Planned Parenthood v. Am. Coalition of Life Activists
| Decision Date | 15 September 2000 |
| Docket Number | 99-35325,99-35333,Nos. 99-35320,99-35405,99-35327,99-35331,s. 99-35320 |
| Citation | 244 F.3d 1007 |
| Parties | (9th Cir. 2001) PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF THE COLUMBIA/WILLAMETTE INC.; PORTLAND FEMINIST WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER; ROBERT CRIST, M.D.; WARREN M. HERN, M.D.;ELIZABETH NEWHALL, M.D.; JAMES NEWHALL, M.D., Plaintiffs-Appellees, and KAREN SWEIGERT, M.D., Plaintiff, v. AMERICAN COALITION OF LIFE ACTIVISTS; ADVOCATES FOR LIFE MINISTRIES; MICHAEL BRAY; ANDREW BURNETT; DAVID A. CRANE; TIMOTHY PAUL DRESTE; MICHAEL B. DODDS; JOSEPH L. FOREMAN; CHARLES ROY MCMILLAN; STEPHEN P. MEARS; BRUCE EVAN MURCH; CATHERINE RAMEY; DAWN MARIE STOVER; CHARLES WYSONG, Defendants, and MONICA MIGLIORINO MILLER; DONALD TRESHMAN, Defendants-Appellants. PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF THE COLUMBIA/WILLAMETTE INC.; PORTLAND FEMINIST WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER; ROBERT CRIST, M.D.; WARREN M. HERN, M.D.; ELIZABETH NEWHALL, M.D.; JAMES NEWHALL, M.D., Plaintiffs-Appellees, and KAREN SWEIGERT, M.D., Plaintiff, v. AMERICAN COALITION OF LIFE ACTIVISTS; ADVOCATES FOR LIFE MINISTRIES; MICHAEL BRAY; ANDREW BURNETT; DAVID A. CRANE; TIMOTHY PAUL DRESTE; JOSEPH L. FOREMAN; STEPHEN P. MEARS; MONICA MIGLIORINO MILLER; CATHERINE RAMEY; DAWN MARIE STOVER; DONALD TRESHMAN; CHARLES WYSONG, Defendants, and MICHAEL DODDS; CHARLES ROY MCMILLAN; BRUCE EVAN MURCH, Defendants-Appellants. PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF THE COLUMBIA/WILLAMETTE INC.; PORTLAND FEMINIST WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER; ROBERT CRIST, M.D.; WARREN M. HERN, M.D.; ELIZABETH NEWHALL, M.D.; JAMES NEWHALL, M.D., Plaintiffs-Appellees, and KAREN SWEIGERT, M.D., Plaintiff, v. AMERICAN COALITION OF LIFE ACTIVISTS; ADVOCATES FOR LIFE MINISTRIES; MICHAEL BRAY; ANDREW BURNETT; DAVID A. CRANE; MICHAEL DODDS; CHARLES ROY MCMILLAN; STEPHEN P. MEARS; MONICA MIGLIORINO MILLER; BRUCE EVAN MURCH; CATHERINE RAMEY; DAWN MARIE STOVER; DONALD TRESHMAN, Defendants, and TIMOTHY PAUL DRESTE; JOSEPH L. FOREMAN; CHARLES WYSONG, Defendants-Appellants. PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF THE COLUMBIA/WILLAMETTE INC.; PORTLAND FEMINIST WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER; ROBERT CRIST, M.D.; WARREN M. HERN, M.D.; ELIZABETH NEWHALL, M.D.; JAMES N |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
[Copyrighted Material Omitted]
[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Christopher A. Ferrara, American Catholic Lawyers Association Inc., Ramsey, New Jersey, argued the cause for all Appellants, and submitted a brief on behalf of appellant Donald J. Treshman.
Maria T. Vullo, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, New York, New York, argued the cause for Appellees.
Stephen J. Safranek, Thomas More Center for Law & Justice, Ann Arbor, Michigan, for Appellants American Coalition of Life Activists, Advocates for Life Ministries, Andrew Burnett, David Crane, Catherine Ramey, Michael Bray and Dawn Stover.
Robert M. O'Neil, for amicus curiae Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, Charlottesville, Virginia, in support of reversal.
Paul deParrie, Portland, Oregon, amicus curiae, in support of reversal.
Michael H. Simon, Perkins Coie LLP, Portland, Oregon, for amicus curiae ACLU Foundation of Oregon, Inc., in support of affirmance.
Susan M. Popik, Chapman, Popik & White, San Francisco,California, for amici curiae Feminist Majority Foundation, Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League and NARAL Foundation, National Abortion Federation, National Coalition of Abortion Providers, National Organization for Women Foundation, NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, National Women's Health Foundation, Northwest Women's Law Center, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, and Women's Law Project, in support of affirmance.
Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General of Connecticut, for amici curiae Connecticut, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington, in support of affirmance.
Erwin Chemerinsky, University of Southern California Law School, Los Angeles, California, for amici curiae AntiDefamation League, the American Jewish Committee, Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, Inc., in support of affirmance.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon Robert E. Jones, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No.CV-95-01671-REJ.
Before: Alex Kozinski and Andrew J. Kleinfeld, Circuit Judges, and William W Schwarzer, District Judge.**
Anti-abortion activists intimidated abortion providers by publishing their names and addresses. A jury awarded more than $100 million in actual and punitive damages against the activists, and the district court enjoined their speech. We consider whether such speech is protected by the First Amendment.
During a 1995 meeting called to mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), the American Coalition of Life Activists (ACLA) unveiled a poster listing the names and addresses of the "Deadly Dozen," a group of doctors who perform abortions. In large print, the poster declared them guilty of "crimes against humanity" and offered $5,000 for information leading to the "arrest, conviction and revocation of license to practice medicine." The poster was later published in an affiliated magazine, Life Advocate, and distributed at ACLA events.
Later that year, in front of the St. Louis federal courthouse, ACLA presented a second poster, this time targeting Dr. Robert Crist. The poster accused Crist of crimes against humanity and various acts of medical malpractice, including a botched abortion that caused the death of a woman. Like the Deadly Dozen List, the poster included Crist's home and work addresses, and in addition, featured his photograph. The poster offered $500 to "any ACLA organization that successfully persuades Crist to turn from his child killing through activities within ACLA guidelines" (which prohibit violence).
In January 1996, at its next Roe anniversary event, ACLA unveiled a series of dossiers it had compiled on doctors, clinic employees, politicians, judges and other abortion rights supporters. ACLA dubbed these the "Nuremberg Files, " and announced that it had collected the pictures, addresses and other information in the files so that Nuremberg-like war crimes trials could be conducted in "perfectly legal courts once the tide of this nation's opinion turns against the wanton slaughter of God's children." ACLA sent hard copies of the files to Neal Horsley, an anti-abortion activist, who posted the information on a website.1 The website listed the names of doctors and others who provide or support abortion and called on visitors to supply additional names.2 The website marked the names of those already victimized by anti-abortion terrorists, striking through the names of those who had been murdered and graying out the names of the wounded. Although ACLA's name originally appeared on the website, Horsley removed it after the initiation of this lawsuit.
Neither the posters nor the website contained any explicit threats against the doctors. But the doctors knew that similar posters prepared by others had preceded clinic violence in the past. By publishing the names and addresses, ACLA robbed the doctors of their anonymity and gave violent anti-abortion activists the information to find them. The doctors responded to this unwelcome attention by donning bulletproof vests, drawing the curtains on the windows of their homes and accepting the protection of U.S. Marshals.
Some of the doctors went on the offensive. Along with two Portland-based health centers, the doctors sued ACLA, twelve activists and an affiliated organization, alleging that their threatening statements violated state and federal law, including the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994 (FACE), 18 U.S.C. S 248.3 Because the doctors claimed they were harmed by defendants' speech, the district court instructed the jury that defendants could only be liable if their statements were "true threats" and therefore unprotected by the First Amendment.4 In a special verdict, the jury found that all the statements were true threats and awarded the doctors $107 million in actual and punitive damages.5 The district court then issued an injunction barring defendants from making or distributing the posters, the webpage or anything similar. ACLA and the other defendants appeal...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Adelson v. Harris
...political debate are particularly likely to be understood as rhetorical opinion.”); Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette, Inc. v. Am. Coal. of Life Activists, 244 F.3d 1007, 1019 (9th Cir.2001) (acknowledging the “well-recognized principle that political statements are inherently p......
-
United States v. Turner
...“the constitutional question turns on the source of the[ ] fear.” Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette Inc. v. Am. Coal. of Life Activists, 244 F.3d 1007, 1018 (9th Cir.2001) (“Planned Parenthood I ”), rev'd en banc,290 F.3d 1058 (9th Cir.2002). Application of the “true threats” te......
-
Rogers v. Mroz
...political opinion as a newspaper editorial or political cartoon." Id. ; accord Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette, Inc. v. Am. Coal. of Life Activists , 244 F.3d 1007, 1019 (9th Cir. 2001) (acknowledging the "well-recognized principle that political statements are inherently pron......
-
United States v. Larson
...Fed.Appx. 314, 316 (5th Cir.2007) (“The First Amendment does not protect extortion.”); Planned Parenthood of Columbia/Willamette, Inc. v. Am. Coalition of Life, 244 F.3d 1007, 1015 n. 8 (9th Cir.), reh'g en banc granted, 268 F.3d 908 (2001), reh'g en banc, 290 F.3d 1058 (2002); Smithfield F......
-
Table of Cases
...96 S.Ct. 2831, 49 L.Ed.2d 788 (1976), 1189, 1270-72 Planned Parenthood of Columbia/Willamette v. American Coalition of Life Activists, 244 F.3d 1007 (2001), rev'd en banc, 290 F.3d 1058 (9th Cir. 2002), 1359, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S.Ct. ......
-
Freedom of speech and true threats.
...(1.) This hypothetical is based on Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette, Inc. v. American Coalition of Life Activists, 244 F.3d 1007 (9th Cir. 2001), reh'g en banc granted, 268 F.3d 908 (9th Cir. 2001) [hereinafter Planned Parenthood IV], Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamet......
-
Technologies of protest: insurgent social movements and the First Amendment in the era of the Internet.
...Inc. v. Am. Coalition of Lite Activists, 41 F. Supp. 2d 1130 (D. Or. 1999) (imposing liability and enjoining website), vacated by, 244 F.3d 1007 (9th Cir. 2001), reh'g en banc granted, No. 99-35320, No. 99-35325, No. 99-35327, No. 99-35331, No. 99-35333, No. 99-35405, 2001 U.S. App. LEXIS 2......
-
IS WIKILEAKS A HIT MAN HANDBOOK? WHY WIKILEAKS CANNOT CLAIM FIRST AMENDMENT IMMUNITY IF THE AFGHAN AND IRAQ WAR LOGS CAUSE PHYSICAL HARM.
...is a question best left to a jury."). (198) Id. (199) Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette v. Am. Coal, of Life Activists, 244 F.3d 1007 (9th Cir. (200) Id. at 1012. (201) Id. at 1012-13. (202) Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette v. Am. Coal, of Life Activists, 23 F. Supp......