Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 25, 1994 TAG: 9401250167
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The opinion, written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, gives abortion clinics a potentially powerful legal weapon - including the prospect of triple damages - to combat and possibly to deter the violence that has made it increasingly risky and expensive for the clinics to stay in business.
The issue in the case decided Monday did not concern abortion itself, but rather was about how broadly to interpret the federal racketeering law.
Abortion-rights groups hailed the ruling as a significant victory, although it leaves abortion clinics with the task of proving the allegations in an 8-year-old lawsuit that the decision reinstated.
In the suit, the National Organization for Women is accusing Operation Rescue and several other groups and individuals of running a nationwide conspiracy to drive abortion clinics out of business through intimidation, bombings and other violent acts.
While there is no doubt that bombings, vandalism, harassment of staff members and other acts have occurred, the plaintiffs have to prove in court that the acts were part of a "pattern of racketeering activity" undertaken by the groups and individuals named in the lawsuit.
Anti-abortion groups condemned the ruling. Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue and a defendant in the suit, called the ruling "a vulgar betrayal of over 200 years of tolerance toward protest and civil disobedience."
Two federal courts in Chicago had dismissed the suit on the ground that the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the federal law known as RICO, applied only to activities motivated by a desire for economic gain.
In dismissing the suit in 1992, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said the defendants' actions as described in the suit had been "reprehensible" but had a political and ideological motive rather than an economic goal.
But Rehnquist said Congress had not included an economic-motive requirement when it passed the racketeering law in 1970. Noting that such a requirement was "neither expressed nor, we think, fairly implied" in the law, the chief justice said, "We believe the statutory language is unambiguous."
The decision, National Organization for Women vs. Scheidler, was the latest in a long list of Supreme Court rulings to give a broad interpretation to the RICO law, which Congress had passed to combat the infiltration of legitimate businesses by organized crime.
The law quickly became popular as a useful tool in business disputes and other contexts far removed from organized crime. The law makes it illegal to conduct the "affairs" of an "enterprise" through a "pattern of racketeering activity." A pattern is established by proof of at least two actions that violate any of a number of state and federal crimes; a criminal conviction is not necessary.
by CNB