Post misrepresents 2022 Supreme Court fence video as new | Fact check

The claim: Video from June 2024 shows fence around U.S. Supreme Court building

A June 17 Facebook video (direct link, archive link) shows a tall, black, temporary fence wrapping around the building that houses the nation’s highest court.

“Fences going up around the Supreme Court – looks like they know they’re going to be (expletive) some people off in short time,” reads the post’s caption. “Expect SCOTUS opinions this Thursday & Friday.”

Versions of the claim on Instagram received hundreds of likes in less than a day before they were deleted. Similar versions were also shared widely on X, formerly Twitter, including by conservative commentator Benny Johnson, before they were deleted.

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Our rating: False

The video is from 2022 and shows the fence constructed in response to protests of the court’s leaked draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Fence video is from 2022, shows response to Roe v. Wade protests

As of mid-June, the Supreme Court had yet to issue opinions on cases covering subjects ranging from abortion to former President Donald Trump’s immunity claim. Those are expected either in late June or early July, before the term ends and the court’s summer recess begins.

But the claim in the post is false. The video is not new and does not show preparations for a public response to any of those rulings. Rather, the video is from 2022 and shows the temporary fence erected after protests that followed the leak of the justices’ draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

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The video was posted in May 2022 by a reporter for the Washington news radio station WTOP-FM. Workers installed the 8-foot, nonscalable fence May 5, 2022, according to an Associated Press story posted to the station’s website.

While some images posted to X by reporters on June 17 and June 18 show a different type of barricade in place known as bike rack fencing, none resemble the one shown in the video.

The post also claims the court is expected to issue opinions June 20 and June 21. That lines up with both a New York Times report saying court officials would not release any decisions until that day and a calendar published by the website SCOTUSblog.

But contrary to the suggestion in the post that a forthcoming opinion requires preemptive action of that nature, release dates for specific rulings are not made public ahead of time, a Supreme Court expert told USA TODAY.

“The court does not announce how many decisions it will release or which ones, unless it's the last day of the term, when you can guess by process of elimination,” said Amy Howe, an attorney and SCOTUSBlog reporter who formerly taught Supreme Court litigation at Stanford and Harvard law schools. “There’s no official reason to believe that a specific decision is coming.”

The Supreme Court has been the subject of misinformation on social media. USA TODAY has previously debunked false claims that the court declared vaccines “unavoidably safe” and that former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann attacked three female justices in a profane social media post.

USA TODAY reached out to several social media users who shared the claim but did not receive any responses that addressed the topic.

Our fact-check sources:

• Amy Howe, June 18, Email exchange with USA TODAY
• Mitchell Miller, May 5, 2022, X post
• The Associated Press (WTOP-FM), May 5, 2022, Supreme Court and Politico boost security
• Katie Barlow, June 18, X post
• Andrew Leyden, June 17, X post
• Daniel Barnes, June 17, X post
• The New York Times, June 14, Supreme Court’s Leisurely Pace Will Produce Pileup of Late June Rulings
• SCOTUSBlog, accessed June 18, Calendar of events
• U.S. Courts, accessed June 18, Supreme Court Procedures

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