Peace and justice activists ask Supreme Court to end RICO case against Pro-Life protesters

Social justice news
December 2005

Anniversary calls for rededication to peace and justice
CRS: Last chance to avert second catastrophe in earthquake zone
Fellowship of Reconciliation leads historic peace delegation to Iran
Henriot: flawed summit still "worth it"
NCC urges McDonald’s to improve worker conditions and wages
Pax Christi USA condemns 1000th execution in the United States
Peace and justice activists ask Supreme Court to end RICO case against Pro-Life protesters
Pope Benedict becomes first 'new citizen' of Bethlehem
U.S. Bishops reiterate call for death penalty abolition
U.S. Bishops: Time for moral trade agreements

Peace and justice activists ask Supreme Court to end RICO case against Pro-Life protesters
Over 23 national organizations and 31 noted peace and justice leaders have filed a friend of the court brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that involves the use of RICO, the federal racketeering law, against pro-life protesters. The Court heard oral argument in the case, Scheidler v National Organization of Women, on November 30, 2005.

The amicus brief filed by these groups maintains that Congress never intended to apply the draconian remedies of RICO to social protesters. Under state law a protester can be fined for trespass, but it is usually a modest amount. A person found liable under RICO may owe triple the amount of any damages that a jury awards to a plaintiff. This can be enough to bankrupt a protester. In this case, leaders for the National Organization of Women have repeatedly declared that the goal of their twenty-year-old lawsuit is to bankrupt leaders of abortion protest in the 1980s.

NOW also sought and won a nationwide injunction against its adversary. In 2002 the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that this injunction “must necessarily be vacated” because the abortion protestors were not liable for any RICO charges. When the case went back to the court of appeals, the lower court ordered a new hearing on whether the protesters could be held liable under RICO for conduct that includes “a threat of physical violence to property,” and the lower court kept the nationwide injunction in place.

The groups joining the amicus brief range across the political spectrum. They include People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Sojourners, Citizens United Against the Death Penalty, Pax Christi USA, and Interfaith Worker Justice. Many of these groups have used civil protest to promote their various causes. All are committed to the legitimacy of nonviolent direct action on a wide range of social issues. None condones the use of violence as a legitimate form of social protest. The groups and activists who signed the brief do not all oppose abortion, but all recognize the threat to vigorous political protest and freedom of speech posed by applying RICO to social protest.

The sponsoring organization is Consistent Life, a network of over 200 groups that oppose all violence, including war, the death penalty, poverty and abortion. Paul Magno, the Network’s Executive Director and a member of the Ploughshares, an anti-war movement founded in the 1980’s, says, "If RICO laws were in effect, historic visionaries such as participants in the Boston Tea Party, Susan B Anthony, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be treated like the Mafia. Those who have a passion for creating a more just world shouldn't be punished like thugs who extort property for their own personal gain."

Noting that the Supreme Court has already ruled that there were no RICO violations in this case, Carol Crossed, a co-founding member of Consistent Life, said: "Enough is enough. Why drag this on and on at enormous cost to people who have the courage to dissent?” Crossed has been arrested and risked arrest dozens of times for issues as far-ranging as homelessness, violations of human rights in Central America, the build-up of nuclear weapons, and abortion.

Individual amici include leading peace and justice figures such as anti-war activist Daniel Berrigan S.J., Middle-East humanitarian Kathy Kelly, capital punishment abolitionist Helen Prejean, and actor Martin Sheen.

Last May two large labor unions – the Teamsters and the IBEW – joined the Consistent Life amicus brief asking the Court to hear this case again. When the Court agreed to do so, they joined the brief of the AFL-CIO noting the dangerous effect on labor picketing that could flow from application of RICO to that form of protest activity.

Back to page top