So when is APster coming out, which lets you trade lists of deserving people?

Tuesday September 12 5:11 AM ET Abortion Web Site Verdict Appealed

By WILLIAM McCALL, Associated Press Writer

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Anti-abortion activists are asking a federal appeals court to overturn a $109 million verdict by a jury that decided a Web site and posters listing the names of abortion doctors and clinics were threats that went beyond free speech.

The case is widely seen as a test of a Supreme Court ruling that

defined a threat as

explicit language likely to cause imminent lawless action - and a

measure of how

far anti-abortion activists can go in harrying doctors and clinics.

Oral arguments in the appeal are scheduled Tuesday before a panel of

the 9th U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals.

At issue is a Web site called The Nuremberg Files that listed

hundreds of abortion

doctors accused of committing crimes against humanity and invited

readers to

send in doctors addresses, license plate numbers and even the names

of their

children.

Last year, the dozen anti-abortion activists argued the posters and

Web site were

free speech protected under the First Amendment. Critics called it a

hit list.

The jury was told by U.S. District Judge Robert Jones to consider the

history of

violence in the anti-abortion movement, including three doctors

killed after their

names appeared on the lists.

One was Dr. Barnett Slepian, who was gunned down by a sniper in

October 1998 at

his home near Buffalo, N.Y. Slepians name was crossed out on The

Nuremberg

Files Web site later that day.

In 1995, Planned Parenthood and four doctors sued the anti-abortion

activists under

federal racketeering statutes and the 1994 Freedom of Access to

Clinic Entrances

Act, which makes it illegal to incite violence against abortion

doctors and their

patients.

Jones told the jury the Wanted-style posters and Web site were not

free speech if

a reasonable person could perceive them as threats.

But a number of legal experts have criticized the February 1999 jury

verdict and

those instructions, saying a threat must be explicit.

If youre looking for a case likely to go to the Supreme Court, this

is one, said Lee

Tornquist, a law professor who specializes in the First Amendment at

Willamette

University in Salem, Ore.

Others consider the jury decision sound.

Margie Kelly, spokeswoman for the Center for Reproductive Law and

Policy in

New York, said Jones correctly told the jury to weigh any threat in

context.

This is a case that is built on history, Kelly said. You have had

years of arson,

shootings, death threats. How can that context be considered anything

but a threat?

The Georgia computer programmer who ran the Nuremberg Files was not a defendant in the lawsuit. After the verdict, his Internet provider

pulled the plug on

the site.

Among the anti-abortion activists appealing the ruling is Michael

Bray of Bowie,

Md., author of a book that justifies killing doctors to stop

abortions. Bray served

time in federal prison from 1985 to 1989 for his role in arson

attacks and bombings

of seven clinics.