Supreme Court Protest Gets Massage Therapist 30 Hours in Custody

Political operative turned massage therapist Nikki Enfield spent 30 hours in police custody after disrupting Supreme Court oral arguments this week and would do it all over again.

“Democracy is a privilege and a responsibility and I just happen to be a person who is in a place and has life circumstances where this is a way I can contribute,” Enfield said Friday.

Enfield was one of three women who interrupted the start of arguments Nov. 2 to protest the court’s June decision that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. The court that day was hearing an unrelated case challenging the legality of tax penalties imposed for failing to report foreign bank accounts.

Enfield said she and her fellow protesters, Emily Paterson and Rolande Baker, decided to protest during a case of lesser interest rather than disrupting the court’s proceedings during the affirmative action cases two days earlier to avoid distracting from another social justice issue. It was also easier, logistically, to get a seat in the courtroom for a tax case than it was for the cases challenging the use of race in college admissions on Oct. 31, she said.

Enfield, who was last to stand and urge American women to vote, was immediately removed from the courtroom by police and taken to a court conference room in the belly of the Supreme Court building where she said she sat with her hands cuffed behind her back for hours with her fellow protesters. Enfield said she was then transported in a van for prisoners to an overheated jail cell where she was held overnight and had to sleep on a hard steel bed under a florescent yellow light that never turned off.

“I’m a renewed advocate for prison reform after this,” Enfield said, detailing how little water she was provided.

Enfield was charged with a misdemeanor and now faces up to 60 days in jail and a $5,000 fine for violating a federal law that prohibits people from uttering loud, threatening, or abusive language in the Supreme Court building or grounds.

The Supreme Court has seen occasional outbursts in recent years, and this incident was the first since 2015.

Enfield described herself as a Democratic operative who worked on a couple of presidential campaigns and at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for a campaign cycle. She now owns her own massage therapy business in Alexandria, Va.

“You can take the girl out of politics, but you can’t take politics out of the girl,” said Enfield, who has been arrested for protesting before. During Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, she was arrested and charged $50.

Despite her experience, Enfield said she hopes she’s inspired others.

“The extremist judges really think they’ve had the final say on this matter,” she said. “They forgot we still, for the time being, live in a democracy and women, and our allies, have this one real final chance in this moment to vote and save our fundamental right to control our own bodies.”