Posted on 11/30/2005 10:40:39 AM PST by Pyro7480
Court Considers Limits to Abortion Protests
By TONI LOCY, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - A nearly 20-year old legal fight over protests outside abortion clinics returned to the Supreme Court for the third time Wednesday, with anti-abortion groups arguing that they should be able to demonstrate without fear of lawsuits and large damage awards.
Two years ago, the high court said there was no basis for using federal extortion and racketeering laws to ban demonstrations by anti-abortion leader Joseph Scheidler and others. An appeals court subsequently ruled a nationwide injunction may be supported on other legal grounds, and the protesters brought the case back to the Supreme Court.
Most of the justices did not seem miffed that a lower court had kept the case alive. But several of them, including new Chief Justice John Roberts, seemed intent on finding a way to issue a narrow ruling and avoid making sweeping changes to existing federal laws covering extortion and violence.
Justice John Paul Stevens appeared willing to concede the possibility that the court in 2003 had "overlooked" four jury findings involving threats of violence by the protesters. He even joked that the justices may not have known "what we were doing."
But Justices Antonin Scalia and David Souter questioned why the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had not allowed the case to end with the high court's reversal and lifting of the injunction.
Instead, the appeals court asked a trial judge to determine whether protesters can be sued for making threats of violence and whether such an offense must occur in connection with robbery or extortion.
Justice Stephen Breyer said allowing threats of violence to be charged as stand-alone crimes — without a link to robbery or extortion — would create a massive change in federal law covering crime and labor activity.
In an unusual alliance, social activists and unions are siding with the anti-abortion protesters because they worry their efforts to change public policy or agitate for better wages could be targeted by similar lawsuits and injunctions.
Breyer said such an interpretation would "transform virtually every threat of violence anywhere in the United States into a serious federal crime ... and at least would make a major change in threats of violence on the picket line."
The legal battle began in 1986, when protests at abortion clinics were becoming increasingly violent. The National Organization for Women and two abortion clinics filed a class-action lawsuit challenging tactics used by the Pro-Life Action Network to block women from entering abortion clinics.
NOW's legal strategy was novel at the time, relying on civil provisions of the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which was used predominantly in criminal cases against organized crime. The lawsuit also relied on the Hobbs Act, a 55-year-old law banning extortion.
In 1998, a Chicago jury found that anti-abortion protesters had engaged in a pattern of racketeering by interfering with clinic operations, menacing doctors, assaulting patients and damaging clinic property.
A federal judge issued a nationwide injunction banning blockades and other violence that remains in effect because of the appellate court's action. Protesters were not barred from praying or engaging in other peaceful activity on public property near clinics.
In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that because the protesters had not extorted money or valuables from the clinics, there was no basis for a racketeering violation or the injunction. But the appeals court asked a trial court to determine whether the jury verdict on four counts of making threats of violence could be considered separate crime that could support the ban.
Lisa Blatt, an assistant solicitor general, argued that no defendant has ever been convicted of an act of violence under the Hobbs Act that didn't relate to a robbery or extortion.
The AFL-CIO and anti-death penalty activists filed friend-of-the-court briefs opposing NOW's legal position.
Edward McGlynn Gaffney Jr., a Valparaiso University law professor representing religious groups and animal rights activists, wrote that NOW's position "represents a profound threat to Americans who love this country enough to want to change social policies they deem to fall short of the capacity of our society for human compassion and social justice."
The cases are Scheidler v. NOW, 04-1244, and Operation Rescue v. NOW, 04-1352
Blocking abortion mills is "violent"? I guess those who blocked diners who kept segregated counters were "violent" too.
The AFL-CIO and anti-death penalty activists filed friend-of-the-court briefs opposing NOW's legal position.
Edward McGlynn Gaffney Jr., a Valparaiso University law professor representing religious groups and animal rights activists, wrote that NOW's position "represents a profound threat to Americans who love this country enough to want to change social policies they deem to fall short of the capacity of our society for human compassion and social justice."
Liberals siding with pro-lifers against other liberals!? The sky is falling!
Pro-life ping!
"Court Considers Limits to Abortion Protests" should read
"Court Considers Limits to First Amendment".
In the late 90's I was approached to sign a petition to set-up "buffer zones" around abortion clinics. I responded that I valued everyone's freedom of speech, not just hers.
Are they part of this filing then?
Remember:
Chopping up little kids into pieces = nonviolent.
Complaining about the chopping up of little kids into pieces = violent.
No-This case against Joe is different.
There's a fince line between freedom of speech and infringing on others' rights to go about their legal activities. If a militant gay activist group insisted on staging demonstrations of scantily clad same-sex couples kissing on the sidewalks approaching an evangelical Christian Church every Sunday morning, and shouting out slogans and waving signs about how wonderful their lifestyle is and how evil the church's teachings are, so that worshippers and their children had to pass through this and see and listen to it all in order to get into the church, would that be okay? I think not. And I think the vile Fred Phelps and his followers should have been shut down a long time ago. The First Amendment was never intended to confer a right to systematically harass people.
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