The Court in McCullen v. Coakley had plenty of help offered to it — 28 amicus briefs were filed. Those submitting amicus briefs included the following groups:
- Cato Institute (Ilya Shapiro) for Petitioners
- American Center for Law & Justice (Jay Sekulow) for Petitioners
- Rutherford Institute (John W. Whitehead) for Petitioners
- Michigan & 11 other States (Bill Schuette) for Petitioners
- ACLU (Steven R. Shapiro) for Neither Party
- New York State, et al (Eric T. Schneiderman) for Respondents
- Planned Parenthood (Walter Dellinger) for Respondents
- American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, et al (Jack R. Bierig) for Respondents
- National League of Cities, et al (Mary Jean Dolan) for Respondents
- Anti-Defamation League, et al (Jeffrey S. Robbins) for Respondents
- National Abortion Federation, et al (Maria T. Vullo) for Respondents
That said, the Court elected to reference only one amicus brief, and it did so in Chief Justice John Roberts opinion.
The brief the Chief Justice found particularly useful was one filed by New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, a brief submitted on behalf of New York and 12 other states along with the territory of the Virgin Islands. The brief was submitted on behalf of the Respondents, who lost by way of a unanimous judgment.
The buffer zones burden substantially more speech than necessary to achieve the Commonwealth’s asserted interests. At the outset, we note that the Act is truly exceptional: Respondents and their amici identify no other State with a law that creates fixed buffer zones around abortion clinics. [fn to NY et al amicus brief] That of course does not mean that the law is invalid. It does, however, raise concern that the Commonwealth has too readily forgone options that could serve its interests just as well, without substantially burdening the kind of speech in which petitioners wish to engage.
And then later in the opinion, the New York amicus brief was also tapped to help defeat the case for the Respondents:
If Massachusetts determines that broader prohibitions along the same lines are necessary, it could enact legislation similar to the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994 (FACE Act), 18 U. S. C. §248(a)(1), which subjects to both crimi nal and civil penalties anyone who “by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intim idate or interfere with any person because that person is or has been, or in order to intimidate such person or any other person or any class of persons from, obtaining or providing reproductive health services.” Some dozen other States have done so. See Brief for State of New York et al. as Amici Curiae 13, and n. 6.