“What a huge debt this nation owes to its ‘troublemakers.’”

In New York yesterday, Judge Jed Rakoff denied a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against the police officers who arrested over 700 Occupy Wall Street demonstrators on the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2011. He begins his opinion by explaining the importance of protecting the civil rights of political protestors. He writes:

What a huge debt this nation owes to its “troublemakers.” From Thomas Paine to Martin Luther King, Jr., they have forced us to focus on problems we would prefer to downplay or ignore. Yet it is often only with hindsight that we can distinguish those troublemakers who brought us to our senses from those who were simply ... troublemakers. Prudence, and respect for the constitutional rights to free speech and free association, therefore dictate that the legal system cut all non-violent protesters a fair amount of slack.”

Garcia v. Bloomberg, 2012 WL 2045756 (S.D.N.Y. June 7, 2012).