Lawyer Aims to Make Trial a Forum on God, Abortion

Cyrus Zal, a defense attorney in the trial of five anti-abortion protesters, proudly recalls a time earlier this year when a judge, so exasperated by Zal’s courtroom antics, stormed off the bench.

The judge, Zal remembers, called him one of the most obnoxious and offensive attorneys he had ever faced. Eventually, the judge was forced to declare a mistrial.

Zal is at it again.

This time the scene is a sixth-floor room in the Los Angeles County Courthouse, where religious convictions and the law clash head on, and where theatrics keep bailiffs hopping.

Zal, general counsel for the Operation Rescue anti-abortion group, has fought with the judge and with the prosecution over how prominently he can display his ever-present Bible, how loudly he can mumble his trial-time prayers, how extensively he can question jurors about their respect for God’s law over Man’s law.

He has challenged the judge to throw him in jail, to hold him in contempt, to make him sit down. On that last score, two marshals made Zal comply.

“This is a mock trial, and in a mock trial you are going to get convicted unless you do something drastic,” Zal said later in explaining his tactics. “I trust in the Lord, whatever he wants me to do. I feel the Holy Spirit guiding me in the courtroom.”

Opponents say Zal is acting in a deliberately antagonistic manner to provoke Municipal Judge Richard A. Paez into making errors, to gain jurors’ sympathies and to portray the defendants as disadvantaged victims of a biased judiciary. The tactics will backfire, say the critics.

“I think they are trying to set themselves up as martyrs being oppressed by the system, but I don’t think most people . . . go for it,” said ACLU attorney Carol Sobel, who is up against Zal in another civil contempt trial against Operation Rescue.

“I believe he thinks drama carries the day. . . . But I think those kind of antics just don’t go over well.”

Zal, of Folsom, is one of a handful of defense attorneys involved in the trial of Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry and four others. They are charged with misdemeanor trespass, conspiracy and related counts, stemming from an illegal blockade at a Los Angeles women’s clinic March 25.

Jury Selection Continues

After four days of often-tense questioning, a 12-member jury was selected Friday afternoon; four alternates must be chosen before opening arguments can be heard.

Zal, Terry and the others have made it clear that they wish to use the trial as a platform for debating and condemning abortion. Paez has been firm: “Abortion is not on trial here,” he has admonished the defendants and the jurors, repeatedly.

But the issue of abortion enters time and again.

The defense team has asked prospective jurors their opinions on abortion, whether they know what abortion is, whether they belong to any pro-choice organizations.

A woman from China was asked if any of her relatives had to submit to “forced abortions” in that country. A man was asked if he had been present at the births of his children. Those are the questions that are allowed; other, more graphic questions are not.

Regular Objections

Deputy City Atty. Lara Bloomquist has listened intently throughout the defense’s interrogation, registering regular objections to what she sees as inappropriate comments.

“I think the defense has made it pretty clear they intend to have clashes with the judge and they have done it consistently,” Bloomquist said. “They openly defy the judge.”

It is during Zal’s interrogation that most of the sparks fly. On Monday, Zal was ending his arguments before Paez with a “God bless you”; by mid-week his tone and demeanor had changed, and he was accusing Paez of attempting to “stifle” the defense. Paez says he is merely trying to keep the defense from intimidating jurors and introducing irrelevant issues.

On Thursday, when a prospective juror responded that he believed abortion to be justified in certain circumstances, Zal posed a question: When, he asked, is it OK for the woman to “go to an abortionist and have him decapitate that baby?”

Warning Issued

With that comment, which Paez later called inflammatory, the judge ordered the courtroom cleared of all prospective jurors. He sternly put Zal on notice: “Ask another question like that,” Paez said, “and your voir dire (interrogation) is terminated.”

Zal insisted he would continue to ask such questions; Paez ruled Zal’s questioning of jurors was over. Terry and co-defendant Jeff White leaped to their feet demanding mistrials based on “judicial prejudice.” Zal refused to sit down. Paez ordered Zal to sit. He continued to refuse. Paez ordered two bailiffs to place Zal in a chair; one grabbed his arm and they pushed him into the chair.

White stuffed a crumpled piece of legal note pad paper into his mouth as the prospective jurors filed back in.

Paez and Zal make interesting foils. Both are slim, 41-year-old men of similar appearances, with black mustaches. Both attended UC Berkeley--Zal did his undergraduate work there, Paez graduated from its law school. The similarities appear to end there.

Zal was born in Tehran, moved with his family to the United States when he was 3 and “found the Lord Jesus” four years ago after years as a “heathen.” The bulk of his legal cases is work for Operation Rescue. He is an active member of an Anglican congregation, the Church of the Holy Trinity in Sacramento, where his brother-in-law is the minister.

Graduate of BYU

Paez is a Mormon, born and raised in Utah and a graduate of Brigham Young University. He also worked for several years for the California Legal Assistance, the Western Center on Law and Poverty and the Los Angeles Legal Aid Foundation. He was appointed to the Municipal bench in 1981 and was elected presiding judge last year.

Despite several heated exchanges, Paez, for the most part, has kept his cool. He does at times seem exasperated by the defense team.

When defendant Michael McMonagle asked that the time for the daily lunch break be shortened so that the defendants would have more time to argue their case, Paez refused. “It’s obvious to me that I’m going to need the lunch break,” he said.

The other defendants are Andrew Eppink and Donald Bennette.

Sharing the limelight with Zal is the 30-year-old Terry. From the first day of the pretrial proceedings, when several dozen placard-waving demonstrators gathered outside the court, then crowded inside the courtroom and held hands in prayer, Terry has been in his element.

He greets court clerks by their first names, shakes hands with followers, pauses long enough to do a live interview for radio on a portable phone carried by an aide.

Eager to Tell Story

Calling the opening day of the trial one of the most exciting days in his life, Terry said he eagerly awaited telling his story to the jury.

But the audience he is playing to clearly extends far beyond the County Courthouse.

“Do you think that sound bite will entertain a few people tonight?” he asks a reporter during a pause in the proceedings, after he had uttered one of his so-quotable quotes.

Later, he pleads with another reporter not to use a negative off-the-cuff comment about President Bush. Though a horde of television and print reporters crowded to cover the first two days of pretrial hearings, by week’s end the coverage had dwindled to occasional visits by local print reporters. Also in steady attendance: a columnist for People Magazine.