Six Pro-Life Activists Face Over 10 Years in Prison for Violating FACE Act in Tennessee
How about those who have vandalized pregnancy centers and churches? How about those threatening Jews, blocking roads and runways? Those aren’t FACE Act related but still illegal.
A federal jury convicted six pro-life activists of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) and a felony conspiracy against rights.
BREAKING: Six pro-life activists were just found guilty in federal court after being prosecuted by Biden's DOJ under the FACE Act for protesting outside a Nashville abortion clinic.
Here's a snippet of the protest, which occurred on March 5, 2021.
For the crime of praying and… pic.twitter.com/UPzZvtZebM
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 30, 2024
(1) intentionally injuring, intimidating, or interfering with, or attempting to injure, intimidate, or interfere, any person by force, threat of force, or physical obstruction because that person is or has been, or in order to intimidate such person or any other person or any class of persons from, obtaining or providing reproductive health services; (2) intentionally injuring, intimidating, or interfering with, or attempting to injure, intimidate, or interfere, any person by force, threat of force, or physical obstruction exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship; or (3) intentionally damaging or destroying the property of a facility, or attempting to do so, because such facility provides reproductive health services, or intentionally damaging or destroying the property of a place of religious worship.
Read point #3. I’ll get back to that in a minute.
From the DOJ press release:
According to evidence presented at trial, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Calvin Zastrow, Coleman Boyd, Paul Vaughn and Dennis Green engaged in a conspiracy to prevent the clinic employees from providing, and patients from receiving, reproductive health services, a civil right secured by the FACE Act. As part of the conspiracy, Idoni, Zastrow, Boyd and Green traveled to Tennessee from other states to participate in the clinic blockade, and Gallagher and Vaughn stalled the Mount Juliet Police Department through negotiations that Gallagher referred to as a delay tactic. Evidence at trial further proved that the defendants violated the FACE Act by using physical obstruction to interfere with the clinic’s employees and a patient because the clinic was providing, and the patient sought, reproductive health services.
Sentencing will happen on July 2. They face over 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $260,000.
I wonder if the FACE Act is valid since SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade.
If the FACE Act is still legitimate, then yes, the activists violated it.
The conspiracy charge is also nuts. I hate conspiracy charges because it’s a way for the government to nab people if it cannot get people for the actual crime. You could say anything is a conspiracy.
Punishment for Anti-Israel Dumbs?
The punishment, though. Insane. Absolutely insane.
These people sat in front of a door. That is all.
How about those anti-Israel dumbs constantly blocking roads and rushing JFK runways? Will we see them getting 11 years in prison?
Obviously, the dumbs didn’t violate the FACE Act, but they did violate plenty of laws.
How about the numerous threats against Jews? Threats against Jews have always been high in America but worsened after Hamas invaded Israel in October.
Churches and Pregnancy Centers
Let’s get back to the FACE Act.
Do you remember point #3? My emphasis: (3) intentionally damaging or destroying the property of a facility, or attempting to do so, because such facility provides reproductive health services, or intentionally damaging or destroying the property of a place of religious worship.
How many churches and pregnancy centers have been damaged and vandalized since someone leaked Justice Alito’s Dobbs opinion?
I lost count a long time ago.
The left doesn’t consider pregnancy centers as a legitimate reproductive rights facility even though, unless it’s connected to a religion, it will offer information about abortion.
I think the DOJ has only gone after a few people for destruction and vandalism. I don’t know if the DOJ charged them with FACE Act violations.
I’ll dig a little deeper for information regarding the attacks on centers and churches. Maybe there has been progress, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
BREAKING: Somebody vandalized and allegedly threw Molotov cocktails into Wisconsin Family Action’s — an anti-abortion rights group — Madison office, writing w/ graffiti, “If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t either.”
Story TK pic.twitter.com/6Wfnyeh9hQ
— Alexander Shur (@AlexanderShur) May 8, 2022
My wife works at a pregnancy center in Denton, TX. It was vandalized last night. Please pray for the people who work there. They help women and their babies with anything from preborn to 3 years of age. They are beautiful people and don’t deserve this hate. #ProLife #Catholic pic.twitter.com/63BLvNDMkQ
— Gregory Ellis (@Gre29) May 7, 2022
The group calling itself Jane's Revenge — which has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on pregnancy care centers — now declares it's "open season" on Pro-Life groups. Capitol Hill correspondent @ErikRosalesNews reports. pic.twitter.com/9ZectKKgai
— EWTN News Nightly (@EWTNNewsNightly) June 17, 2022
Rev. James Harden is the CEO of a pro-life pregnancy center that was firebombed by radical leftists. He tells Tucker that he gave the FBI security footage of the act, they took it, have made no arrests, and refuse to give it back because it could "inspire right-wing terrorism." pic.twitter.com/kf6P6cXyf0
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 30, 2022
Catholic News Agency has released footage of members of far-left group Jane's Revenge carrying out vandalism attack on South Broward Pregnancy Help Center in Hollywood, FL on May 28. The #Antifa group has carried out attacks on pregnancy centers across US.https://t.co/c2Mkb1RFC6 pic.twitter.com/33k2NDFlhE
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) June 11, 2022
A 31-year-old pro-abortion extremist was so mad about Roe v. Wade, he vandalized St. Louise Catholic Church in Bellevue, WA.
Upon arrest, Bellevue Police allege the suspect busted up a police cruiser.
Bellevue PD tells local FOX News that this falls under a hate crime. pic.twitter.com/WdGuft9Ozq
— Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) June 29, 2022
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Comments
What’s the problem? Our devout Catholic POTUS will pardon them.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who calls him a “devout Catholic.” 😉
Dude, the commie pope will pardon them.
Abortions are not “reproductive health services”. Abortions are exactly the opposite. And that isn’t even taking the life of the fetus into account.
This post deserves two thumbs up.
Yes, I know. I quoted the FACE Act.
I understand. I was addressing the language of the act, itself. Maybe I should have double-quoted it …
You have to double-quote it AND put a Harvard seal on it.
Killing the baby is reproductive health service. Interfering with satanic activity is religious persecution. Get with the program, it’s 2024!
There is a cognizable legal defense, perhaps the more so in Tennessee, that they broke the law under the doctrine of necessity in defense of the life another person, i.e. the unborn human.
Yes, the selective and uneven application of the law is outrageous and something the higher courts should review.
Absolutely.
Yeah, but FACE is a federal law, and that won’t get you anywhere in a federal court.
This is a clear violation of The First Amendment. Especially when you consider what the left has claimed was lawful protest over the last decade.
But social justice or something! Those destructive “protests” are allowed b/c feels!
And how many millions are being paid to BLM rioters who burned down cities and killed police officers. Denver, Seattle, and NYC are paying them millions for injuries they received whilst acting like savages in the streets.
Trespassing is their only offense
Further proof that the leftist regime will absolutely throw the book at anyone who dares to disagree with or oppose them.
It reminds me of how “Judge” Roland Freisler demeaned, humiliated, and condemned anyone who appeared before him who did not obey the orders of and follow the dictates of the Third Reich.
It’s the right wing version of being woke and imposing a cost on women in a different position, caught between feminine modesty and modern feminism.
It’s also virtue gone public at the expense of somebody else, a traditional form of evil.
10 years means to discourage it. Of course it also means you can launch your virtue into really being public.
Their actions inject a moral question to those walking into the abortion center. Unlike the Left with facial recognition software and doxing…. have any of these women been doxed?
There is a social stigma that the Left is trying to eliminate through force. There is a moral stigma the Left hates. Remember the “safe, legal and rare” adage? Now it is a badge of courage for the Left to make “rare” rare. I gather you like crushing those you dislike for nonviolent behavior? Merrick Garland has a job waiting for you.
I’m in favor of prayer in schools though. It has to be the KJV though. The benefit is learning through osmosis to conjugate old-timey verbs.
Remind me again where the Congress has police powers to enact such laws against citizens acting solely within a state?
Penumbras and emanations, penumbras and emanations…
Exactly.
There’s an interstate market in baby-killing. The customer you prevented from entering, or who was discouraged from even coming because they heard they couldn’t get in, may well have been from another state. According to current doctrine that means Congress can regulate it.
See the Female Genital Mutilation case, where the courts decided Congress can’t ban it because there is no interstate market in it.
That’s a complete BS argument. If I’m on vacation and I go shopping at the grocery store in the town where I’m staying, that’s not interstate commerce, that’s local.
If you came from another state in order to shop there, that’s interstate commerce. So the courts have been saying for well over a century, as far as I know.
In fact it used to be even stronger: the courts used to say that if an item is imported from another state and sold in its original packaging, the state can’t regulate that sale because of the dormant commerce clause. Only if you took it out of its packaging could the state regulate it.
Words can’t begin to describe my thoughts on this.
To see how bad it is, just look up the sentencing of Montez Terriel Lee.
Why would that make it invalid? Its validity never rested on Roe or its progeny.
Indeed they did. Unfortunately selective prosecution is not a defense. See USA v Armstrong. The response is always, well, you admit you did the crime, so you deserve to be prosecuted. The fact that other people doing the exact same thing but belonging to the other team are not prosecuted is a very bad thing, and the prosecutor is a bad person for not doing his job, but in your case he is doing his job so you don’t get off. In principle dismissal might be an appropriate remedy for such discrimination, but in practice it never is.
From a paper cited by Wikipedia: “Professor David Cole stated in 1999 that there are ‘no reported federal or state cases since 1886 that had dismissed a criminal prosecution on the ground that the prosecutor acted for racial reasons.’ 11 Other distinguished commentators have made similar observations. 12”
We’ve all seen it multiple times. Remember when people found with so much as a bullet in DC had the book thrown at them, while some TV presenter violated the same law live on network TV and the DA announced that it was not in the public interest to bring charges?
One thing to bear in mind, though, is that in most of the cited cases the perpetrators were never found. The prosecutors can always claim “We would have charged them, if only we knew who they are”. The FBI is clearly busy tracking down every person even tangentially involved in the Jan-6-2021 riot, and therefore has no resources to find anyone else. In this case there was no problem identifying those involved, because they made no attempt to hide their identities.
No, you can’t. A conspiracy means that everyone involved agreed to commit a crime, and someone actually did something about it. You have to prove that, beyond reasonable doubt. It seems reasonable that if you and I agreed to rob a bank, and you carried the plan as far as buying us guns and got caught, at which point the plan fell to pieces, we’re both guilty. Neither of us actually robbed anyone, but we conspired to do so, and it went beyond just words.
No, but we won’t see these people getting 11 years either. 11 years is the maximum for the crime, which can be a lot worse than just obstructing people going about their business, which is bad enough. If they ever catch those “Jane’s revenge” people they’re likely to get a lot more than these people will get, because their offense was worse. But it’s the same law, so it carries a high max for the worse cases.
However you look at it, these people had no right to blockade someone’s premises, and obstruct people who are going about their lawful business. I don’t care whether you’re union members picketing a business, or BLM blocking a highway, or “anti-war” people lying in front of a troop train. You have no right to do that, and the people you are obstructing have the moral right — and ought to have the legal right — to go through your blockade with as much force as necessary to get where they are going. And the fact that other people get away with it is not really an excuse.
” If they ever catch those “Jane’s revenge” people they’re likely to get a lot more than these people will get, because their offense was worse”
Really?
Do you Democrats really expect anyone to believe that?
Jane’s Revenge and groups like it operate out in the open. They are mainstream. You people have fought sanity to make it so..
The closest they’ll ever get to facing justice is some tut-tutting while a camera is running.
‘It was a mostly peaceful crisis pregnancy center firebombing. If we can find out who did it after we destroy the video evidence, they’re going to get sent to bed without their favorite dessert. Ice cream Only.’
‘What?’
‘Chocolate chip, of course.’
Milhouse is no democrat. He is just sometimes extraordinarily, annoyingly honest. I appreciate his comments even when I don’t agree with them.
Shut your fucking mouth, you fucking liar. “You Democrats”?! “You people”?! How dare you?
And no, Jane’s Revenge do not operate out in the open, because they know they would be arrested if they did.
” If they ever catch those “Jane’s revenge” people they’re likely to get a lot more than these people will get”… always the legal optimist. We haven’t quite gotten to the stage of the quotas of innocent people that Lenin and Stalin demanded to be rounded up for crimes against the Soviet state, but I would challenge you to prove we aren’t moving in that direction.
“And the fact that other people get away with it is not really an excuse.” So much for equality before the law.
I have to say I’m not surprised at all. I expected absolutely nothing better from that pedophile in the white house or anybody who’s morally corrupt enough to serve him.
Re: Abortion
We gave up the fight when we ACCEPTED that the Hyde Amendment actually stopped tax funding of the abortion
that was just another sell-out by the gop and of course the msm wasnt going to tell you any different
WHAT?? YOU SAY::::
“womens life in danger”
that is theeee catch-all
anything COULD put her life “in danger”
and when sympathetic doctors and nurses are filling out HER FORMS AND want to get paid
check the box that says “life in danger”
WHO IS GOING TO HAVE ACCESS TO THESE RECORDS???!!!
no one
you willll be fooled again
so abortion is an act of love as the left keeps telling us
THEN SHOW THE KIDS WHAT AN ABORTION LOOKS LIKE
SINCE THE LEFT IS ALLLLLLL about “keepn it real”
Wasn’t there a recent Appellate Court decision that overturned a conviction on 14th Amendment “equal protection” grounds – because the DOJ was vigorously prosecuting people perceived to be right-wing but not prosecuting at all anyone on the Left for similar violations of the same law? Wasn’t related to this FACE Act, but seems like it would provide grounds for these protesters to appeal.
This FACE Act Law, aside from being a blatant 1st Amendment violation, is supposed to protect a lot more than abortionists. And yet, no one has any protection under it other than baby murderers. Lefty “protesters” can, and regularly do, block access to any business they choose to riot in front of. They have no qualms about assaulting anyone that wants to enter/leave that business as well. Never seen DOJ use this law to prosecute them under any circumstances.
Have you got a link to that decision? If you’re correct then it’s good news, but it would probably be the first time in over a century that such a decision had been made. This argument comes up all the time, and the courts always reject it.
And they didn’t cause $2 B in property damage or murder anyone.
Abortion is the Leftists Golden Calf
Let’s not forget that 17 GOP senators voted for the FACE act, including “christian conservative” Mitch McConnell.
Let’s hope this motivates SCOTUS to nullify the FACE Act.
Is this going to SCOTUS? If so, this the answer.
On what grounds could they nullify it? On its face it’s a valid law. The fact that it doesn’t seem ever to have been enforced against the other side is not a flaw in the law, it’s on the individual prosecutors in each instance.