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...
1 Peter 5:8 8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
I suppose that technically they did break the law but someone, somewhere has a lot to answer for to God some day.
God bless those men and protect them.
Appealed and verdict overturned - no mistrial.
The judge had a conflict of interest (being affiliated with Planned Parenthood) and refused to recuse himself. Appeals ground #1.
Suppression of evidence by judge. Appeals ground #2
Suppression of a First Amendment defense. Appeals ground #3
So journalistic exposes are now ACTIONABLE? Insanity.
Dreadful!
It just hasn’t gotten bad enough yet, simply put.
I posted about that!!!
This is evil.
Even if this case were to be appealed and overturned, the satanic left is okay with “the process is the punishment” aspects of this case.
“Thou shalt not violate the satanic sacrament of abortion”, according to the satanic left.
Prayers for the defendant.
Okay Miss Rogers, according to you, you were in the waiting room when you heard screaming, yelling, and what sounded like a scuffle just inside the office door. Is that right?
Well yes.
Okay and Miss Rogers it’s your testimony that next people burst through the door right?
Ahhh yes!
Okay, and seeing this you whipped out your phone and took a video of the office manager shooting a patient dead. Is that right?
Well yes it is!
Okay, and at any time did you get a sign off waiver from the business manager or the now dead patient?
No I didn’t. It all happened rather fast.
Okay, your honor, I move to dismiss for lack of lawful evidence.
Sounds reasoned. Case dismissed.
Somewhere along the way, we lost sight of priorities.
When the courts are corrupt. When elections do not matter. There will eventually be a choice left to be made...
Notice how exposing leftie illegal activity is now... illegal?
Investigative journalism just took a big hit.
The judge has deep ties to the defendant. Isn’t this reversable quickly?
San Francisco... big surprise there..
So true...
Will this be appealed?
Roland Freisler was killed in his courtroom during an allied air bombing. He was trying to collect trial documents as he died. He was so hated that later Alfred Jodl’s widow reported that when news of Freisler’s demise came, a co-worker said “It is God’s verdict.” Nobody could respond to hearing it.
Abortion is a religious belief system. And I believe the price of aborted baby tissue is about $50,000 per pound. Lots of incentive to promote the industry in California.
Well, PP can now go back to tearing kids apart from limb-to-limb. Makes me want to vomit
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