Anti-Abortion Pair Choose Jail Time Over Probation Curbs

A man and woman convicted of resisting arrest during an anti-abortion protest opted Wednesday to spend six months in jail rather than accept probation that would have prohibited their participating in similar protests for three years, court officials said Wednesday.

Municipal Judge James M. Brooks sentenced Carolyn Martin, 24, of Anaheim and Cuby Valdez of Bloomington in San Bernardino County in connection with the protest at a Tustin medical clinic on April 13, 1990.

Six other Operation Rescue demonstrators arrested during the protest, including former Tustin Councilman John Kelly, were sentenced Friday. The sentences ranged from probation and fines to a year in jail.

Because Martin, Valdez and three others failed to appear for sentencing Friday, bench warrants were issued for their arrest. Since then, all but one of the five missing protesters have turned themselves in, said Martin’s attorney, Early Marlow Hawkins.

Martin rejected probation because of stipulations that would bar her being within 2 miles of a clinic where abortions are performed, a rule that she said would keep her “off the freeways system.”

Sue Finn, Operation Rescue’s Orange County spokeswoman, called the sentences too harsh and politically motivated.

“We’re shocked and outraged that he would give six months to people he characterized today as upstanding citizens,” she said about Judge Brooks. “We feel it’s a political move on his part.