The top Maryland district court judge has banned masks and any paraphernalia depicting the “Thin Blue Line,” a symbol of support for police, in state courthouses.
Chief Justice John Morrissey on Thursday wrote in an email announcing the ban that the symbol was creating “an issue of perceived bias” in the justice system. The order applies to anyone working in the state’s 34 federal district courts and to visitors.
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“The Judiciary must maintain itself as an unbiased and independent branch of Maryland state government,” Morrissey wrote in an email first obtained by the Baltimore Sun. “Employees of the District Court wearing any clothing item or apparel which promotes or displays a logo, sticker, pin, patch, slogan, or sign which may be perceived as showing bias or favoritism to a particular group of people could undermine the District Court’s mission of fair, efficient, and effective justice for all and call into question the Judiciary’s obligation to remain impartial and unbiased.”
Morrissey’s explanation came after a public defender complained in a letter that the Thin Blue Line, a symbol associated with police throughout much of the 20th century, was “associated at times with white supremacist groups.”
“The wearing of this mask politicizes a space that is, at its core, supposed to be the very essence of fairness and impartiality,” Maryland Public Defender Paul DeWolfe wrote. “To allow these masks to be worn by courtroom staff during the hearings and trials of our clients, a large swath of them Black, denies to them the appearance that their hearing is being conducted fairly and without bias.”
The Thin Blue Line has become controversial in the past several years, as it is often raised in opposition to Black Lives Matter symbols. In April, police in the Minneapolis suburb Brooklyn Center stirred outrage after an officer raised the Thin Blue Line flag at the police station amid protests following the police shooting of Daunte Wright.
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The symbol was also controversial in Maryland in 2019 after local elected officials attempted to ban the Thin Blue Line from police stations. Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan objected, calling the move offensive. Hogan later tweeted a picture of himself standing in support of a Thin Blue Line flag.
“We are proud to hang these Thin Blue Line flags in Government House to honor our brave law enforcement officers,” Hogan wrote. “A local elected official prohibiting police from displaying a flag given to them by a grateful child is disgraceful.”
