Court rules pro-lifers not racketeers
By Joyce Howard Price and Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 1, 2006

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled yesterday that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used against protesters at abortion clinics, ending a legal battle that has gone on for 20 years.

The high court's 8-0 decision effectively bars efforts by pro-choice groups to bankrupt the pro-life movement by using federal anti-mob laws against protest groups, claiming that such organizations were violent criminal conspiracies.

But in his 15-page decision for the unanimous court, Justice Stephen G. Breyer ruled that "physical violence unrelated to robbery or extortion," such as demonstrations by abortion opponents at clinics, "falls outside the scope of the Hobbs Act," the federal extortion statute enacted in 1946. The rest