Posted on 02/19/2009 11:50:32 PM PST by Marie2
A pastor at a Berkeley church was sentenced Thursday to three years' probation and fined $1,000 after becoming the first person convicted under an Oakland ordinance barring protesters from coming within 8 feet of anyone entering an abortion clinic.
Walter Hoye could have faced up to two years in jail after a jury convicted him last month of two misdemeanor counts of unlawfully approaching patients at the Family Planning Specialists Medical Group at Second and Webster streets.
The case was an emotional one, and pro-choice and anti-abortion advocates jammed the Oakland courtroom for the sentencing hearing. Dozens of people unable to find seats filled the hallway outside.
Hoye, 52, of Union City appeared ready to accept a jail sentence, telling Judge Stuart Hing of Alameda County Superior Court, "I believe that an unjust law is no law at all."
Hing said Hoye was by all accounts a "decent person." But illegal conduct is not justifiable when there are legal ways of protesting, the judgesaid.
Hing asked if Hoye would abide by an order requiring him to stay 100 yards away from the Oakland clinic, and the pastor said no.
The judge then imposed the stay-away order anyway, fined Hoye and sentenced him to three years of probation and 30 days in jail. Hoye can serve his time in a sheriff's work detail or by volunteering.
The "medical safety zone" around abortion clinics was set by the Oakland City Council in 2007. Abortion protesters must stay at least 8 feet from women, staff or escorts entering the buildings.
Hoye, executive elder of the Progressive Missionary Baptist Church in south Berkeley, hands out anti-abortion literature outside abortion clinics. He was arrested May 13 at the Oakland clinic, carrying a sign that read, "Jesus loves you and your baby. Let us help you!"
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
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The judge should be asked: “Where exactly is the “medical safety zone” for the baby?”
A reckoning will come, one day soon, a reckoning will come.
published in SF Gate
yes it will...
“Medical Safety Zone.”
Myass.
A COURAGEOUS pastor! God bless him.
Is a city council allowed to make criminal law?
>>The “medical safety zone” around abortion clinics was set by the Oakland City Council in 2007.
Cities have criminal laws but they have to conform to the state and Federal constitution.
This law is probably constitutional - you would not be allowed, for example to stand outside a hospital and try to talk people out of having surgery - you’d be asked to leave and if you didn’t you’d be arrested.
The real answer here is to elect a President who will appoint supreme court justices who don’t think abortion is a right.
>>Seems a big stretch to consider talking to someone a threat to safety...except to the business of the abortionist if they are successful. I didn’t see anything that indicated he was threatening or detaining anyone but just coming within 100 feet of the building and 8 feet of another person. <<
they might feel unsafe but I doubt they actually were unsafe.
I agree.
Link:Obama Brownshirts
It has begun in earnest now.
Hate speech?
Bet you don’t need an 8 foot pole when you’re counseling someone to have an abortion.
Ever see how many pile on, armed to the teeth, when some punk gets lippy?
Every tin-pot small town PD in the US nowadays is armed with every sort of high-tech weaponry and gadgetry (just look a the coupla' thousand dollar light show mounted on top of most squad cars, not to mention the tens of thousands of dollars worth of computer stuff and weaponry in the trunk and cab).
Many police departments, even in small towns, have their own S.W.A.T. teams - making them an almost invincible force that could quell any rebellion. Using the "War on Drugs" as an excuse, we have militarized our state and local police forces to the point where with just a slight change in central government, a police state could be imposed overnight. What citizen or even group of citizens would be able to offer more than token resistance?
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