Operation Rescue Lawyer Given 90 Days in Jail for Contempt of Court

Cyrus Zal, an attorney for the Operation Rescue anti-abortion group, was sentenced Friday to 90 days in jail and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine for repeatedly ignoring a judge’s orders not to discuss abortion at a recent trial where Zal represented six anti-abortion activists convicted of trespass.

Zal, 42, of Folsom said he planned an immediate appeal of El Cajon Municipal Judge Larrie R. Brainard Jr.’s order to the 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego.

The judge ordered Zal, cited 20 times for contempt during the trespass trial, to report to the downtown San Diego County Jail late Monday afternoon to begin serving the sentence. However, Brainard gave him until then to try to persuade the 4th District Court that it should delay the imposition of sentence while he wages his appeal.

Brainard hit Zal with the contempt citations each time the lawyer ignored his order not to discuss abortion. At Friday’s hearing, the judge condemned the “self-righteous arrogance of (the protesters) and Mr. Zal.” Brainard said the lawyer and the activists, who wanted to argue that their Oct. 21 blockade at a suburban San Diego clinic saved lives, missed the point of a trespass charge.

Zal is known not only for his ever-present Bible, but for making it clear he wishes to use the trials of anti-abortion protesters as a platform for debating and condemning abortion.

Last year, in successfully defending Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry and four others on two dozen charges stemming from an Easter weekend blockade of a Los Angeles women’s clinic, Zal repeatedly challenged Los Angeles Municipal Judge Richard A. Perez to throw him in jail.

In another trial last fall in Fresno, Zal was handed a 16-day jail term for contempt. But he never served the time, overturning that sentence on appeal.

Zal was the second attorney sentenced to a jail term in as many days by an El Cajon judge in connection with the Oct. 21 protest at the Family Planning Associates clinic in La Mesa. At a hearing Thursday, Municipal Judge Victor E. Bianchini sentenced defense lawyer G. Colette Gonzalez to 10 days in jail for two contempt citations.

At a lengthy hearing before he sentenced Zal for contempt of court, Brainard also sent one of Zal’s clients--James Holman, 43, the publisher of the Reader, a San Diego weekly newspaper--to jail for 30 days. Five other protesters represented by Zal received jail terms for their convictions Wednesday on trespass charges.