Ex-Police Chief, 77, Ordered to Jail After Spurning Terms of Probation

A former Santa Ana police chief was jailed by a Municipal Court judge Monday after he refused to agree not to trespass at a Cypress abortion clinic where he was arrested in a protest demonstration a year ago.

Edward J. Allen, 77, a 40-year veteran of law enforcement, told the court he did not recognize the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision legalizing abortion. He said, “I am not bound by a law which is not consistent with the laws of God and the Declaration of Independence.”

Judge Kathleen O’Leary sentenced Allen, who lives in Santa Ana, to 120 days in the Orange County Jail. A co-defendant, Ralph Buglione, 63, Garden Grove, was given 90 days in jail. Both men were convicted in February of trespassing at the Cypress Family Planning Assn. Medical Group on March 28, 1984, in a noisy demonstration involving about 100 persons. All the protesters except Allen and Buglione remained outside the clinic’s doors.

Attorneys for the two men obtained a writ to delay the jail sentences. Both were scheduled to be released about eight hours after O’Leary ordered them taken into custody.

Allen’s attorney, John Sassone, of Huntington Beach, predicted that neither Allen nor Buglione would be returned to jail “in 1985, or even in 1986 .... We’re going to take our appeal to the highest levels,” he said.

O’Leary offered to give both men unconditional probation if they promised not to break the law at the abortion clinic again.

Allen gave the judge a short speech, condemning abortion, and accused her of “protecting the murderers of innocent people.”

O’Leary then asked him if that meant he would not abide by her condition that he stay away from the clinic and obey the law.

“I hope I made that clear,” Allen replied.

Buglione did not directly say he would not abide by the judge’s probation terms, but he argued that he would not consider it breaking the law if he went to the clinic’s parking lot.

O’Leary’s response was to sentence both men to jail. She ordered the court bailiff to take them into custody and denied their attorneys’ request that she stay their sentences pending an appeal in Orange County Superior Court.

Arrested Once Before

This was not the first time Allen had been arrested in an anti-abortion demonstration. He was sent to jail for a brief stay in 1978 for his participation in a sit-in at another abortion clinic run by Dr. Edward Allred, the operator of the Cypress clinic. In the first incident, Allred declined to press charges, however.

Allen was police chief in Santa Ana from 1955 until 1972. Before that, he was police chief in Youngstown, Ohio.

He told Judge O’Leary that “for 40 years (as a police officer), I enforced the laws against abortion. Nothing has changed the crime of abortion.” He predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court will someday reverse itself on the issue.

Allen told Judge O’Leary he disagreed with her statement that he had violated the law.

“Sir,” she answered, “that wasn’t my statement; that was the statement of 12 jurors, 12 of your peers.”

Allen’s attorney, Sassone, told O’Leary that Allen would accept her offer of informal probation if she could give some guarantee that the conditions would not infringe onhis client’s First Amendment rights.

O’Leary said her only condition was that he not break the law, and that included demonstrating at Allred’s clinics.

Maximum of 6 Months

Sassone asked the judge if she planned to give Allen the maximum six-month sentence for trespassing (a misdemeanor). O’Leary said she would give him most of that if he didn’t agree to her terms for informal probation.

During the trial, O’Leary refused to let the defense argue that the two men went to the clinic only because they believed illegal abortions were taking place. The judge said the defense had failed to prove that any illegal abortions were being performed when the trespassing occurred.

Allen missed the first two days of the trial because he wouldn’t abide by O’Leary’s order that no one in the courtroom wear or carry anti-abortion slogans. That prohibition later was reversed by Superior Court Judge Ragnar Engebretson.