MICHIGAN (LifeSiteNews) — Federal Judge Matthew Leitman has paused the sentencing of a group of pro-life advocates convicted in connection to a rescue at an abortion center in Michigan until after Donald Trump returns to the White House, opening the possibility that a presidential pardon might spare them entirely.
In August, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, Cal Zastrow, his daughter Eva Zastrow, and 89-year-old Holocaust survivor Eva Edl were found guilty of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, over their rescue outside Northland Family Planning Clinic in Sterling Heights, Michigan. They face up to 10 years in prison, which in Edl’s case would virtually guarantee she dies in jail.
On Tuesday, however, Leitman ordered that sentencing be delayed for almost four months to contend with several motions filed by defense attorneys, The Daily Wire reports.
“As further discussed on the record, the Court will conduct another status conference during the week of March 24, 2025, to receive a report from the Government trial team as to whether there has been any change in the Government’s position with respect to the continuation of this case and/or with respect to the positions expected to be advanced by the Defendants in their post-trial motions,” the judge wrote.
Trump pledged on the campaign trail to “review the cases of every political prisoner … unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration” and “sign their pardons or commutation on Day One,” long before the new deadline for sentencing the pro-lifers.
Thomas More Society attorney Steve Crampton explained to the Wire that the 2024 election results mean that Leitman also has to consider the likelihood of impending changes in the U.S. Justice Department “alter[ing] its policies concerning prosecution of these FACE cases and in particular the use of the Conspiracy Against Rights statute against these defendants.”
“I think the judge was correct in his thinking about the DOJ perhaps reversing course here and ordering a stay of the proceedings,” he said. “There is a new sheriff in town, and these prosecutions were always more about the politics of protecting the abortion industry than they were about serious violations of the law.”
Enacted in 1994, the FACE Act ostensibly protects access to facilities run by both pro-life and pro-abortion organizations, including abortion facilities, pro-life pregnancy centers, and churches. However, conservatives have criticized the Department of Justice under the Biden administration for weaponizing the act to prosecute pro-life advocates while only a handful of pro-abortion vandals have been arrested following a string of attacks on churches and pro-life centers in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Among the most egregious Biden prosecutions have been the “D.C. Nine“ who entered an abortion center in the nation’s capital and refused to leave in 2022 and who received prison time despite several of them being elderly with medical issues. Also concerning was the case of Mark Houck, a Philadelphia pro-lifer whom the DOJ prosecuted under the FACE Act after arresting in a morning FBI raid for a physical altercation with a hostile abortion supporter that local authorities had already dismissed. Houck was acquitted in January 2023.
To prevent a future administration from renewing similar prosecutions against pro-lifers, Republicans led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) are urging Congress to take up a bill to repeal the FACE Act.