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Alan Dershowitz Predicts How Don Lemon Case Will End

Alan Dershowitz Predicts How Don Lemon Case Will End (Screenshot/Newsmax)

Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Friday on Newsmax that the Don Lemon criminal case is unlikely to result in a conviction.

Federal agents arrested Lemon Thursday night in Los Angeles, and a judge ordered his release without bond the following day. Dershowitz said on “The Record with Greta Van Susteren” that the First Amendment offers broad protections to journalists, even in volatile protest settings, and prosecutors would need far more than footage to secure a guilty verdict.

“So this is complex, but my prediction is it will not end in a criminal conviction for Don Lemon,” Dershowitz told host Greta Van Susteren.

Dershowitz said prosecutors would face a steep burden proving criminal liability, arguing that while certain actions could strip a journalist of First Amendment protection, the available evidence does not show Lemon crossed that legal line.

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“It may cross the line of journalistic ethics. But there’s an enormous difference between violating journalistic ethics, if he did,” Dershowitz added. “I’m not sure he did, but if he did in this case, and being able to have proof beyond reasonable doubt that he was a co-conspirator and somebody who was complicit in the illegal violations.”

Dershowitz said the case surrounding Lemon presents legal and historical complexities.

“It’s a hard case even for the protesters. Martin Luther King protested in churches. Of course, he was willing to accept the consequences. He went to the Birmingham jail and wrote one of the most beautiful letters ever written from a president,” Dershowitz said. “These guys are not Martin Luther King. And so they’re more like, in some ways, the people who are trying to prevent integration in the South in the 1960s and preventing federal agents from desegregating the South.”

Federal prosecutors charged Lemon with two counts, including conspiracy to violate constitutional rights and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, according to an unsealed grand jury indictment cited by CNN. The FACE Act prohibits the use of force, threats, or physical obstruction to intentionally interfere with someone’s First Amendment right to practice religion.

Lemon said he acted as a journalist while covering the Jan. 18 incident in which anti-ICE rioters stormed Cities Church in St. Paul. He later published footage of the disruption on his YouTube channel. Lemon arrived about 40 minutes into a Sunday livestream. While he denied knowing the church was the group’s destination, his early comments suggested he knew where the protesters were heading.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Newsmax)