First Amendment victory no thanks to Biden DOJ

Merrick Garland is no moderate

The New York Times and Washington Post did not run stories today about Monday’s “not guilty” jury verdict for Mark Houck, an anti-abortion activist who faced up to 11 years in prison for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances or Face Act in 2021.

As the Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn wrote,

This was a case that never should have been brought. U.S. District Judge Gerald Pappert suggested as much when he asked the prosecutor whether federal law didn’t “seem to be stretched a little thin here.” The FBI’s decision to arrest Mr. Houck as though he were John Dillinger also suggested a political stunt.

Mr. Houck is a pro-life “sidewalk counselor” who for years has prayed and protested outside the Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia. His goal is to try to persuade women entering the clinic not to go through with their abortions. That is also his constitutional right.

McGurn is right. And shame on Attorney General Merrick Garland for grabbing this loser of a case and trying to put a man in prison essentially for opposing abortion.

Let me stipulate. If anti-abortion activists try to block the movement of women who want to get a legal abortion, there is a role for law enforcement. The jury apparently figured out this was not the case with Mr. Houck.

As for Garland, and all the hype about him being a moderate Democrat when then President Barack Obama nominated him to the Supreme Court, that argument is dead. Garland sicced the most powerful law firm in the country against an everyman. Garland’s DOJ sent armed law enforcement officers to arrest Houck for a case that had been treated as so inconsequential that both federal and local authorities did nothing about it for almost a year.

Fox News has a story here.

It’s hard to understand how major newspapers did not see the verdict as a story. But then, these are the news outfits that fell for Russiagate.

Debra J. Saunders is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Feel free to comment below.