California Superior Court Judge Christopher Hite dismissed
14 out of 15 felony charges against Center for Medical Progress (CMP) video makers David
Daleiden and Sandra Merritt in their exposé of Planned Parenthood baby-murder for research
baby parts scheme.
Planned Parenthood bought California Attorney General Xavier
Becerra and his baby killing benefactor are probably squealing in their exposed
hypocrisy of prosecuting the Whistleblowers rather than the actual Planned
Parenthood felons.
Below is the Breitbart story of the 14 felony counts against
Daleiden and Merritt being tossed.
JRH 6/24/17
******************
Fourteen of 15 Felony Charges Dismissed Against Planned
Parenthood Videomakers
June 22, 2017
A superior court in
California has dismissed 14 of 15 felony charges against the video journalists
who exposed alleged profiteering from the sale of body parts of aborted babies
within Planned Parenthood and its partners in the biomedical procurement
industry.
The charges were dismissed
against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress
(CMP) – with leave to amend, meaning California Attorney General
Xavier Becerra may refile those charges, if he includes more specific
facts.
Judge Christopher Hite also
denied the attorney general’s request for contempt sanctions against Daleiden’s
criminal defense counsel, former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve
Cooley & Associates (SCA) and his associate, former Los Angeles County
Deputy District Attorney Brentford J. Ferreira.
“We were pleased with Judge
Hite’s rulings over all,” Cooley and Ferreira said in a statement sent to Breitbart
News. “We look forward to further pre-trial litigation.”
BREAKING:
State judge GRANTS most of defendant Daleiden’s and Merritt’s demurrer motions,
knocking out the 14 recording charges until the CA AG amends their complaint.
The judge also denied the AG’s request for contempt sanctions against David’s
defense counsel, and agreed Judge Orrick’s federal gag order in the civil
lawsuit should not prevent defendants from using the videos in our defense.
Following
the defense’s complaint that there are too many surreptitious recordings to
know which ones the California Department of Justice is relying on, the judge
requested more specificity in the charging document, specifically to identify
the videos that are the basis of the charges. The California Department of
Justice has 10 days to amend the complaint and will be making the requested
changes.
Becerra’s office alleged that
Daleiden and Merritt recorded 14 individuals connected to the abortion and
fetal tissue industries in Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Francisco, and El Dorado,
without their consent.
“This is a politically
motivated prosecution,” Daleiden told reporters
Wednesday. “And this is discriminatory against pro-life Americans and a rally
against Californians who happen to have a different point of view.”
The explosive videos of the
individuals, allegedly discussing how they obtain the highest quality fetal
body parts during abortions in order to maximize sales to biotech companies,
rocked the nation and set off multiple congressional investigations into the
abortion and fetal tissue procurement industries.
Becerra, a former Democratic
congressman who became attorney general after his predecessor, Kamala Harris,
was sworn in as a U.S. senator, said his office “will not tolerate the criminal
recording of confidential conversations,” reported the Los
Angeles Times.
“The right to privacy is a
cornerstone of California’s constitution, and a right that is foundational in a
free democratic society,” Becerra added.
It’s
disturbingly aggressive for Becerra to apply this criminal statute to people
who were trying to influence a contested issue of public policy, regardless of
how sound or popular that policy may be. Planned Parenthood and biomedical
company StemExpress, which was also featured in the videos, have another remedy
for the harm that was done to them: They can sue Daleiden and Merritt for
damages. The state doesn’t need to threaten the pair with prison time.
According to OpenSecrets.org,
Becerra received a total of $5,535 from
Planned Parenthood during his congressional election bids between 1998 and
2014.
Harris is on record as
having received $2,600 in 2016 from
Planned Parenthood for her Senate race campaign. Additionally, Harris was
the recipient of $39,855 from the
Abortion Policy/Pro-Abortion Rights lobby group, according to OpenSecrets.org.
ElectionTrack.com reported Harris received
$15,000 from Planned Parenthood for her attorney general campaign bids.
As Breitbart News reported, emails obtained by
the Washington Times in September of 2016 showed that Harris’s
office collaborated with Planned Parenthood to produce the California
legislation criminalizing undercover journalists for publishing and
distributing recordings of private communications with abortion providers.
According to the Times:
The
documents are another indication of Ms. Harris' close relationship
with Planned Parenthood and call into question the impartiality of her ongoing
investigation of Mr. Daleiden, legal experts said.
The
emails show Beth Parker, chief legal counsel for Planned Parenthood Affiliates
of California, sending multiple drafts of AB 1671 to Jill Habig, who was at the
time special counsel to the attorney general.
“Attached
is the language for AB 1671, proposed amendments to Penal Code section 632,”
Ms. Parker wrote in an email marked March 8. “I look forward to your thoughts
about this.”
Ms.
Parker sent a revised draft of the legislation to Ms. Habig on March 16.
“Here’s the rewrite of the video tape bill,” she wrote. “Let me know what you
think.”
Habig later became deputy manager of Harris’
U.S. Senate campaign. The campaign website featured
a petition asking voters to support and protect Planned Parenthood’s federal
funding.
Charges brought against
Daleiden and Merritt in Harris County, Texas – under suspicion of bias – were ultimately
dropped, however. One of Planned Parenthood’s biotech partners – StemExpress –
also backed off a
lawsuit against the videomakers.
When the felony charges in
California were filed, Daleiden said:
The
bogus charges from Planned Parenthood’s political cronies are fake news. They
tried the same collusion with corrupt officials in Houston, TX and failed: both
the charges and the DA were thrown out. The public knows the real criminals are
Planned Parenthood and their business partners like StemExpress and DV
Biologics—currently being
prosecuted in California—who have harvested and sold aborted baby
body parts for profit for years in direct violation of state and federal law.
We look forward to showing the entire world what is on our yet-unreleased video
tapes of Planned Parenthood’s criminal baby body parts enterprise, in
vindication of the First Amendment rights of all.
Though Planned Parenthood has
denied any wrongdoing in its alleged sale of body parts, it also
announced in October 2015 that it would no longer accept
payments for aborted fetal tissue.
The organization and its
media and political allies continue to insist the CMP videos were “deceptively
edited.” However, a Democrat opposition research firm named Fusion – hired
by Planned Parenthood itself to review the videos – said while
their analysts observed the videos had been edited, “the analysis did not
reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation.”
Additionally, Fusion noted,
“[A]nalysts found no evidence that CMP inserted dialogue not spoken by Planned
Parenthood staff.”
An analysis by Coalfire, a
third-party forensics company hired by Alliance Defending Freedom, found that
the videos were “not manipulated” and that they are “authentic.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee and
the House Select Investigative Panel have
referred Planned Parenthood Federation of America, several of the largest Planned
Parenthood affiliates in the country, and three of their business associates in
the fetal tissue procurement industry to the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice
for criminal prosecution.
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