‘Hands off our courts': S.F. lawyers protest Trump attacks on judges, attorneys

San Francisco Chronicle​

02-05-2025

One sign said, 'I (heart) the Constitution.' Another quoted Thomas Paine in 1776: 'In America the law is king.' A third riffed on President Donald Trump's MAGA slogan — it read, 'Making America Greatly Ashamed' — and called for Trump's impeachment.
They were on view Thursday as about 1,000 lawyers and supporters gathered outside the federal courthouse on Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco for a rally to commemorate Law Day, a national observance since 1958 that is typically low-key, and support the law firms and judges Trump has attacked for litigating and ruling against him. It was sponsored by the Bar Association of San Francisco and was one of more than 40 such events held nationwide.
The goal was 'to sound an alarm for our system of government,' Charles Jung, president of the 5,000-member bar association, told the gathering. 'We are the last line of defense that shields against tyranny,' he said, before leading the lawyers in chants of 'Hands off our courts' and 'If lawyers fear, our rights disappear.'
Lawyers have sometimes held small educational sessions to mark Law Day in San Francisco, but Thursday marked 'the first-of-its-kind national mobilization,' Jung said afterward.
Trump has come under fire in the legal community for his responses to unfavorable court rulings. He has described judges who rule against his administration as 'radical Marxist lunatics' and called for their impeachment. In some cases he has appeared to defy their orders, ignoring a judge's command to return planeloads of Venezuelan immigrants who were being flown to El Salvador.
On Thursday, another federal judge, Fernando Rodriguez Jr. of Texas, a Trump appointee, ruled that the president had illegally relied on a 1798 law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport Venezuelan migrants based on unsubstantiated claims that they belonged to a gang that was invading the United States.
Teresa Statler, an immigration lawyer from Portland who flew to San Francisco for the rally, cited the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant who was deported in what the Trump administration admitted was a bureaucratic error. The Supreme Court has told the administration to enable his return but it has not done so.
'The government must obey the law and facilitate his return, which is not happening,' Statler said in an interview.
Nearby, Emily Murphy, a law professor at UC College of the Law in San Francisco, held up a sign that read, 'Due Process, Not Disappearances.'
Trump has also targeted law firms that have opposed him in court, ordering their government contracts canceled and barring their attorneys from entering federal courthouses. At least nine firms have avoided those penalties by agreeing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on legal work that Trump supports, but four other firms — cheered at Thursday's rally — have fought him in court and won rulings blocking the sanctions.
Another sign displayed by Christen Somerville, a San Francisco attorney, sought to remind her colleagues that history would judge their willingness to stand up for justice. It read, 'They will ask, Where were the lawyers? Where were the judges?'
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, a speaker at the rally, said this has been 'the most disturbing first 100 days of the presidency in our country's history,' citing Trump's 'war on transgender' people and his opposition to environmental protections. 'You are dismantling our government and our democracy,' he said.
The gathering also included former lawyers such as Lisa Lougee of San Francisco, who said tennis was her current pastime. Her sign showed a racket-holding tennis player with the message, 'Get Out of Our Courts.'