Wednesday, February 03, 1999
Abortion foes ordered to pay for Web site threats
BY LAUREN DODGE
The Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. — A federal jury decided Tuesday that a Web site and “wanted” posters listing abortion doctors' names and addresses amounted to death threats, ordering the site's authors to pay damages of more than $100 million.
The verdict could redefine what is considered constitutionally protected political speech. The anti-abortion materials contained no explicit threats of violence, only veiled messages — such as crossing through the names of abortion providers who were killed.
“The jury saw the posters for what they are — a hit list for terrorists,” said Gloria Feldt, the president of Planned Parenthood, the main plaintiff.
Defendants had have said they would not pay any damages.
One of the defendants, Catherine Ramey, sobbed as the verdict came in after 41/2 days of deliberations.
“This is a moral and constitutional outrage,” Ms. Ramey said afterward. She criticized a key ruling by the judge that defined “threat” as something that could be taken as a threat by a “reasonable person,” rather than as something that made lawless action “imminent.”
At issue was “The Nuremberg Files” Web site, which lists hundreds of “baby butchers” and invites readers to send in such personal details as their home addresses, license plate numbers and even the names of their children.
Three times, doctors whose names appeared on the list were killed, most recently in October when Dr. Barnett Slepian was gunned down by sniper fire in his home outside Buffalo, N.Y. His name on the Web site was promptly crossed through.
The plaintiffs sued under federal racketeering statutes and the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
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