U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear Washington COVID-19 speech case

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(The Center Square) – The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case over whether the government can discipline doctors for what they say publicly.

The case, Stockton v. Brown, challenged the Washington Medical Commission and the Washington Attorney General over its COVID-19 information policies. 

Two doctors who filed the lawsuit were disciplined by the Washington state government for "unprofessional conduct" after they said vaccines were unsafe, COVID-19 tests are inaccurate and alternative treatments, like ivermectin, are effective, according to a brief filed to the high court. 

"Physicians 'who generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation or disinformation are risking disciplinary action by state medical boards,'" the Washington attorney general's office wrote. 

The attorney general also argued that the state did not engage in mass harm by disciplining the doctors. They asserted granting relief in the case would open the door to wide-ranging First Amendment challenges. 

"The court pointed to 'strong indicators that the claim is not ripe,' including that it 'involves hypothetical, future prosecutions, largely against unnamed and unknown doctors' engaged in unknown speech and subject to unknown discipline," lawyers for Washington wrote. 

John Stockton, a former NBA player, wrote a letter to the high court on April 6 urging the justices to take up the case. He pointed to Chiles v. Salazar, a case where the Supreme Court upheld a Colorado therapist's ability to engage in talk therapy for clients with unwanted same-sex desires or gender dysphoria. 

Stockton said discipline against the doctors would violate First Amendment protections afforded to medical professionals. 

"The state has no legitimate interest in enforcing an unconstitutional program of viewpoint-based discipline against physicians for their public speech," a lawyer for Stockton wrote. 

In a brief order, the nation's highest court denied the petition and will leave in place a lower court's order upholding the disciplinary action and COVID-19 information policies.