CDR: Abortion Assasination Politics likely going to Supremes

[A. Melon]

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.