SAN DIEGO : Lawyer Charges Double Standard
An anti-abortion lawyer whose contempt sentence was upheld for defying a San Diego County judge’s ban on using terms like “baby killer” said Thursday that he was subjected to a double standard.
“If I had been defending a robber or a rapist, a person charged with an ordinary crime, the court would have thrown out the restrictions of prohibiting actual words and phrases,” said attorney Cyrus Zal.
“It was because my clients were involved in an abortion blockade that there’s a different set of rules,” Zal said.
Zal said he would seek review of Wednesday’s federal appeals court ruling before a larger panel of the court and, if necessary, in the U.S. Supreme Court.
A divided appellate panel upheld the contempt-of-court rulings against Zal, saying he had no constitutional right to make statements or offer evidence explaining the reasons for his clients’ actions.
In a ruling that produced three separate opinions, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld most of Zal’s convictions on a 3-0 vote and the rest on a 2-1 vote.
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