TUSTIN : Picketing Charges Against 3 Dropped

Charges have been dropped against three anti-abortion activists who were arrested last month under a new Tustin ordinance prohibiting picketing of residences.

City Atty. James G. Rourke told the City Council on Monday that there was insufficient evidence to convict Allen Meadows, 23; Robert Ferguson, 37; and Duane Leach, 34, who were arrested April 17 during a demonstration in the city.

The three were among 40 anti-abortion activists who tested the city ordinance by marching around the neighborhood where Naomi Hardin, a director of the Doctors Family Planning clinic in Tustin, lives.

Rourke said Monday he had asked a Municipal Court judge to dismiss the charges “in the interest of justice. While there was an intent to picket Hardin’s home, (the picketers) did not do so to the level that they could be prosecuted.”

“They did not do enough that a judge or a jury would determine that Mrs. Hardin was targeted,” Rourke said. “A jury would find there was reasonable doubt.”

A city ordinance approved in April bans picketers from targeting a specific residence. It was based on a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision that says protesters may visit residential areas but cannot invade someone’s privacy by focusing on the person’s home.

“I’m ecstatic,” Meadows said Tuesday. “I was surprised they arrested me, but I am overjoyed they dropped the charges.”

Meadows’ attorney, Clarence K. Lowder, said he was informed that the city has dropped the charges last Friday. “They did not have a very strong case in the first place,” Lowder said.

Meadows heads the Tustin Pro-Life Coalition, which had picketed in the neighborhood of Hardin’s house several times since January. The council adopted the ordinance after Hardin complained that the protesters were harassing her.

Police Chief W. Douglas Franks said the city will still enforce the ordinance but would follow more closely the U.S. Supreme Court decision when making arrests.