Abortion Protest Cases May Swamp Courts

Over the next several months, the Los Angeles Municipal Court will become a legal battlefield where religious convictions and the law clash head-on in about 50 trials involving anti-abortion activists.

During this wave of prosecutions, legal experts say the court system itself will be tested as it struggles with the expenses and logistics of prosecuting more than 800 activists on trespassing charges.

The cases stem from blockades at two women’s clinics last spring orchestrated by the controversial anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.

Court officials said the trials could each take an estimated four weeks to complete and cost taxpayers a total of $15 million in court costs.

By comparison, the McMartin Pre-School molestation trial--the longest-running criminal proceeding in history--has cost about the same amount.

The number of defendants involved in the abortion protest cases is so unwieldy that the four deputy city attorneys who will prosecute them hope to try the defendants in groups of 20 to expedite the proceedings.

Los Angeles is not alone in grappling with Operation Rescue prosecutions. In the last 18 months, an estimated 28,000 to 35,000 anti-abortion militants have been arrested during more than 150 clinic blockades in a political and moral war being fought in the streets and--increasingly--in the courtrooms of America.

Members of the group, whose goal is to overturn federal statutes permitting abortions, have found that they can effectively use the courts as a pulpit for their cause. In short, they demand trials.

Operation Rescue attorneys say that their cause is more important than the financial impact of the prosecutions on the court system.

“For me personally, I can’t put a dollar value on the life of one single unborn baby,” said Cyrus Zal, general counsel for Operation Rescue. “If there are people who want to equate human life with dollars, then they should be asked how much money they would accept to be executed.

“We hope that through these trials,” Zal added, “the public will be educated to the truth of abortion.”

But Paul Shechtman, a prosecutor in New York City, where more than 500 people have been arrested in the last several months, said the cases are a “significant problem.”

“These are clearly committed people,” he said. “They are careful not to break up property or harm anyone, but what they don’t realize is the costs are enormous to taxpayers.”

In the coming months, prosecutions will undoubtedly intensify, with pro-choice and anti-abortion groups planning major rallies in many cities.

A dozen protests are planned for Southern California in the next few months, Operation Rescue leaders said.

In November, tens of thousands of anti-abortion and pro-choice activists will descend on Washington for a major confrontation.

“We’re getting ready. There will be extra manpower. We will do what has to be done,” said Sgt. Ronald Evans, a spokesman for the special operations division of the Washington Metropolitan Police.

The response Operation Rescue has received from authorities has varied from city to city. In some, they hold “get-tough” mass court hearings. In others, they do everything they can to avoid trials, including changing laws so that anti-abortion protesters receive only citations.

In Atlanta, for example, police arrested 1,276 people during Operation Rescue demonstrations in front of abortion clinics during the 1988 Democratic National Convention and in the months that followed.

Prosecutors there have vowed to treat each case seriously, and officials estimate their costs, as a result, are running into the millions. The arraignments alone cost $500,000.

The city even held preliminary hearings in a large warehouse at the local fairgrounds in order to keep the “criminal justice system from breaking down,” said Raines Carter, Atlanta’s chief prosecutor.

“When we found out it was psychological warfare to clog the courts, we adopted a different strategy to get them through court as fast as we could,” Carter said.

Operation Rescue’s charismatic leader, Randall Terry, was found guilty last week of criminal trespass and unlawful assembly in the Atlanta case and is awaiting sentencing. The prosecutor has asked for the maximum sentence of two years in jail.

Many other cities, meanwhile, have chosen not to prosecute, fearing that their court systems would be clogged by such cases.

In Northern California, Santa Clara County officials declared a “judicial emergency” when faced with the prosecution of 500 defendants. The action gave prosecutors more time to prepare and conduct the trials.

“We weren’t sure we would be able to do it,” Santa Clara County Deputy Dist. Atty. Rebecca Hayworth said.

Within three months, the prosecution had completed seven jury trials with 23 defendants. As a result of many convictions, other protesters awaiting trials chose to enter pleas.

“They began to sense that we were serious about trying them, and started to plead out in great numbers,” Hayworth said.

After another San Francisco Bay-area blockade this year, Contra Costa County prosecutors avoided numerous trials by identifying the leaders of the protest through photographs and then going after them. As a result, only 10 of the 100 people arrested went to trial.

“If we did a hundred at a time, it would have clogged the courts,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Dodie Katague said. “What these group trials do is turn it into a circus and take the focus away from the issue of individual responsibility for the person charged with trespassing.”

And in Redwood City, officials became so concerned about upcoming demonstrations that they enacted an ordinance that made unlawful blockades an infraction instead of a misdemeanor, thus precluding trials.

“We had seen the chaos caused in neighboring counties and didn’t want that to happen here,” City Atty. David E. Schricker said. When a major blockade took place in June, 138 people were arrested, pleaded “no contest” and were fined.

A few budget-conscious cities and police agencies have sued Operation Rescue, trying to recoup their costs.

In Brookline, Mass., where two of the three city prosecutors have been faced with cases generated by several anti-abortion protests, the city filed a federal suit to recover at least $250,000 in damages. The case is pending.

In Los Angeles, however, the city attorney’s office declined to file a similar suit requested by Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, because prosecutors want to pursue different legal avenues regarding the cost issue.

Carol Sobel, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in Los Angeles who has taken Operation Rescue to court to prevent clinic blockades, noted that there is legal precedent in California not to recover money from protesters.

Sobel said San Luis Obispo County once filed suit against the anti-nuclear group Abalone Alliance to recover costs of prosecuting people who protested the operation of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.

The state Court of Appeals ruled that even though an act of civil disobedience is unlawful, society shares the burden of paying for police protection.

“It’s the the cost of having the First Amendment,” Sobel said. “Even if the conduct of the demonstrators isn’t lawful, it doesn’t change the fact that there are elements of free-speech activity there.”

Operation Rescue protesters do not necessarily care how much the trials are costing. Instead, they are using the cases to draw attention to their cause and, in the process, have won some key court skirmishes.

Rescue officials estimate that nationally they have a 40% acquittal rate.

They said their victories, such as the recent acquittal of Terry in Los Angeles, have also encouraged more anti-abortionists to risk arrest.

It was that case that has fired the fears of court officials.

During the trial, Terry and the defendants dragged out the proceedings for almost five weeks by courtroom drama that included bowing their heads in prayer and crying on the witness stand. At times, the defendants placed Bibles on the defense table. They referred to fetuses as “children” and abortion clinics as “killing centers.” Pro-choice activists were labeled “murderers,” prosecutors “anti-Christian bigots” and judges “lap dogs of the death industry.”

Several times, a furious Municipal Judge Richard Paez stomped off the bench when his admonitions to curtail such tactics were ignored.

Terry and four others were acquitted of trespassing charges in that case. However, the jury was deadlocked on the question of criminal conspiracy, and a mistrial was declared. On Monday, Paez granted the city attorney’s motion to retry Terry and two co-defendants Dec. 4 on the conspiracy charges.

While many judges, including Paez, have threatened Operation Rescue attorneys with contempt, few have followed through because it is a very involved legal process.

“The criminal justice system only works if everybody plays by the rules, and Operation Rescue is committed not to play by the rules,” said Maureen Siegel, the city attorney’s acting chief of criminal operations.

But Zal defended the courtroom theatrics.

“You are going to get convicted unless you do something drastic,” he said. “I trust in the Lord, whatever he wants me to do. I feel the Holy Spirit guiding me in the courtroom.”

Zal and other Operation Rescue attorneys have been conducting seminars to instruct the activists on how to represent themselves in court.

In Central California, Kings County Justice Court Judge Martin Suits said: “Traditionally, the courts have been used as a forum for exercise of (free) speech rights, but I can’t think of any that where there has been such an obvious, obstructionist attempt to backlog courts.”

Suits said he threw out one impaneled jury earlier this year in an abortion clinic blockade case because he believed that the jurors were “tainted by bizarre antics of the defense.”

“I would ask the defense not to ask certain questions, and they would ask it anyway,” Suits recalled.

“After five days of jury selection it became apparent that the jurors were offended, that they could not give them a fair trial,” he said. “At one point, the jurors actually began hissing at the Operation Rescue defense attorney. I couldn’t believe it.”

Because of the extensive courtroom theatrics that Operation Rescue employs, Los Angeles prosecutors are gearing up for more of the same when the 50 new trials begin.

“If their intention was to shut down the criminal justice system in L.A., they are not going to succeed,” vowed prosecutor Siegel.

The 535 defendants who were arrested during a blockade of the Family Planning Associates Clinic on Westmoreland Avenue will be given trial dates in December. The 280 protesters arrested at Midland Medical Clinic on West Washington Boulevard will be given trial dates in January.

Presiding Municipal Judge Larry P. Fidler said he is prepared to ask for more judges from other counties, if necessary, to hear the trials.

“We can hold them anywhere in the county,” he said, “(even) hire a hall, we have authority to do so.”