By Deacon Mike Manno
(The
Wanderer) – In 2013 the
investigative journalist David Daleiden, and his firm, Center for Medical
Progress, went undercover to expose the illegal activities of the abortion
industry. During the following 30 months, he documented the sale and purchase
of aborted baby parts. He was able to document that oftentimes these baby parts
were purchased with tax dollars for research purposes.
He also found that some organs
would fetch a higher price if the abortion was performed in a manner that might
cause a higher risk to the mother seeking the abortion. His report also
indicated that some of the fetal parts sold were from babies that were actually
born alive.
In 2015 he began to release
the undercover videos he had recorded. They confirmed evidence of illegal
partial-birth abortions, of infants born alive and vivisected for their organs,
as well as a spate of other financial and ethical violations relating to the
illegal trafficking of aborted baby parts.
Congress, in response,
conducted an investigation that led many states to defund Planned Parenthood.
But it also brought multiple suits against Daleiden, including a criminal claim
brought by then California Attorney General Kamala Harris.
During the pendency of one of the suits, Daleiden’s defense team became aware
of several connections that the federal judge hearing the case, William Orrick,
had with the abortion industry. They immediately requested that the judge
recuse himself from the case, which the judge refused to do. When Daleiden
persisted, another judge was named to resolve the issue who then found that
Orrick was fine because the financial involvements were all in his wife’s name.
That case resulted in a $16
million verdict in favor of Planned Parenthood against Daleiden and the Center
for Medical Progress. But even before the case ended, Judge Orrick issued a gag
order preventing Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress from releasing
any of the videos to the public and suppressed them at trial. Some of those
videos showed how abortion clinic employees callously and flippantly negotiated
the price of baby hearts, lungs, livers, and brains.
Daleiden’s legal team appealed
the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and in its petition noted
Judge Orrick’s conflicts of interest. Recently, The Wall Street Journal
included Orrick in a list of judges who broke judicial ethics, and perhaps the
law, by hearing cases in which they might have a financial interest and who
ruled in favor of their interests.
In the report it found that Orrick had founded a Planned Parenthood clinic that
fed pregnant patients into “fetus-harvesting” programs. And before becoming a
federal judge, he worked as the board secretary and legal counsel for an entity
called the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, which partnered with Planned
Parenthood. While Orrick was working there, it set up a PP facility on site.
So how will this new
information affect the case on appeal?
“This may turn out to be
determinative,” Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More
Society, which represents Daleiden, told my Iowa Catholic Radio audience.
“This is something [the judge]
should have told us, but didn’t,” Brejcha said, noting that the defense team
didn’t find out about the judge’s prejudices until the trial was underway. He
noted that they had tried to appeal the recusal matter after the second judge
ruled against them, but interlocutory appeals during trial are normally
disfavored. Now that the case is over, at least on the trial level, we have a
better appellate case.
“We believe we have a good
case on appeal on this issue and many others,” he said. “His [Orrick’s] view of
the law was so jaundiced — negative to our side; much of our evidence and
expert witnesses were barred.”
He added, “It was a one-sided
adjudication before Judge Orrick. The Planned Parenthood connection was evident
in his slanted instructions he gave to the jury.”
Noting that Daleiden was not
trying to make a profit on his reporting, but to shine a light on the abortion
industry’s actions, Brejcha said, “You never had a sense in his courtroom that
David was only trying to affect public policy.”
Federal law requires judges to
recuse themselves from cases in which they or a family member have a financial
interest, or the “ownership of a legal or equitable interest, however small.”
This Orrick not only did not do, but resisted attempts to have him removed from
the case.
The Judicial Administrative
Office had responded that the original reports were “troubling” and that the
office is carefully reviewing the matter. “That may be something the Ninth
Circuit will look at; his ties to Planned Parenthood should have disqualified
him from hearing the case,” Brejcha said.
The appellate case is being
briefed now, he said, and repeated that he believes they have a good case for
reversal; if not, they are prepared to go to the Supreme Court.
Voris And Free Speech Rights
There’s another case that is
being appealed to the Second Circuit that you might want to follow. It involves
a traditional Catholic ministry that wants to hold a prayer rally in Baltimore
near where the bishops are meeting next month.
The case is St. Michael’s Media, Inc. v. The Mayor and
City Council of Baltimore and it involves a well-known Catholic media
personality, Michael Voris, whose daily “Vortex” episodes are distributed under
the program name “Church Militant.”
Voris, as you might know, has
been very critical of many of the bishops, especially over the sexual abuse
scandal and his claim that the bishops are collectively not taking a strong
enough stand against pro-abortion Catholic politicians who still present
themselves — unworthily, he suggests — for Communion.
As a result he rented an
outdoor city pavilion near the hotel where the bishops will be meeting in
November, as he has done several times in the past. The idea is not only to
pray for the bishops’ correction, but to be in a place where they can see the
gathered crowd. The title for this year’s activity is called: “Bishops: Enough
is Enough Prayer Rally.”
To make a long story short,
Voris and the entity that controls the pavilion entered into a rental
arrangement last summer to coincide with the bishops’ meeting. The city later
canceled the agreement, citing reports that Voris and crowd were violent and
had connections with the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Voris then brought suit in
federal court claiming that the cancellation violated St. Michael’s Media’s
First Amendment rights. A hearing was held before U.S. District Court Judge
Ellen Hollander, a Clinton appointee, who, in an 86-page Memorandum Opinion,
sided with Voris, finding no evidence to support the claims that the prayer
rally would become violent or a public safety concern (“The City cannot conjure
up hypothetical hecklers and then grant them veto power.”), and carefully took
apart the constitutional argument that the city had proposed that its action
would not violate anyone’s free speech rights (“The First Amendment to the
Constitution is at the heart of this case.”).
“Viewpoint discrimination,”
the judge found. But when Voris went to check on arrangements, the city —
ignoring the court order — shooed him away. As it turned out, the next morning
the city was filing an appeal with the court of appeals which may be calculated
to drag the legal proceedings out long enough for the bishops to conclude their
meeting while things are pending.
This will be a classic First
Amendment case. The court of appeals reaction will be interesting, especially
if it acts immediately so as to allow the prayer rally should it decide to
affirm Judge Hollander’s decision.
(You can reach Mike at:
DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday at 10 a.m. CT on Faith On
Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)
