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Court to consider application of RICO to pro-life protests


WASHINGTON (BP)–The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether a federal law designed to thwart organized crime can be used to punish pro-life activists.

The justices announced they will review a federal appeals court decision that upheld a lower court’s opinion that the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act applies to the protest activities of pro-lifers at abortion clinics. The high court combined two cases, Scheidler v. National Organization for Women and Operation Rescue v. NOW, in order to consider the application of RICO to such protests.

The court is expected to hear oral arguments in the case in the next term, which begins in October.

While the case deals with abortion, the high court’s decision could affect the protest activities of other organizations as well. In fact, in their April 22 order agreeing to a review, the justices granted permission for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to file a friend-of-the-court brief. PETA has used tactics similar to those of Operation Rescue and other pro-life organizations.

Pro-life activists welcomed the court’s announcement.

“The court has an opportunity to remove a cloud that has been hanging over those who wish to express their opposition to abortion in a peaceful and nonviolent manner,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice. ACLJ represents Operation Rescue in the case. “It is clear that a federal statute designed for drug dealers and organized crime has been misapplied and used as a powerful weapon to silence the pro-life message.”

The legal battle began in 1986 and reached the Supreme Court once before. In 1994, the justices ruled Congress had not included an economic motive in RICO, which it adopted in 1970. Therefore, NOW could sue the pro-lifers under RICO without the need to demonstrate there was an economic reason for their activities.

Last October, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal court’s ruling that the pro-lifers were guilty of extortion. It also supported a nationwide injunction issued by the lower court barring the pro-lifers and their allies from interfering with clinic business and with the rights of women seeking abortions.

While the pro-lifers had participated in protected activities, some also had taken part in illegal activities, such as trespassing, blocking access to abortion clinics and destroying clinic property, the federal court ruled. It also found the pro-life activists in the case were part of a loose national group to which RICO applied because of the activists’ cooperative work against abortion clinics.

The Seventh Circuit disagreed with the pro-lifers’ argument they were not guilty of violating RICO because they had not obtained any property. The appeals court said it already had ruled “intangible property such as the right to conduct a business can be considered ‘property.'”
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