Supreme Court won’t hear appeal over gun-waving McCloskeys’ law licenses
The St. Louis couple seen waving guns from their front lawn as Black Lives Matter protesters passed by in June 2020 had their appeal to the Supreme Court rebuffed Monday, leading to the possible suspension of the couple’s law licenses.
Personal injury attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey had hoped the highest court in the land would intervene after the state of Missouri’s Supreme Court placed them on a one-year suspension. The court had agreed to suspend the McCloskeys’ licenses indefinitely, but stayed those suspensions in February. The couple was also ordered to provide 100 hours of fee legal service.
The Supreme Court opted not to hear the pair’s appeal.
“I was a little disappointed because I thought that the concept of a lawyer being sanctioned for doing no more than just defending himself and exercising his Second Amendment rights would be an issue that the Supreme Court might find significant,” McCloskey said, according to the Associated Press.
In this photo, armed homeowners Mark and Patricia McCloskey, stand in front their house confronting protesters marching to St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson's house in the Central West End of St. Louis on June 28, 2020. (Laurie Skrivan/)
The couple, who joined the bar in 1986, had said they felt threatened when protests broke out in June 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and marchers walked past their home. Mark McCloskey was seen in photos holding an AR-15-style rifle, while his wife waved a pistol at the demonstrators. They did not fire any shots.
Mark McCloskey, who is a candidate for the U.S. Senate, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge in June 2021, at which time Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment.
Missouri’s governor later pardoned the pair, who became conservative celebrities following their confrontation with protesters marching past their St. Louis mansion en route to the mayor’s home.
The pair was invited to address the Republican National Committee by video in 2020 when the Republican party announced its endorsement of former president Donald Trump.
“Not a single person in the out-of-control mob that you saw at our house was charged with a crime,” Mark McCloskey grumbled during that speech. “But you know who was? We were.”
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The McCloskeys pleaded their felony charges down to misdemeanor counts. Noting those pleas, the state’s chief disciplinary counsel asked in September that the McCloskeys be suspended from practicing law on the grounds of “moral turpitude” and “indifference to public safety.”
With News Wire Services
