A felony charge of tampering with a governmental record
Aw gee, that attempt to damage Planned Parenthood has turned around and gone the other way.
A county grand jury here that was investigating allegations of misconduct against Planned Parenthood has instead indicted two anti-abortion activists who made videos of the organization.
In a statement, the Harris County district attorney, Devon Anderson, said Monday that the director of the Center for Medical Progress, David Daleiden, had been indicted on a felony charge of tampering with a governmental record and a misdemeanor count related to purchasing human organs.
Well that backfired.
Another center employee, Sandra Merritt, was indicted on a charge of tampering with a governmental record.
The Center for Medical Progress had covertly shot videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing the provision of body parts from aborted fetuses for research. Mr. Daleiden, 26, had posed as a biotechnology representative to infiltrate Planned Parenthood affiliates and surreptitiously record his attempts to procure tissue for research.
The activists have claimed that Planned Parenthood has engaged in the illegal sale of body parts — a charge the organization has firmly denied.
And the “activists” faked the video in hopes of framing Planned Parenthood.
Mr. Daleiden has been praised as a hero by some religious opponents of abortion. On Thursday, Mr. Daleiden was a featured guest at an Evangelicals for Life conference and was interviewed by Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Jim Daly, the president of Focus on the Family.
Framing people for things they didn’t do is so heroic.
It’s very amusing. The investigation was ordered by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a republican and vocal opponent of Planned Parenthood. That’s some serious egg on his face!
I’m afraid this will undo some of the damage only if it receives as much and as enthusiastic coverage as the original breathless bullshit. And what are the chances of that?
Approximately zero, for mid- to high-values of zero, quixote. Who wants to bet actual money on the chances of Fiorina calling a press conference to publicly apologize to Planned Parenthood, or of all those dozens of GOP lawmakers doing the same?
Very, very amusing, but does anyone know what the story is behind this decision?
I understood that Grand Juries only hear from the prosecutor, there’s no judge, the target of the investigation is not normally present, the prosecutor explains the law (!) and that they indict more than 99% of the time.
Does this mean that the prosecutor was actually fair or that somehow they argued against the indictment? Could the jury have gone against the prosecutor and made up its own mind?
yahweh@4:
A grand jury isn’t a trial. All that a grand jury does is decide whether there is enough evidence to go forward with a traditional jury trial, so all they usually hear is the evidence that the prosecution might use in one. So an indictment by a grand jury is not a criminal judgement, but rather basically just an official statement that a formal trial by jury is warranted. It’s a big deal in the sense that there is an official statement, but it doesn’t mean that a trial will actually happen, much less that the indicted person will be convicted of any crime. The prosecutor can try to slant the presentation of the evidence to try to get the indictment, but normally they wouldn’t go too far because they would still have to convince a trial jury in order to obtain a conviction and they’d be working against a defense attorney (or team) in that case, and prosecutors don’t like to pursue cases that they aren’t fairly sure they will win.
Now the con-men will become professional martyrs and clean up millions in donations from the knuckle-draggers who watch Fox.
Why does the US still use grand juries? A hearing before a magistrate would serve the same purpose, and at a fraction of the cost.
This won’t change minds– the people who believed the nonsense are going to assume some great conspiracy that proves how dangerous feminism is has framed the people who exposed the truth.