From http://www.covenantnews.com/prolifeaction060228.htm
NEWS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 28, 2005
Scheidler Beats NOW
Pro-Life Activist Scheidler Beats NOW in Supreme Court To: National DeskChicago, IL, Feb. 28/Covenant News Wire Service/ -- "Naturally I am gratified to be vindicated once again by the United States Supreme Court," said Joseph M. Scheidler, National Director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League, and Petitioner in the NOW v. Scheidler RICO case that the Court ruled on today."I am mystified that I had to go to the trouble and expense of appearing before the Supreme Court three times," said Scheidler. "The Court was right when they ruled for us 8-1 in 2003, but the National Organization for Women refused to acknowledge defeat. They convinced the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to keep the case alive, in spite of the Supreme Court's clear mandate to end it."NOW v. Scheidler was filed in 1986. It underwent innumerable revisions of the Complaint, additions and subtractions of Defendants and Plaintiffs, and went from an anti-trust charge to RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) before going to trial in 1998. NOW's lawyers relied on perjured testimony and unsubstantiated claims against unnamed individuals to win a "guilty" verdict from the jury in a seven-week trial in March and April 1998.A three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, headed by Judge Diane Wood, who claimed an affiliation with Chicago NOW and Planned Parenthood throughout the duration of the Scheidler case, affirmed the District Court's ruling.
Following the 8-1 Supreme Court ruling in favor of Scheidler, the Seventh Circuit declined to do what the Supreme Court mandated: vacate the injunction and reverse the Judgment. Instead the Seventh Circuit sent the case to the District Court."I saw no benefit in going back to the District Court here in Chicago," said Scheidler, "because I have no confidence in the impartiality of the lower Courts. The Supreme Court seems to take the First Amendment more seriously than the Circuits do."Scheidler's attorney Thomas Brejcha said, "This unanimous ruling is not just a victory for pro-life activists, but for anyone who chooses to exercise his First Amendment rights to effect social change." Brejcha is chief counsel of the Chicago-based Thomas More Society Pro-Life Law Center and has led Scheidler's battle with NOW since it inception in 1986. Over seventy organizations and individuals representing movements for social change signed onto amicus briefs in the Scheidler appeal.
The Pro-Life Action League is the nation's largest direct action pro-life organization. For further information please visit www.prolifeaction.org.
CONTACT:Pro-Life Action LeagueJoe Scheidler6160 N. Cicero Ave.Chicago, IL 60646Ph: 773-777-2900Fax: 773-777-3061Website: www.ProLifeAction.org/E-mail: info@prolifeaction.org
PRESS RELEASE FILE
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From http://www.lifenews.com/nat2111.html
Supreme Court: Mob Laws Can't Be Used Against Abortion Protesters
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by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorFebruary 28, 2006
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Supreme Court has ruled a second time that federal racketeering laws used against mob bosses can't be used against pro-life advocates who protest abortions. The court upheld its previous ruling that state laws are sufficient to prosecute any minor violations such as trespassing.
Pro-life groups brought their case back to the Supreme Court after an appeals court instructed a local judge to determine if a national ban should be put in place against demonstrations because of alleged threats of violence.
The appeals court kept the case alive despite a high court decision in favor of the protesters. The 8-0 decision today ends the case, which covered more than two decades.
In his opinion for the court, Justice Stephen Breyer said Congress was not looking to create a "freestanding physical violence offense" in the Hobbs Act, which covers racketeering.
The lawsuit pit the Pro-Life Action League against the pro-abortion National Organization of Women, which claims the organization participated in illegal and violent protests against abortion businesses. NOW said the group should be prosecuted under federal RICO statutes that are used to target organized crime.
"After our second trip here, the Court concluded that 'the jury's finding of a RICO violation must be reversed,'" Scheidler explained. In the previous trip to the high court, former Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for the 8-1 court that the RICO statutes should not be used.
In a statement obtained by LifeNews.com, Eleanor Smeal, former president of NOW when the case was filed and now head of the Feminist Majority Foundation, claimed the case related to "stopping illegal violence directed against women's health clinics, abortion providers and their patients."
The case was originally filed in 1986 and the RICO charges were added in 1989 in an attempt to bankrupt Scheidler's group.
The Chicago-based Thomas More Society and its Chief Counsel, Thomas Breach, have represented Scheidler and the Pro-Life Action League throughout the twenty-year history of the case. However, they gave the Bush administration half of their allotted oral argument time in November at the hearings because the administration supported the pro-life protesters.
The case took some odd twists and turns as even labor unions and other activists sided with the pro-life advocates saying the Hobbs Act was being misapplied by pro-abortion groups seeking to charge the protesters under it.
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From http://www.prolifeblogs.com/articles/archives/2006/02/when_free_speec.php
Supreme Court: February 28, 2006
When free speech wins in court, it's dealing a setback?
I wonder if Toni Locy, Associated Press Writer, writes all her own words, or if someone else well-versed in strident drama heavily edits her:
The Supreme Court dealt a setback Tuesday to abortion clinics in a two-decade-old legal fight over anti-abortion protests, ruling that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used to ban demonstrations.....the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had kept [this legal fight] alive...Dealt a setback? When free speech wins in court, it's dealing a setback? She makes it sound like they ought now prepare for "anti-abortion" people everywhere to think it's open season to storm the walls of all abortion clinics in the country! Talk about stoking the fires of fear.
Much less fear-mongering and "witness-leading" is this, Toni (and her editors):
The Supreme Court Tuesday ruled in favor of abortion foes in a two-decade-old legal fight, deciding for the second time that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used to ban demonstrations in front of abortion clinics.
It's only a two-decade-old fight because various pro-abortion lobbyists/groups (including N.O.W.) and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals didn't deal too well with the Supreme Court's first strike-down in 2003.
Phrases like those above and the tired media-overuse of the "anti-abortion" phrase belie the writer's pro-choice and/or pro-abortion bias, but making such a big deal out of this second Supreme Court decision seems to me just strained frenzy-whipping.
Just because a person or fifty persons stand outside an abortion clinic abiding by the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, doesn't make them mob-like racketeers criminally guilty of extorting money, goods or property from abortion clinics or their clientele thereby violating the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
I mean, really, folks.
Certainly if any protesters threaten(ed) violence, we're all for due process and due justice, carting them to court and then to jail. But that apparently didn't happen, so concluded the High Court. That this second decision was "8-0" (Alito "did not participate in the decision") should be telling enough for N.O.W., et. al.
Interesting too that "social activists and the AFL-CIO" took the pro-life folks' side, "arguing that lawsuits and injunctions based on the federal extortion law could be used to thwart their [own] efforts to change public policy or agitate for better wages and working conditions."
Imagine, Joseph Scheidler and company have been enjoined in this garbage since 1986.
Still, if the effect of all this harangue was to greatly decrease/stop the menacing and/or actual harm done by any so-called, misnamed "pro-lifers", then once again, we're all for it. I'm sure Joe Scheidler would agree. I hope and pray that he would, anyway.
The cases, for those who want to DYOR, are Scheidler v. NOW, 04-1244, and Operation Rescue v. NOW, 04-1352.
Cross-posted on AfterAbortion.blogspot.com.
Posted by annie at February 28, 2006 11:41 AM
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