices as to the scope of what the ruling ought to have addressed. The bulk mentioned that Congress was chargeable for imposing the supply towards federal officeholders and candidates.
In merely letting the New Mexico ban stand, the courtroom left some questions unresolved.
Mr. Griffin’s lawyer, Peter Ticktin, mentioned he believed the courtroom’s order means his shopper stays banned for all times from state and federal workplace. “This places Couy in a category of his personal,” Mr. Ticktin mentioned. “He’s the one American to have been faraway from workplace primarily based on the 14th Modification, and we wish to see if there’s a method to return to the courts of New Mexico in order that justice will be completed.”
He added: “Everyone knows that the continuing towards Couy was opposite to legislation now that the Supreme Courtroom determined the Trump case and defeated the try and have him taken off of the Colorado poll.”
Noah Bookbinder, president of Residents for Duty and Ethics in Washington, which introduced the case towards Mr. Griffin, mentioned that the courtroom “saved in place” the discovering that Jan. 6 was an rebel. “Now it’s as much as the states to satisfy their obligation underneath Part 3 to take away from workplace anybody who broke their oath by taking part within the Jan. 6 rebel,” he mentioned.
In a post on social media after the order, Mr. Griffin had his personal interpretation: “I’m formally barred through a courtroom order of working for every other workplace apart from the workplace of President. I ponder if that holds true to the workplace of Vice President?”
In a later put up, he mentioned that he had filed an enchantment on the charge of trespassing.
“It solely takes one card to carry the home down! Nonetheless praying for justice. Trump Card!!” Mr. Griffin wrote.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Griffin, an avowed denier of the 2020 election outcomes, burst by means of barricades on the Capitol, accompanied by a videographer, and addressed the group with a bullhorn. He didn’t enter the constructing.
For months earlier than the Jan. 6 riots, Mr. Griffin had attended Cease the Steal rallies and tried to recruit protesters to move to Washington, Decide Francis J. Mathew of the New Mexico District Courtroom wrote in his choice barring Mr. Griffin from future workplace.
In March of 2022, Decide Trevor N. McFadden, presiding within the Federal District Courtroom in Washington, discovered Mr. Griffin responsible of 1 misdemeanor depend of trespassing and acquitted him of one other cost of disorderly conduct. Mr. Griffin was sentenced to 14 days in jail.
Six months later, Decide Mathew issued his ruling — in response to a swimsuit filed by Residents for Duty and Ethics in Washington — that Mr. Griffin was to be faraway from workplace underneath Part 3 of the 14th Modification, which was adopted throughout the Reconstruction period in an try to dam members of the Confederacy from holding workplace.