Wednesday, March 01, 2006

SCOTUS rules that federal racketeering laws cannot be used against abortion protests

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used against anti-abortion demonstrators. A copy of the opinion can be found here.

The issue concerned the following language from the Hobbs Act:

whoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion or at-tempts or conspires so to do, or commits or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this section . . . .18 U. S. C. 951(a)

The Supreme Court analyzed the issue as follows:

The question, as we have said, concerns the meaning of the phrase that modifies the term"physical violence," namely, the words "in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this section." Do those words refer to violence (1) that furthers a plan or purpose to affec[t] commerce . . . by robbery or extortion, or to violence (2) that furthers a plan or purpose simply to affec[t] commerce? We believe the former, more restrictive, reading of the text--he reading that ties the violence to robbery or extortion-- is correct.

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