By Deann Flanagan
Life News
The Center for Medical Progress and its founding members, including Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, are seeking to appeal a draconian Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court in order to protect the First Amendment Rights of journalists to report to law enforcement evidence of crimes contained in undercover recordings.
A three-member panel of the liberally activist Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that additional footage obtained through the CMP’s undercover investigations – even those recordings that contain evidence of criminal conduct committed by Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation officials – cannot be released to law enforcement personnel. A requested review by the full Ninth Circuit was denied.
The ruling is related to a federal lawsuit, National Abortion Federation v. CMP, et al, that was filed in 2015 after the CMP released several videos showing Planned Parenthood executives haggling over top dollar to illegally sell aborted baby organs and tissue. The NAF sought to block the further release of possibly incriminating videos.
Attorneys for the American Center for Law and Justice are representing Newman in that case. A joint motion filed May 5, 2017, is seeking a stay of the Ninth Circuit’s mandate pending the filing of a certiorari petition with the U.S. Supreme Court.
The motion states that the court wrongly upheld a “prior restraint” on CMP’s First Amendment speech, which had captured great public interest. The undercover videos were also the subject of investigations by House and Senate panels that later referred Planned Parenthood organizations to the U.S. Department of Justice and state Attorneys General for further criminal investigation and prosecution.
“Prior restraints are ‘the most serious and least tolerable infringement of First Amendment Rights,’” stated the motion to stay.Life News report continues
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