LOUISVILLE, Kentucky, May 18, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A pro-life lawyers group is accusing President Obama’s administration of prosecuting a pro-life sidewalk counselor who they say was the victim, and not the perpetrator, of an assault outside an abortion clinic.
The Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) filed a motion to dismiss Tuesday in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Kentucky, in a case brought by Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder against Kentucky pro-lifer David Hamilton.
In January 2010, LLDF says David Hamilton was peacefully and lawfully handing literature to women entering EMW Surgical Center, an abortion clinic in Louisville, Kentucky. The group claims that clinic volunteers illegally interfered with Hamilton’s activities by locking arms to block him; however, he is now being prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice for assaulting a volunteer.
Over a year after the date of the incident, the Department of Justice served Hamilton with a legal complaint, alleging that he violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE). But LLDF lawyers say that the pro-choice volunteer was the one who violated FACE by attempting to forcibly block Mr. Hamilton to prevent him from sharing pro-life literature with abortion-bound women.
In its motion to dismiss, LLDF attorneys Vincent Heuser and Michael Hirsch said Holder lacked standing to prosecute because the supposed victim did not seek legal action, and that the individual in question was not a clinic escort, but in fact a counter-protestor among dozens present outside the clinic that day.
“This administration continues to increase the budget deficit by pandering to the abortion lobby, wasting taxpayer monies to hunt down and prosecute the victim rather than the perpetrator,” said Dana Cody, President and Executive Director of Life Legal Defense Foundation, who called the case “ridiculous.”
A decision on the motion to dismiss is expected within the next few weeks.