Supreme Court denies review to New Mexico official barred from office for insurrection

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court declined to review a challenge on Monday brought by a former New Mexico county commissioner who was removed from office for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Couy Griffin, the former Otero County commissioner, was disqualified from holding federal office in September 2022 under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment for breaking his oath of office and engaging in an insurrection.

Griffin’s removal marked the first time since 1869 that a court had disqualified an official using the Civil War-era statute, and the first time a court had ruled the Capitol riot was an insurrection.

The statute aimed to disqualify any individual who had engaged in insurrection — at the time focused on members of the Confederacy — from holding federal office, civil or military, after they had previously sworn to uphold the Constitution. 

The case comes just two weeks after the justices ruled unanimously in favor of Donald Trump and found that the Colorado Supreme Court was wrong to remove the former president from the state’s primary ballot. In an unsigned opinion, the justices declined to decide whether Trump had engaged in insurrection. 

A majority of the justices held that Congress, not the states, had the power to enforce Section 3 and disqualify candidates from federal office by passing legislation. 

“Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the states, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse,” the court wrote in a per curiam opinion. 

In a separate opinion, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson worried that the court’s decision reached well beyond the case at hand, effectively insulating Trump from future controversy.

Griffin, the founder of the political action committee Cowboys for Trump, was present at the Capitol riot where he climbed a stone wall outside the Capitol building and stood under the inaugural stage in a restricted area for more than an hour during the riot. 

The Justice Department charged him with two misdemeanor offenses: entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct in a restricted building. 

He was found guilty of entering restricted grounds at a bench trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He was sentenced to 14 days in prison — receiving credit for time served between his Jan. 17, 2021, arrest and Feb. 5, 2021, release on bond — and fined $3,000 by U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Donald Trump appointee.

McFadden dismissed the disorderly conduct charge, finding that Justice Department prosecutors had failed to prove he had done anything more than “entering the area.”

Following his conviction, Citizens for Responsibility in Washington — the same group that brought the Colorado disqualification case to the Supreme Court — and New Mexico residents filed suit to bar Griffin from office. 

New Mexico District Court Judge Francis Mathew, appointed by former New Mexico Governor Susanna Martinez, ruled in September 2022 that Griffin had betrayed his oath to support the Constitution by participating in the Capitol riot. 

Griffin appealed Mathew’s decision to the New Mexico Supreme Court, which dismissed his claim, ruling he had failed to follow proper appellate procedure. Griffin then appealed to the Supreme Court. 

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Griffin reacted to the high court's decision not to take up his case.

"Very disappointed. I don't even know what to say," Griffin said, thanking his followers for their support.

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