Posted on 04/22/2002 9:52:20 AM PDT by ppaul
Justices to rule on use of anti-racketeering law in protests
WASHINGTON, April 22 — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to use a long-running lawsuit over violence and harassment outside abortion clinics to clarify how an anti-racketeering law applies to all manner of demonstrations and civil disobedience. The court also agreed to use a Tennessee killer’s death sentence to look at the fairness and appeal procedures of capital punishment cases.
THE COURT said it will consider appeals from Operation Rescue, anti-abortion leader Joseph Scheidler and others who were ordered to pay damages to abortion clinics and barred from interfering with their business for 10 years.
Federal courts found that the anti-abortion protesters illegally blocked clinic entrances, menaced doctors, patients and clinic staff and destroyed equipment during a 15-year campaign to limit or stop abortions at several clinics.
The case, which the Supreme Court will hear in the term that begins in the fall, raises raise broad free-speech questions about court treatment of political and social protest, as well as more arcane legal issues. Organizations as varied as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the anti-abortion Concerned Women for America asked the high court to step in.
“Social protest has a long and revered history in this nation,” lawyers for Operation Rescue wrote in court papers. “From the burning or hanging of effigies in colonial times, to the temperance activists’ disruption of taverns, to the civil rights and anti-war sit-ins of the 1960s and 1970s, demonstrations, even illegal ones, have been both an outlet for dissent and an instrument for social and legal change.”
GOING TOO FAR?
The high court will review whether the lower courts went too far in applying the federal Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act to anti-abortion activities.The Supreme Court has already ruled in the same case that the National Organization for Women and abortion clinics could sue the anti-abortion protesters under RICO. The question now is whether the law was used correctly.
For example, the court will look at whether clinic blockades and violence amount to extortion under the law. It will also consider whether RICO allows private groups or individuals to ask for the kind of far-reaching ban on future conduct issued in this case.
The court limited its review to two legal questions about application of the RICO statute and federal extortion law. It will not consider the legality or constitutionality of abortion itself, nor wider questions about the political or religious messages of the abortion protesters.
The court in 1992 reaffirmed the core holding of its landmark Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 - that women have a constitutional right to abortion.
TRESPASSING AND DESTRUCTION
A jury ruled against the abortion protesters in 1998, and a federal judge barred the defendants from trespassing, setting up blockades or behaving violently at abortion clinics for 10 years.
A Chicago-based federal appeals court last year rejected arguments that the Operation Rescue protesters were merely exercising freedom of speech.
“Protesters trespassed on clinic property and blocked access to clinics with their bodies, including at times chaining themselves in the doorways of clinics or to operating tables,” a unanimous, three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said.
“At other times, protesters destroyed clinic property, including putting glue in clinic door locks and destroying medical equipment used to perform abortions. On still other occasions, protesters physically assaulted clinic staff and patients.”
The National Organization for Women and abortion clinics in Milwaukee and Wilmington, Del., had sued anti-abortion organizations under federal racketeering law to combat what they described as violent tactics.
A jury ruled against the abortion protesters in 1998, and a federal judge barred the defendants from trespassing, setting up blockades or behaving violently at abortion clinics for 10 years. He also ordered them to pay $257,780 in damages.
Lawyers for NOW and two abortion clinics argued there is no reason for the Supreme Court to get involved now.
The anti-abortion defendants are masquerading as nonviolent political protesters, lawyers for NOW argued in court papers. The protesters exaggerated the free-speech ramifications of their case, and incorrectly painted the appeals court’s ruling as out of step with other courts, the NOW lawyers wrote.
The lower court decision does not hamper legitimate protests, such as peaceful picketing or handing out leaflets, the lawyers said.
The case, which began in 1986, traveled to the Supreme Court twice before. The court ruled unanimously in 1994 that protesters who block access to clinics or otherwise conspire to stop women from having abortions may be sued under the law created to fight the Mafia.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
The case of a Tennessee killer brought the court back to a subject that has troubled some of the justices, whether poor accused killers are being adequately represented.The man said he killed an alleged drug dealer to stop narcotics dealing to children.
At the heart of the case is whether inmates who discover new evidence can pursue appeals.
Justices had blocked Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman’s execution earlier this month. Other courts had ruled that it was too late for him to pursue his allegations that the state didn’t turn over evidence as it should have, made misleading statements and improperly prepared witnesses.
The court will decide if it was fair to stop his appeals.
Two jurors have said they would not have sentenced him to death had they known about his history of sexual and physical abuse and mental problems.
The Supreme Court is already reviewing several death row cases with major constitutional questions. They will decide before July whether states can execute the mentally retarded and whether it is constitutional for a judge, not a jury, to decide a death sentence. They will also say when convicted killers can bring up ineffective counsel claims.
The latest case, which will be heard in the court’s term which begins next fall, illustrates the court’s intensifying interest in capital cases.
Link to article: HERE.
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Our energies should be put where they can actually do some good. Help pregnant women who need it. If they felt they had a compassionate alternative they might choose it and become a pro-lifer in the process. It's a "one baby saved at a time" plan. Focus on who can be saved, not the hopelessly immoral. An abortion clinic, NOW, et al.. are making WAY too much money off this industry to ever consider the facts.
Who thinks we can make a difference more by shouting in front of an abortion clinic or by helping out pregnant women who need it, and their babies when the time comes?
I think it is very interesting that in 1989, when Operation Rescue began their work, the number of abortions performed began to go down. The protests were damaging the business of abortion. Most of the people I know who participated were also working at the pregnancy centers handing out baby clothes, putting moms up in their homes and finding jobs for them jobs if they needed one.
Most of the vandalizing that is done to abortion property is done by the owners of those properties. An ATF agent told me that they know when the pro-lifers are at it because they always go for the suction machines. I asked him if they find many of those and he said no, they usually find things that are that the owner can claim easily claim on his insurance.
Like the environmentalists. I've read about planting Lynx hair and clubbing salmon to create a head count shortage. Also, a milliom mom marcher was one who gave a gun to a school shooter. Another million mom shot a person she "felt" hurt her own son.
Anything to play victim and help their cause.
Darn liberals.
Bush will sign an Executive Order Banning abortion the same day he signs Campaign Finance Reform, supports Amnesty for Illegal Aliens and calls for a State of Palestine.
One can only hope.
What about laws that say "you can't protest against abortion"?
The case against Joe Scheidler amounts to saying, "Joe Scheidler protests abortion. Some abortion protests are violent, though we can't prove any involvement by Joe Scheidler or anyone who works for him in any of the violent protests. However, since Joe Scheidler protests abortion, and some abortion protests are violent, Joe Scheidler is a 'racketeer' who must be silenced."
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