Embattled Pro-Life Group Returns to SCOTUS to Refute N.O.W. Charges
by Ed Thomas
July 7, 2005
(AgapePress) - A defendant's prediction of a third trip to the U.S. Supreme Court in a nearly 20-year-old landmark abortion protest case has come true. Joe Scheidler of Chicago's Pro-Life Action League says his lawyers will again have to present arguments against the National Organization for Women (NOW) in a case in which the high court has already ruled in favor of the pro-lifer's group.Scheidler says despite the 8-to-1 Supreme Court ruling in 2003 clearing him and the Pro-Life Action League of RICO Act charges, the lower federal Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals failed to reverse a nationwide injunction against the group's clinic protests. The appellate court remanded the case to a district court -- the trial court -- for a final ruling, saying the high court missed acts by the defendants that may have qualified under racketeering laws.
"We didn't want to go to the trial court," Scheidler notes. "We had no luck in the trial court -- we lost. So we appealed to the Supreme Court to repeat their ruling. They ruled two years ago that we were not racketeers." But instead, the justices granted a writ of certiorari by the plaintiffs, thus agreeing to hear the whole case over again.
The Pro-Life Action League's leader says the reversal of the injunction was held up because of the Seventh Circuit Court's contention that the high court failed to rule on some alleged crimes or predicate acts on the pro-life group's part. The circuit court attempted to let the original trial court rule on the matter, prompting the pro-lifers' appeal, which Scheidler says was only necessary "because the abortionists have friends on the appellate court."
"One of the justices that held up the reversal had worked for Justice Blackmun," Scheidler notes. And another, he points out, "is a member of the National Organization for Women, the very people that brought the suit against us. She's a member of that organization, and yet she rules in their favor. She should have recused herself. So much is going on that shouldn't."
The next hearing for N.O.W. v. Scheidler has been set for the fall Supreme Court term. Hence, Scheidler says, Pro-Life Action League's lawyers must now prepare for a precedent-setting third appearance at the high court for reasons typical of the kind of exceptions made for abortion cases in U.S. courts.
Ed Thomas, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
