Seven pro-life activists were found guilty on Tuesday in federal court of conspiracy against rights and violations against the Freedom of Access to Clinics (FACE) Act. One of the activists is an 89-year-old concentration camp survivor.
Joel Curry, Eva Edl, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Justin Phillips, Calvin Zastrow, and Eva Zastrow were found guilty on all charges related to an August 2020 rescue at Northland Family Planning Clinic, an abortion facility in Sterling Heights, Michigan. According to The Daily Wire, Edl (an 89-year-old survivor of a communist prison camp in Eastern Europe) and Idoni were convicted on an additional charge for pro-life activism they attended at the Women’s Health Clinic in Saginaw, Michigan.
“Conspiracy against rights”
Caroline Davis was a pro-lifer present at the Sterling Heights rescue who testified against the defendants as a star witness for the prosecution. Rather than a felony charge, she faces a misdemeanor. Davis also turned state’s witness against pro-life activists in FACE Act trials this year in both Tennessee and Washington, D.C.
Leif Le Mahieu for The Daily Wire noted that the trial, which began on August 6, was “packed with tension and drama.”
“The seven were prosecuted by the Biden administration, which has been using the conspiracy against rights charge, originally designed for the Ku Klux Klan, to go after pro-life activists. They face over 10 years in prison and hundreds of thousands in fines upon sentencing,” reported The Daily Wire. As Live Action News previously noted:
The conspiracy statute under which the activists have been charged is 18 U.S.C. § 241, which “makes it unlawful for two or more persons to agree to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in the United States in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States or because of his or her having exercised such a right. Unlike most conspiracy statutes, §241 does not require, as an element, the commission of an overt act.”
“To manipulate the jury”?
Also testifying against the pro-lifers was a post-abortive woman who went to Northland Family Planning for her abortion on the day of the rescue.
The woman, Sarah, “walked into the court sobbing, through the door sobbing,” Director of Pro-Life Michigan Lynn Mills told Live Action News. “She had been given the diagnosis that her second trimester baby had no kidneys and was not going to make it through to viability …. To get an abortion at the hospital would have cost $10,000 so within four days of this diagnosis, her husband went and found Northland Family Planning and they went in for the abortion on the same day as the rescue.”
Sarah told the court that despite struggling with infertility and having an abortion just four days after the diagnosis, what she believes sent her to therapy and has given her nightmares over the last four years were the pro-lifers present that day. Her sobbing was so intense that a mistrial was nearly called said Mills.
“It was so prejudicial against the defendants that the defense attorneys felt like they couldn’t even cross-examine her because she was so out of control weeping, sobbing,” said Mills. The defense attorneys called out the DOJ for exploiting Sarah’s pain and the loss of her child to manipulate the jury.
A study in the journal Prenatal Diagnosis stated, “Women who terminated [following prenatal diagnosis] reported significantly more despair, avoidance, and depression than women who continued the pregnancy.” It also noted that there “appears to be a psychological benefit to women to continue the pregnancy…”
In addition, PerinatalHospice.org explained, “[T]here is no research to support the popular assumption that terminating a pregnancy with fetal anomalies is easier on the mother psychologically.” On the contrary, research has shown that carrying a child to term following a life-limiting diagnosis is beneficial for the mental health of the parents, specifically the mother.
Judge stifles info on “conspiracy” charge origin, prosecution calls rescue “crime of the century”
The case was overseen by Judge Matthew Leitman, an Obama appointee, whom The Daily Wire said “repeatedly clashed with David Peters, the lawyer for Phillips.” Le Mahieu reported, “On Monday, [Phillips] tried to bring up the history behind the conspiracy against rights charge, which was passed in 1870 to deal with groups like the Ku Klux Klan, not peaceful protesters.
“The defense objected, and Leitman ordered the jury out of the room. He then criticized Peters for going ‘way over the line’ and suggested he might hold him in contempt.”
Mills, who was present during the seven days of active arguments, said that during closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sunita Doddamani called the pro-life rescue “the crime of the century.”
In addition, Mills said the prosecution told the court, “Burning a cross is protected speech, as reprehensible as that is. But once you break FACE, you lose your First Amendment right to free speech.”
“This conspiracy theory is so over the top,” said Mills. “It’s just extremely frightening what is happening in our country.”
Despite any fear, however, when the guilty charge was handed down, the defendants and their supporters left the court and stood outside singing praise and thanking God for his glory. “There was no hate. No hate,” said Mills. “Just, ‘Thank you, God.’”
A sentencing date has not been set.
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]
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