CA Judge Places Stiff Contempt Fine On Pro-Life Activist For Exposing Evils Of Abortion Industry

How invested in Planned Parenthood are the politicos of California? It would appear that the state’s protection of the baby butcher mill is enthusiastic, to say the least.

In the latest move, regarding the case of David Daleiden and his organization, the Center for Medical Progress, Daleiden, CMP, and two of his attorneys were held in civil contempt for a series of videos released in May.

The videos were undercover footage of a National Abortion Federation meeting, where the heartless wretches of the abortion industry met to speak in the coldest of terms about the atrocities that are committed in their facilities every day.

Judge William Orrick, the presiding judge, awarded approximately $137,000 to the National Abortion Federation, presumably because the money they bragged about receiving from harvesting dead baby parts isn’t enough to get them to their goals of advanced income through lost humanity.

“Criminal defense counsel … do not get to decide whether they can violate the preliminary injunction,” Orrick said Tuesday in court.

Daleiden’s criminal defense attorneys argued that the videos are essential to providing David with a robust public defense after California Attorney General Xavier Beccera charged Daleiden and Sandra Merritt with 15 felony counts of eavesdropping. The first set of charges were dismissed by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Christopher Hite in the criminal case for lack of specificity. Beccera recently amended and refiled the charges, this time including the file names of certain videos. However, the charges still do not name the individuals involved in the conversations during which Planned Parenthood doctors and other abortionists discuss the sale of fetal body parts for profit.

It’s probably not even a conflict of interest that Orrick has ties to the abortion industry, is it?

Last month, Daleiden’s attorneys sought to have Orrick recuse himself, citing his connection to a Planned Parenthood partner group and his wife’s online activism for abortion.

While Orrick was secretary of the board of the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, the organization “embedded a Planned Parenthood clinic inside its premises, and lists among its ‘key partnerships’ … Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific …” according to the request.

The Planned Parenthood affiliate also is a member of the National Abortion Federation, the plaintiff in the case, according to the court document.

Nope. No problem there.

The Center for Medical Progress, Daleiden’s group, said his attorneys are being persecuted “just for trying to use the same video evidence in his defense that the California AG is using in his prosecution.”

In a statement, Daleiden’s group continued: “The [California] State prosecution is such a bad case, Planned Parenthood and NAF want Judge Orrick to intervene in the middle of this separate (and bogus) state criminal prosecution to put his thumb on the scales and forbid David from getting a fair trial.

And that is exactly what is going on. If they were trying to hide the appearance of impropriety in this case, they couldn’t be going about it any worse.

If there is any good news in this case, currently, it would be with Daleiden’s partner, and co-defendant, Sandra Merritt. A judge has found that the amended charges against her were not filed properly, so she may be given a break in this matter.

The Thomas More Society is defending Daleiden in this case. They released a statement after Tuesday’s horrendous charges:

“The pendency of simultaneous federal civil cases proceeding side-by-side with such a major state criminal prosecution of multiple felonies was bound to breed the most serious and grave complications, not to mention the miscarriage of justice. Must the pro-lifers’ criminal defense lawyers seek prior federal permission before summoning or cross-examining prosecution witnesses, or introducing videos or other documentary evidence into the trial record? Must the state court Judge, Hon. Christopher Hite, consult with the federal Judge, Hon. William Orrick, before ruling on objections to evidence?

“And who is actually directing the criminal case, Attorney General Becerra, or the federal civil plaintiffs, the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, who lobbied him and his predecessor, then Attorney General Kamala Harris, to bring these excessive felony charges? We will carry on with efforts to see that justice is ultimately achieved in these troubling cases.”

The Center for Medical Progress’ argument that the courts are seeking to charge their attorneys for using the same videos for defense as those used by the California attorney general’s office for their persecution might seem unusual, at first blush.

Unusual, maybe, but not without logic.

The California AG will use those videos of vile and despicable disregard for human life and say, “Look what they’re showing the world! How dare they?”

The CMP and their attorneys are showing the exact same videos to the world and saying, “Look what we’re showing the world! How dare they?”

I know whose side I’m on.

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