Hallelujah! Finally, fifteen months after our second victory in the United States Supreme Court, Judge David H. Coar, the trial judge in the NOW v. Scheidler RICO lawsuit, issued his Final Judgment, as directed by the High Court.
No one knows why it took more than a year for Judge Coar to simply reverse his 1999 Judgment and vacate the nationwide Injunction he had put in place at that time. But the document he finally issued, dated May 8, 2007, had two errors in it. The judge forgot to include defendant Operation Rescue in the Judgment, and in the docket entry he mistakenly stated that the Judgment was “against certain defendants,” instead of “in favor of.”
So on May 14, Coar vacated the May 8 Judgment and issued a new one including Operation Rescue. But he still did not correct the wording in the docket entry. Attorneys for both the Pro-Life Action League and Operation Rescue are asking for a corrected Judgment.
However, this action frees up both the Pro-Life Action League and the Thomas More Society to submit claims for the costs involved in the trial and subsequent appeals. We expect objections and more delays from Fay Clayton, attorney for the National Organization for Women, on the issue of reimbursing us for our costs. Our attorney also discovered that there was no official list in the Court records of the abortion clinics that were notified of the Judgment. So, in spite of two Supreme Court victories, two (or more) Final Judgments and twenty-one years of hassle, we have not yet seen the end of NOW v. Scheidler.
Related Stories
- Justice Delayed in NOW v. Scheidler Hearings—Article in Fall 2006 Action News
- Scheidler Wins Again in High Court—Article in the Winter 2006 Action News
- NOW v. Scheidler Main Page on this site
