Grass-roots activists reacted with dismay to Monday’s verdict against anti-abortion groups, saying it threatens time-honored tactics in the fight for social change.
While the federal jury levied an $86,000 judgment against conservative activists, it was groups on the Left that reacted with anger and fear that the same racketeering law could now be used against them.
“This was a statute designed for drug runners and organized crime, and not for social activities,” said Jeff Kerr, general counsel for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “In this setting, (it) is being used as a tool to thwart vigorous protest and freedom of speech on important social issues.”
The law at issue is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, a statute originally designed to fight mobsters that has been turned against a host of other organizations.
The law targets those who are part of an organization that commits a number of illegal acts. But the way courts have interpreted it, the number of acts can be small, the crimes can be minor, and the defendant may not even know about them.
Deborah Rephan of the environmental group Greenpeace, which has been accused by opponents of breaking the law, worries about the effect even if organizations like hers ultimately prevail in future lawsuits.
“By tying up groups like Greenpeace and other environmental organizations in RICO-related lawsuits, it simply gives polluters more time and freedom to pollute and tie up their opponents in all sorts of legal wrangling,” Rephan said. “That in itself is a potential threat.”
But others played down the threat to the American activist tradition.
Protesters will fare just fine so long as they don’t break the law, said Northwestern University law professor Paul Robinson. “RICO is not being used here to suppress political thought and action, but criminal activity,” Robinson said.
Similarly, feminist groups said this lawsuit was aimed at crimes like extortion, not at vigorous debate.
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“In this country, we have numerous acceptable ways of expressing one’s view,” said Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, in a statement. “Violence, threats and intimidation are not among them.”
Still, civil disobedience has a long tradition in this country, and one person’s legitimate tactic may be another person’s heinous crime. Some suggested that under current law civil rights groups, or at least radical groups like the Weather Underground, would have been crippled.
“It’s probably true that the current RICO statute could have been used at the time against some of the radical underground groups of the 1960s which had political motivations but worked as a group using criminal means,” said Robinson.
Anti-abortion activists insisted the jury’s decision Monday would have little effect on their activities. Peaceful protest, one strategist said, is more effective than aggressive action anyway.
“The best way to win this battle is the peaceful protestation among people of all religions, combined with hearings on (Capitol) Hill on issues about when life begins,” said Republican consultant Greg Mueller.
Indeed, the greatest concern among abortion rights tacticians seemed to be that their adversaries had been handed a great fundraising issue.
Monday’s decision was one more step in the long expansion of the statute since its enactment in 1970.
Written nearly three decades ago, the powerful law levies stiff penalties on mobsters and others who engage in a “pattern” of
illegal acts–punishments that were much tougher than those for the individual crimes.
But as defendants of all kinds have discovered to their dismay, prosecutors and plaintiffs are finding new ways to use the law against a wide variety of offenses.
The Supreme Court paved the way for the current case in 1994, when it ruled that the protesters could be sued under RICO, even though their agenda was political action and not financial gain.
Some suggest Monday’s verdict may finally persuade Congress to limit the use of the law, as the courts have been unwilling to do. Conservatives in particular, who in the past have favored it as a tough-on-crime law, may be spurred to action by its now-evident potential to harm causes close to their hearts.
But whatever the fears of activist organizations and defense lawyers, some legal experts played down the potential for Monday’s decision to be used against legitimate political speech, or even as a dramatic expansion of the law.
Several noted, for example, that when the Supreme Court said the racketeering law could be used against groups with political motives, Justices David Souter and Anthony Kennedy stressed specifically that this did not mean that anyone’s free-speech rights could be violated.