On The Front Lines

RICO Criminalizes Pro-Life Protesters, Violates Right to Free Speech

U.S. Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Critical Pro-Life Free Speech Case

WASHINGTON, D.C.--The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, the most significant pro-life protest case to come before the court in several years. The justices will decide whether the Constitution allows abortion providers to use the courts to prosecute pro-life protesters under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which was originally created to combat organized crime. RICO outlaws "racketeering activity," including extortion. Abortion providers have used RICO to argue that pro-life protesters are "extorting" the right of abortion from clinic owners and patients in the same way that mobsters extort money from shop owners. As a result, the courts have imposed crushing fines on protesters. Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of the pro-life protesters in Scheidler arguing that using RICO criminalizes the protesters and violates their First Amendment right to free speech.

In Scheidler, the case presently before the Supreme Court, three pro-life protest leaders and their organizations were ordered to pay over $85,000 to two Chicago area abortion clinics for their efforts to demonstrate outside the clinics. Although the abortion providers did not prove that the protesters were part of an organized "extortion" ring, the trial court allowed them to link the protesters' actions to various violent acts committed by other anti-abortion protesters. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision, ruling that the protesters violated a federal extortion law, the Hobbs Act, even though the law requires proof that the accused individuals sought to obtain the "property" of another person, which was clearly not the intent of the protesters. In the 1994 case NOW v. Scheidler, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that RICO could not apply to political protesters. As a result, many abortion protesters have been hesitant to protest.

"The right to speak and protest cannot be given short shrift simply because the issue is politically unpopular," stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "Abortion clinics frequently seek to employ the civil liability provisions of the RICO Act as a tool for limiting abortion protests. In this way, RICO has been used as a bludgeon to silence dissenters from rightfully expressing their views in a public forum."
A copy of John W. Whitehead's statement on Scheidler is available at www.rutherford.org.

The Rutherford Institute is an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to defending constitutional and human rights.

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