Jury Rules That Anti-Abortion Leaders Violated Racketeering Laws

April 21, 1998 New York Times

By DIRK JOHNSON
CHICAGO -- A U.S. District Court jury Monday ruled that three anti-abortion leaders had violated federal racketeering laws by conducting a nationwide campaign to intimidate abortion providers and patients.

The jury of two men and four women, who had deliberated since Thursday, found that 21 acts of intimidation, including physical violence outside clinics, amounted to a vast enterprise of extortion under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law.

Known as the RICO Act, the measure was passed in 1970 as a way to fight organized crime, and some legal scholars argued that it should not apply to political groups.

The civil case decided Monday, which was brought by the National Organization for Women, awarded $85,926 in damages to two abortion clinics that were targets of harassment. Under terms of RICO, the judge is expected to automatically triple that figure, which the individual defendants must pay.

"We cannot tolerate the use of threats and force by one group to impose its views on others," said Fay Clayton, the lawyer who argued the case for NOW.

The 12-year-old case had earlier been dismissed by a federal judge, ruling that the federal racketeering law applied only to organizations motivated by economic gain. But the Supreme Court in 1994 reversed that ruling, and ordered the case to go to trial.

The suit named as defendants two militant anti-abortion groups, Operation Rescue and the Pro-Life Action League, and their leaders, Joseph Scheidler, Timothy Murphy and Andrew Scholberg. Randall Terry, the president of Operation Rescue, had earlier agreed to pay damages in a settlement.

The suit sought damages for two clinics, in Milwaukee and Wilmington, Del., that had been targeted for harassment. The defendants were not being accused of the murders and bombings that have occurred at abortion clinics around the country.

Scheidler, who has written a book about tactics aimed at shutting down abortion clinics, Monday promised to appeal the decision, and scoffed at the notion that the ruling could put anti-abortion groups out of business.

"There will still be picketers, maybe more picketers," he said. "This may enliven the movement."

G. Robert Blakely, the Notre Dame professor who drafted the racketeering act, said RICO was never intended to apply to political groups. He expressed grave concerns that the statute could be used to chill dissent by a wide range of organizations, such as labor unions and gay rights advocates.

"If you look at this case and say it's about abortion, you're missing the point," said Blakely. "Everybody who loves the First Amendment has got to sleep uneasily tonight."

Before the RICO measure passed, Blakely recalled, liberals like Sen. Ted Kennedy raised serious concerns about the racketeering statute, saying he feared that President Richard M. Nixon would use it to stifle anti-war protestors.

But Louis Bograd, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the First Amendement "does not guarantee the right to engage in violence and extortion."

In its 1994 ruling, The Supreme Court ruled that if the racketeering law was not intended to apply to political groups, Congress should have made that explicit in the statute.

Gloria Felt, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the jury ruling underscored the nation's growing impatience with unruly anti-abortion protestors.

"This tells me the public wants these people to grow up and stop the war games," said Ms. Felt. "And where there are differences, work them out in the public policy forum."

Many of the examples of intimidation cited in this case involved blockades at clinic doorways, a tactic that has been illegal since the passage in 1994 of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances measure.

Scheidler, who is among the most militant of anti-abortion leaders, vowed to appeal the decision. A former Benedictine Monk, Scheidler has used bullhorns to cheer protestors at abortion clinics. But he has insisted that he does not condone violence.

In his book, "Closed: 99 Ways to Stop Abortion," Scheidler specifically denounces the use of violence. "I see all of these acts of violence as an admission of defeat," he has said, "that you can't do it through the proper channels."

During the past two decades, there have been an average of 7 violent acts against abortion clinics, their providers or patients, according to Kim Gandy, a spokeswoman for NOW. There are about 2,000 abortion providers in the nation.

Civil libertarians who defended Monday's ruling noted that use of the RICO Act will not impede political protest movements, so long as they do not engage in violence.

But Blakely said all political demonstrations are going to have cases of excess.

"No demonstration is perfect," he said. "Somebody's going to throw a rock. Somebody's going to step on a blade of grass."

In Blakely's view, those transgressions should be treated by laws governing trespassing and disorderly conduct. The RICO Act could quickly bankrupt many political groups. Even the threat of the RICO law could chill dissent, he said.

The RICO act has been used successfully against abortion protestors at least once before, involving a case in Philadelphia in the late 1970s.

During the trial in Chicago, many abortion providers and patients talked about being physically assaulted and intimidated at clinics. One witness told of being harassed on her way into a clinic for a procedure that had nothing to do with abortion. The woman said that she was, in fact, opposed to abortion, but testified for NOW because she loathed the heavy-handed tactics.

The suit claimed that clinics were entitled to damages, in part, because they needed to hire extra security forces to protect staff and patients.

Susan Hill, the president of the abortion clinics named in the suit, said many people do not comprehend the fear and anxiety endured by medical staff and patients at abortion clinics during protests. She also said she expected many other clinics to seek damages against the anti-abortion groups.

"I'm estatic, relieved and I feel safer today than I did yesterday," she said. "And I think all clinics feel safer today."