The Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that the RICO statute, a law intended to stop organized crime's use of extortion, could not be used against abortion clinic protestors. This is actually the second time the court has ruled this way, once in 2003 and once now. See the full ruling here. The court is absolutely right on this one and I've said that for years. Nice to see a unanimous decision put the issue to rest.
And given how often I defend the ACLU against ridiculous criticisms, here's one where I think they have earned some criticism. When the RICO act was being written and voted on, the ACLU testified in front of Congress about the need to write the statutory language as narrowly as possible so as not to infringe upon legitimate activities. In this case, the law was being used in a manner that required a far broader reading than anything Congress intended with it, yet the ACLU did not make that argument in their briefs in the case.
I understand that they were torn between their legitimate support for abortion rights and desire to protect clinics from violence, and their historical support for free speech. But if there is one message that the ACLU has always tried to send it is that it shouldn't matter what the nature of the speech is or whether one agrees with it or not, it only matters that they have the right to say it. It's disappointing to see them forget that lesson in this case.
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Ed, while I agree with you that the Supreme Court correctly decided these cases, your attack on the ACLU appears to be unwarranted. First, I see no evidence from the Supreme Court docket files or from yesterday's opinion that the ACLU ever filed briefs in the case. Nor does the ACLU list Scheidler on its website (where it normally lists all the cases in which it has participated). Perhaps you have some evidence for your assertion to the contrary -- if so, I believe you should provide it.
Second, your criticism is wrong on the merits, insofar as you assert that these were First Amendment cases. The Supreme Court decided two issues here (in the 2003 opinion and yesterday's opinion): First (in the 2003 opinion), that the use of physical violence or threats of physical violence to prevent women from exercising their right to abortion services did not constitute the federal crime of "extortion" under the Hobbs Act, and therefore could not be the predicate offense for a RICO suit; and second (yesterday), that the Hobbs Act did not criminalize physical violence itself, unconnected to an extortion scheme.
It should be obvious that the Supreme Court would have had no reason to decide these issues if it had not been alleged -- and, as this followed an actual jury verdict, proved to the jury's satisfaction -- that Operation Rescue and the other defendants had, in fact, engaged in physical violence or threats thereof in their protests. It should also be obvious that the First Amendment does not protect such activities in the least, nor should it. (And the Supreme Court never addressed any First Amendment arguments in its opinions, if indeed any were made.)
In my view, the reason to agree with the Supreme Court on this is that we should always be wary of expanding criminal statutes beyond what they were intended to cover, and beyond what a reasonable person could think they cover. And, if the ACLU had in fact argued otherwise, I would agree that this was an unfortunate mistake on its part. But, as I pointed out, I see no evidence they did any such thing.
GlennNYC wrote:
The ACLU has really sent mixed signals on this. At one point, the Reproductive Freedom Project of the ACLU published a booklet suggesting that clinics should use the RICO statute against abortion protestors. Ira Glasser later admitted that this was a bad idea and that he regretted having done that. And when the JNOW v Scheidler case first began back in 1994 (the case actually began in 1986, and was in the Federal appeals court in 1994), the ACLU did file a brief arguing for a broad reading of RICO, despite the fact that as recently as 1987, Anthony Califo of the ACLU had testified in front of Congress on the dangers of using RICO against abortion protestors and urged reform of the statute to prevent that from happening. They did not file a brief in either the 2003 case or the current case. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that had this same argument been made against, say, unions for picketing or peace groups for protesting, the ACLU would have taken a far bolder position against the use of this statute where it clearly didn't apply.