The latest effort to force the U.S. Supreme Court to allow demonstrations on the court's marble plaza was dismissed by a Washington federal judge on Wednesday.

The challengers in the case, Payden-Travers v. Talkin, claimed the ban on demonstrations at the high court violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by burdening their religious rights to protest capital punishment with candlelight vigils. The plaintiffs, who have protested at the court in the past, claimed their beliefs dictate that they bear witness on court property, not on nearby public sidewalks. 

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District of Columbia said in her ruling that court regulations “do not 'substantially burden' plaintiffs' religious exercise.” Instead, she said, the ban on protests on the plaza “restrict only one of a multitude of means by which plaintiffs could engage in their religiously motivated activity.”