PORTLAND, Oregon -- In a landmark case testing the limits of free speech on the Internet, a federal jury on Tuesday ordered anti-abortion activists to pay more than US$100 million over a Web site and posters.
After a three-week trial and more than five days of deliberations, the jury agreed with plaintiffs who argued that The Nuremberg Files Web site and wanted-man-style posters depicting physicians who performed abortions intimidated doctors and limited access to abortion clinics.
"The jury saw anti-choice wanted posters for what they are: a hit list for terrorists," said Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
The eight-person jury found that the defendants, including groups and individuals prominent in the anti-abortion movement, violated racketeering statutes and a 1994 federal law protecting access to abortion clinics.
With more than a dozen defendants each ordered to pay millions in punitive damages to the six plaintiffs, the total award was more than $107 million, said Maria Vullo, lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
One defendant sobbed quietly but otherwise the courtroom was quiet during the reading of the complex verdict, which took more than 30 minutes. After court was dismissed, the plaintiffs and their lawyers celebrated with hugs.
Planned Parenthood, the Portland Feminist Women's Health Center, and four doctors sued the activists in 1995, saying the site and posters encouraged violence against doctors and others who help provide abortions. The material does not contain any explicit threats of violence.
The doctors argued their fears were real, with some 300 acts of violence against US clinics over the past two decades, including seven killings in the past five years.
On the Web site, which includes detailed dossiers on dozens of abortion providers, doctors who have been killed in anti-abortion violence have a line struck through their name, while those who have been wounded are listed in gray.
Anti-abortion activists defended their activities on First Amendment grounds, saying they merely collected information in anticipation of a day when doctors who performed abortions would be put on trial for murder. They said they could not be held accountable for the violent actions of others.
But the plaintiffs said the publication of such detailed information amounted to a threat of bodily harm in a heated atmosphere of clinic bombings, burnings, shootings, and acid attacks.
"Whether these threats are posted on trees or on the Internet, their intent and impact is the same: to threaten the lives of doctors who courageously serve women seeking to exercise their right to choose abortion," said Feldt.
Copyright© 1999 Reuters Limited.
