The Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters near their home in 2020. Mark McCloskey—a Republican who is running for a US Senate seat—and his wife are both lawyers, and the Missouri Supreme Court agreed to place sanctions on their law licenses earlier this year, USA Today reports. A suspension requested by state's Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel was put on hold contingent on their completion of a year of probation, reports CNN.
The McCloskeys were found guilty of misdemeanors but were pardoned by Gov. Mike Parsons. Missouri's top court decided that the convictions were crimes of "moral turpitude," warranting possible indefinite suspension of their law licenses. In their appeal, the couple argued that they had been "exercising lawful rights to bear arms in defense of their person, family, and home" and that the sanctions violated their Second Amendment rights.
The appeal noted that they had been pardoned by the governor—and praised by former President Donald Trump. Mark McCloskey tells the Hill that he's disappointed that the court declined to take the case. "I was hoping that they would find that a lawyer who's had a clean and spotless record for 37 years of practicing—that sanctioning them for doing no more than defending themselves would be a concept that they would take seriously and take under submission," he says. "But I wasn’t surprised." (Last month, the Missouri Supreme Court said the couple's pro bono work under the probation agreement should help the needy, not a right-wing group.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
