Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano suggested social distancing measures implemented by Democratic governors in states such as Michigan and New Jersey violate the law and trample civil liberties.
“This is a blatant violation of the Bill of Rights, a blatant violation of freedom of assembly, of your right to purchase a product that you decide is essential,” Napolitano said Thursday of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s new executive order. “These are not decisions for the government to make. These are decisions for individuals to make. And the sooner we take our freedoms back, the less likely the government will be able to continue doing this.”
Napolitano continued: “If we don’t take our freedoms back, they might not come back.”
Thousands of people gathered outside the Capitol building in Lansing, Michigan, on Wednesday for an event dubbed “Operation Gridlock,” which aimed to clog city streets and protest Whitmer’s recent executive orders issued to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Whitmer, last week, extended social distancing guidelines in Michigan through the end of April in addition to banning travel between residences and the sale of nonessential goods, including clothing, gardening seeds, and car seats.
“If you’re not buying food or medicine or other essential items, you should not be going to the store,” Whitmer said.
The governor said the protest, during which many participants did not practice social distancing, could contribute to a prolonged shutdown because people in attendance could have been spreading the virus.
“It wasn’t really about the stay-at-home order at all. It was essentially a political rally, a political statement that flies in the face of all of the science, all of the best practices in the stay-at-home order that was issued,” Whitmer said. “This was a political rally … that is going to endanger people’s lives because this is precisely how COVID-19 spreads.”
In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy said Wednesday night he “did not consider the Bill of Rights” when he implemented his state’s lockdown measures, which are less restrictive than those in Michigan, but ban large religious gatherings while designating liquor stores as “essential businesses.”
“And in the case of Gov. Murphy in New Jersey, who says the Bill of Rights is above his pay grade, that’s a felony of misconduct in office,” Napolitano said. “It’s an impeachable offense for a governor to either knowingly or negligently to crush civil liberties as these governors have done.”
Napolitano, who lives in New Jersey, claimed he has spoken with cops, who he said have told him they “hate what the governors are making them do.”
“Most of the cops that I have spoken to, their hearts are with the people,” he said.
As of Thursday morning, New Jersey has the second-most cases of the coronavirus with 71,000, and Michigan has the fourth-most with 27,000.
