Judge rules against PA abortion protestors

Judge rules against abortion protestors

Bid to hold Allentown in contempt is similar to a pending motion.

By Elliot Grossman

Of The Allentown Morning Call

September 24, 2005

In the continuing battle involving Allentown abortion protesters, a federal judge has rejected the protesters' request to hold the city in contempt of court.

Eight frequent protesters at the Allentown Women's Center wanted top city officials fined $1,000 a day and possibly imprisoned for allegedly violating a judge's order governing their picketing. The protesters claim city police have restricted their protests, violating their constitutional rights.

But U.S. District Judge James Knoll Gardner of Allentown dismissed the contempt of court motion Wednesday because it's similar to another pending motion the protesters made to get police to ease up on them. In that motion, the protesters want an injunction declaring that police violated the 2004 court order governing their picketing.

In the 2004 order, U.S. District Judge James McGirr Kelly, who has since died, created rules for the protesters and police to control where the abortion opponents could picket outside the center near Hanover Avenue.

But since that ruling, the protesters have claimed police have been harassing and intimidating them by arresting them, even though they haven't violated Kelly's ruling. They said that city officials had engaged in ''lawless, renegade conduct.''

City solicitor Thomas Anewalt replied that the police are frustrated and confused about how to deal with the protesters because of ambiguities in Kelly's ruling.

Kelly ruled that protesters are allowed to demonstrate outside the center as long as they do so on the ''public walkways'' without blocking the center's entrance, its parking lot or traffic. But the lack of sidewalks has complicated the matter. Police say they do not know where the ''public walkways'' are.

In asking that the contempt request be dismissed, Anewalt wrote that if the judge considered that motion it would ''waste judicial resources'' by giving the protesters ''two bites at the apple.''

Copyright © 2005, The Morning Call

Source: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b4-5contemptsep24,0,2455991.story?coll=all-newslocal-hed

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