Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Federal laws aimed at cracking down on mobsters are now being used against abortion opponents and animal rights protesters - and at least some Supreme Court justices seem to wonder if free speech is being damaged in the process. Several justices raised that concern Wednesday as the high court heard arguments in Scheidler v. National Organization for Women - a case technically about legal limits on abortion protests. In reality, the case has evolved into something far bigger: a high-court test of where free speech ends and extortion or racketeering begins. With anti-globalization protesters taking to the streets...

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a case that bars pro-life activists from protesting outside abortion clinics, and although free speech was not a question for the court to consider, several justices expressed concern about the impact the case could have on all forms of demonstration. When the court accepted the case in April, it declined to address the First Amendment question and focus instead on whether the protests constituted extortion as well as whether the federal racketeering law allowed a judge to impose a nationwide injunction against the groups. The case, which dates back to 1986, pits...

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to review the most sweeping legal judgment against pro-life activists in history. But painstakingly compiled new evidence shows that pro-abortion witnesses in the case may have lied. Fay Clayton takes no prisoners. In a legal brief delivered on Sept. 17 to the U.S. Supreme Court, the feminist attorney from Chicago blamed pro-life activists for a litany of violent acts that stop just short of murder: Demonstrators "regularly assaulted clinic personnel and patients," Ms. Clayton wrote, "... hit and clawed them, choked them, threw them to the ground, shoved and elbowed them, and slammed them...

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...