The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied Liberty Counsel’s request for a hearing with the entire appeals court in the multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit against Sandra Merritt.
Liberty Counsel previously filed a request for an en banc (full court) review and presented argument that the appeals court should reverse the lower court’s ruling, order a new trial and strike the punitive damages award.
Merritt and David Daleiden, founder of Center for Medical Progress, released videos in 2015 exposing Planned Parenthood’s illegal trade in aborted baby body parts, after a 30-month undercover operation. The videos showed Planned Parenthood executives haggling over prices of aborted baby body parts and discussing how they change abortion procedures to obtain more intact organs.
In 2019, the case was heard by San Francisco’s U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick III, who is the founder of the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center that houses the Planned Parenthood of Northern California facility in its complex. In 2017, the defense requested that Orrick recuse himself from the case and he refused. Judge Orrick severely restricted the evidence, and at the end, gave instructions to the jury on how they should rule on critical issues.
The jury decided in favor of the abortion giant on each count, including RICO, and awarded more than $2 million in damages. The court subsequently awarded Planned Parenthood nearly $14 million in attorney’s fees and costs, for a total judgment of over $16 million.
Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The Supreme Court is our next destination to undo the injustice of this case. The High Court will have the final say. Every journalist and person who values free speech and a free press should be concerned with the implications of this case. We will fight for the free speech rights of all people.”
Original story from LifeNews.
God bless David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt. They are God’s heroes, martyrs, working for Christ, giving their all to save the lives of poor, helpless unborn children, condemned to Death in their mothers’ wombs.
Any of the thumbs downers want to share why?
It is easy to see the motives of the “thumbs-downers.” They are hateful, immoral Pro Abortion trolls, of the Culture of Death– hateful to Christ and His Church. They evilly believe that Baby-Killing doctors have the “right” to murder helpless infants in their mothers’ wombs, cut up the poor little babies’ body parts like cheap meat– and sell them to horrific science companies. That is the horrific, dark, demonic underworld that was publicly exposed by heroic, saintly David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt. The “thumbs-downers” are Satanic trolls, who hate God and His saintly, heroic workers, giving their lives for love of Christ, to save His beloved, senselessly slaughtered, innocent children.
Maybe the thumbs downers are just trolls seeking negative attention. Not old enough to understand the article.
… we all know who thumbs-down everything.
Daleiden is a saint among us, suffering well and working hard for God
The high court is sure to see value of granting life to the little one that the pp team would seek to tear apart for the almighty dollar. Why are we not surprised to see the sham ruling from the judge who rules from the bench?
Please keep Mrs. Merritt in your prayers as well. While the less famous of the two, she too has suffered for standing up for life. We met this woman years ago at a Bible study, as her following Christ eventually led her to the fullness of our Catholic Church. God bless her.