Posted on 11/15/2019 12:55:40 PM PST by Morgana
FULL TITLE: BREAKING: Jury rules against Daleiden, pro-lifers who exposed Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby body parts
SAN FRANCISCO, California, November 15, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress undercover investigators have been found guilty of multiple crimes and must pay millions in damages to Planned Parenthood for the work they did in exposing organ harvesting on aborted babies.
The jury of nine men and one woman released its verdict Friday afternoon after deliberating less than two days, even though the landmark civil trial took six weeks.
The exact amount the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) investigators must pay in the civil suit has not yet been determined.
The case was heard by San Francisco’s U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick III, who has ties to Planned Parenthood, but refused to disqualify himself when defense requested him to do so.
CMP released videos in 2015 exposing Planned Parenthood’s apparently illegal trade in aborted baby body parts after a 30-month undercover operation.
The groundbreaking videos showed top-level Planned Parenthood executives haggling over prices of aborted baby body parts, and discussing how to change abortion procedures to obtain more intact organs, and sparked public outrage, congressional and senate hearings, and an ongoing Department of Justice criminal investigation into Planned Parenthood.
In the retaliatory lawsuit, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and 10 affiliates accused CMP project lead Daleiden, investigators Sandra Merritt and Adrian Lopez, and founding board members Albin Rhomberg and Troy Newman of Operation Rescue of multiple crimes, including illegal taping, fraud, and violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute in connection with CMP journalists going undercover at Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation conferences in 2014 and 2015.
They were seeking $630,000 in base damages and millions of dollars in punitive damages.
Lawyers for the CMP citizen journalists say they were hampered by Orrick ruling out a First Amendment defense.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t get Judge Orrick to back off from his insistence that the jury be instructed that the First Amendment … does not state any kind of defense to the charges in this case,” said Thomas Brejcha, founder of the Thomas More Society, in an update on the case last week.
“Which, frankly, we think is a terrible misreading of our fundamental constitutional laws about free speech,” he added.
Orrick instructed the jury Tuesday on points of law to consider when reaching their verdict.
The judge “had already found that the defendants trespassed when they attended, undercover, Planned Parenthood conferences in Miami and Orlando and met with Planned Parenthood executives at Planned Parenthood facilities in Colorado and Texas,” according to an Archdiocese of San Francisco report.
Orrick “instructed the jury to only concern themselves with the damages that the defendants are liable for that trespass, both punitive and actual,” it stated.
He also told the jury that the “defendants breached contracts with Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation and the jury should award damages because of those breaches,” the archdiocesan report stated.
In closing arguments by Planned Parenthood’s lawyers “pretty much called David and the other investigators every name in the book,” but principally “liars,” said defense lawyer Peter Breen, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, who referred to the case as “the blockbuster trial of the century.”
In four days on the witness stand, Daleiden testified he undertook the 30-month sting operation after reading testimony of the 2000 congressional hearings into illegal aborted baby body parts harvesting and seeing a 2000 ABC 20/20 exposé of a Planned Parenthood Kansas abortionist selling fetal organs for profit.
He also testified that he found a 2012 Circulation article citing StemExpress supplying human fetal hearts to Stanford for a study that, he was told, required the hearts be harvested from live babies.
Planned Parenthood’s lead counsel Rhonda Trotter “lied to the jury” in closing arguments by claiming Daleiden did not report Plaintiffs Planned Parenthood Orange & San Bernardino Counties or Planned Parenthood Mar Monte to law enforcement agencies, CMP reported.
“In fact, CMP had produced the reports to law enforcement in discovery in the case and Planned Parenthood has been aware of them for over a year,” CMP stated.
Daleiden and Merritt are also facing 14 felony counts of illegal taping under California’s anti-eavesdropping law. Judge Christopher Hite of the San Francisco Superior Court is expected to rule soon if there is sufficient evidence to proceed to trial.
Developing...
This is what happens when you try to do the right thing to expose atrocities in this country. Let’s just keep playing nice, folks.
.....Jury rules against Daleiden, pro-lifers .........in every case in front of any judge, ever.
The appeals courts are going to be busy this year.
I’m like
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When will PP be prosecuted for selling baby parts, if ever? (this being the real story that the “news” media never talk about)...
“The appeals courts are going to be busy this year.”
Oh please ramrod the appeals courts!
San Francisco... big surprise there..
I assume this us a civil case.
I wonder what the punitive damages could be based on?
As long as we’re allowing the courts to decide, never! About the only way this might change is if some PP leaders end up being black market body parts donors themselves.
Thanks for posting. _ _ _ _, liberty and the pursuit and destruction of evil.
Another example Mexifornia is satan’s new Sodom & Gomorrah.
This should be immediately appealed and ruled a mistrial as the judge is CLUELESS
Similar comment against Planned Butcherhood.
Baby body parts being sold without permission and unbeknownst to the public vs a hidden camera...
Hmmmm parts of dead babies being sold for profit
A hidden camera used to reveal that to the world
Hmmmm parts of dead babies being sold for profit
A hidden camera used to reveal that to the world
Hmmmm parts of dead babies being sold for profit
A hidden camera used to reveal that to the world
Gosh that's tough one. /s
Oh - it’s California. This was another stasi show trial bereft or law or judicial balance.
We live in a banana republic people.
Via e-mail (from an interested party):
Punitive damages:
Daleiden: $125k
Merritt: $25k
Biomax: $200k
CMP: $400k
Rhomberg: $70k
Newman: $50k
I would also add a comment, but it too would be removed by the Moderator.
So, has the judge ruled the information obtained in the “trespassing” by the defendant not allowed in future investigations?
Yup. It has not a g@dd@mn thing to do with Justice. That Jury pool is absolutely tainted with San Franshitsco disease, and they should have demanded a change of venue.
Same thing with that Roger Stone trial. Jury pool is utterly contaminated with Obama bots in those districts.
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