Anti-abortion protesters say rights violated (free speech while picketing homes)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10190039

Published Tuesday | November 20, 2007
Anti-abortion protesters say rights violated
BY JOE DEJKA
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

When anti-abortion protesters began targeting the homes of Bellevue clinic workers last year, Sarpy County law enforcement responded by arresting them.

Now the protesters will ask a federal judge to rule on whether the Bellevue police chief and the county's top prosecutor overstepped their bounds.

Four protesters, including the president of Rescue the Heartland, in a complaint that was expected to be filed today in U.S. District Court, allege that the arrests violate their right to free speech.

They are seeking an injunction against Bellevue Police Chief John Stacey and Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov to block enforcement of two statutes against them should the group hold similar protests in the future.

Specifically, they want a judge to declare that Nebraska's laws against disturbing the peace and unlawful picketing are unconstitutional as applied to the protests. They also claim the laws are written so vaguely as to make them unconstitutional.

Deputy Sarpy County Attorney Marc Delman said he believes the statutes are constitutional.


FULL story at link.

[Va Lefty]

1. Let them picket at one of Bush's "Free Speech Zones" a mile or two down the road

[DesertFlower]

2. my doctor had an office in a 10 story building.

one story of the building had a women's clinic, the rest were regular medical offices. whenever a woman tried to enter the building, there was a crowd of protesters that would come up to the woman and say "lady, please don't kill your baby". it got so bad that the police had to set up barriers to keep the protesters away from the women.

[Warpy]

5. It is not free speech to accost individual men and women on the street

and harass them as they go about their legal business.

It is perfectly legitimate to set up a soapbox out of the way of foot traffic and spout whatever nonsense you want to.

However, these goons think harassing women is fun. Get it?

[msongs]

3. they'll want to burn crosses next nt

[baldguy]

4. Anti-choice terrorists.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

6. We went through this crap legally in 1992.

Planned Parenthood of Southeast Texas, etal. versus Operation Rescue, et al. Plaintiffs won damages. Picketers were picketing every weekend at the doctors' residences and at P.P. all the time, I believe.


Started at the Repuke convention in Houston in 1992, a temporary injunction was issued.
Trial in 1994. That was when I was in the same room with these domestic terrorists, just doing my job. Some of the testimony caused the jurors to slide off their chairs in shock.


And that's when I ran off screaming from my career.

[HockeyMom]

7. At their HOMES?

Isn't that trespassing on private property?

[MountainLaurel]

8. Not if they're on the sidewalk

I think that's how the pro-forced-birthers get around it.

[supernova]

9. This is distasteful in the extreme

Why picket another private individual's house?

:wtf:

edit: If anyone showed up on my property to do this, they'd better be prepared to be used for target practice.