190 Abortion Foes Plead No Contest; Sentences Cut

In a mass bargain with prosecutors, about 190 Operation Rescue anti-abortion protesters entered no-contest pleas in return for reduced sentences Wednesday on misdemeanor charges stemming from their arrest March 23 at a family-planning clinic in Cypress.

The defendants filled two Westminster courtrooms to answer charges of failing to disperse after being ordered to move from clinic doorways. Orange County district attorney’s officials offered the deal to avoid the expense of separate trials if all defendants had pleaded innocent.

“It would be a ridiculous expense to try all of these cases individually,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jan Nolan.

The prosecutors agreed not to seek the maximum penalty of 6 months in jail and $1,000 in fines if the defendants would accept any of three options: pay $75 in court costs, pay no court costs but spend 2 days in jail, or perform 2 days of public-service work with the California Department of Transportation.

Most Choose Caltrans Work

Most defendants chose to work 2 days for Caltrans, and all entered no-contest pleas; the plea is not an admission of guilt but has the same legal consequences.

“No one pleaded guilty today because we don’t believe we are guilty of anything,” said Irina McGuirk, a spokeswoman for the defendants.

Another 180 Operation Rescue defendants failed to appear at the arraignment but were represented by lawyers and were granted continuances. Prosecutors said that they cannot guarantee that those defendants will get the same offer. But McGuirk said she is confident that the deal with hold.

“We feel the same opportunity will be given to the other 180 as we plan to continue our talks with the district attorney’s office,” McGuirk said.

The 370 Operation Rescue demonstrators had been arrested as they blocked doorways at the Cypress clinic to prevent women from entering to receive abortion counseling. As a group of pro-choice demonstrators engaged in an angry shouting match with the anti-abortionists, scores of police moved in and made the arrests.

Both prosecutors and defendants said Wednesday that they were satisfied that a plea-bargain had been reached. But there was some early doubt that a compromise would be achieved.

Nolan first told the defendants that their only option was to plead guilty or no contest. Then, she said, first-time violators would be assessed $75 in court costs, and those with prior protest arrests would have to pay $125. Nolan mentioned no option for jail time or public service work.

Southern California Operation Rescue leaders Kenneth Tanner and Will Lehman quickly telephoned Randall Terry to get his opinion. Terry, 29, of Binghamton, N.Y., is the founder of Operation Rescue--a national effort to “rescue” unborn babies by protesting abortion clinics.

Opposed Plea-Bargain

Lehman returned to say that Terry opposed the plea-bargain. “Randall said there should be an option where people who didn’t want to pay money could go to jail,” Lehman told the group. “He has asked us all to stand in solidarity in this, and if we don’t get the option for jail, we should all demand trials.”

Terry was among those arrested at the Cypress demonstration. But on Wednesday, he was in New York, helping to plan national anti-abortion demonstrations scheduled for Saturday. He was represented by an attorney at the arraignment.

Nolan said she had made no jail recommendation when she took the proposed bargain to various judges who were conducting the arraignments. “But I did tell the judges that this was what the defendants had talked about,” she said. “The judges apparently agreed.”

As negotiations ebbed and flowed during the day, the anti-abortion group periodically held prayer meetings and sang hymns in the sunny courtyard in front of the Westminster Municipal Building.

Lehman, 31, at one point told fellow defendants to pray for forgiveness: “We should pray to the Lord to forgive us for waiting 16 years to do something (about legal abortion).”

Many of the defendants noted that the U.S. Supreme Court currently is hearing a Missouri case that might change the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the first 3 months of pregnancy.