Top court to decide anti-abortion group lawsuit (racketeering)

[DemsUnite]

The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Tuesday it would consider for the third time a 19-year-old federal racketeering lawsuit that says two anti-abortion groups engaged in a nationwide conspiracy to shut down health clinics.

The court also rejected without any comment appeals in several cases from Kentucky and Ohio involving displays of the Ten Commandments.

Those cases had been held for the Supreme Court's rulings issued on Monday that allowed a Ten Commandments monument on the Texas Capitol grounds, but declared unconstitutional the display of framed copies of the commandments on the walls of county courthouses in Kentucky...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050628/us_nm/court_dc;_ylt=An8O3dmSsxejOID7dBJWOWGs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MjBwMWtkBHNlYwM3MTg-

[struggle4progress]

1. US Supreme Court Grants Review - For .. Third Time - In 'Rico' Abortion ..

.. Protest Case, Scheidler vs. NOW

Distribution Source : U.S. Newswire
Date : Tuesday, June 28, 2005
To: National Desk

Contact: Tom Brejcha of the Thomas More Society, 312-782-1680 or 312-590-3408 (cell)

CHICAGO, June 28 /U.S. Newswire/ -- This morning the U.S. Supreme Court granted the petition filed last March by the Thomas More Society, Pro-Life Law Center, for Joseph Scheidler and other Chicago-based abortion protesters. The Court agreed for the 3rd time to review Scheidler vs. NOW -- the mega-sized, marathon class action lawsuit that already has twice traced an erratic path of ups and downs, zigs and zags, through all three levels of the federal judicial system over the last two decades. Filed over 19 years ago by NOW and abortion providers in June, 1986, as a federal antitrust case (protesters "conspired to restrain trade"), from the start the case was aimed at anti-abortion activist, Joseph Scheidler, who had just published a protest manual, Closed: 99 Ways to Shut Down the Abortion Industry (1985). Also named defendants were Scheidler's Pro-Life Action League, and other activist leaders and groups. Later, the suit was amended to add new charges under the federal racketeering (RICO) and extortion laws, and new defendants including Randall Terry's "Operation Rescue." Operation Rescue remains a co-defendant and its counsel, ACLJ, filed another petition for review in April, 2005, which was also granted this morning <snip>

http://press.arrivenet.com/pol/article.php/661062.html

[customerserviceguy]

2. What if

the same anti-racketeering laws had been in place during the Vietnam War? Would the Nixon Administration have used them against the antiwar movement? I fear the use of anti-Mafia legislation to chill free speech.