{"id":241389,"date":"2021-03-09T12:55:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T18:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=241389"},"modified":"2021-03-11T23:08:48","modified_gmt":"2021-03-12T05:08:48","slug":"animal-rights-groups-pro-life-investigators-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/animal-rights-groups-pro-life-investigators-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Animal rights groups file court briefs supporting pro-life investigators&#8217; free speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>(<a href=\"https:\/\/lc.org\/newsroom\/details\/030821-ags-and-animal-rights-groups-support-sandra-merritt-case\">Liberty Counsel<\/a>)\u00a0Twenty state attorneys general and several nonprofit organizations such as Animal Outlook, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Mercy For Animals, Inc. (MFA), and the Government Accountability [Project] have filed amicus briefs at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Sandra Merritt and her colleague, David Daleiden. Their briefs argue that the lower court\u2019s decision against Merritt and Daleiden will harm First Amendment journalism, which often uses undercover recordings to reveal crime and abuse.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Liberty Counsel represents Merritt in the multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit regarding her undercover investigation of Planned Parenthood\u2019s trafficking of human baby body parts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">In their <a href=\"http:\/\/lc.org\/030821AGamicusMerritt.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">brief<\/a>, the attorneys general of Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia argue that the trial court erred in excluding the public policy defense, because the videos were used by law enforcement authorities \u2013 including some of these amici themselves \u2013 to successfully investigate and prosecute wrongdoers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ:\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/many-ways-planned-parenthood-discredit-daleiden\/\">The many ways Planned Parenthood tried to discredit David Daleiden<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The AGs state, \u201cThe district court wholly dismissed the applicability of the public policy defense to enforcement of the contracts at issue\u2014the predicate by which Plaintiffs purport to impose monetary damages for Defendants\u2019 recording and dissemination of the videos at issue (the \u2018CMP Videos\u2019). These videos included surreptitiously recorded statements by various Planned Parenthood employees and associates, which inspired a wide range of government action by the executive and legislative branches at the federal, state, and local levels. Amici previously submitted briefs in related matters in opposition to an injunction limiting the disclosure of the CMP Videos to law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/lc.org\/1-LC-Images\/Harry&amp;Sandra600px.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"335\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Animal Outlook, PETA, MFA, and the Government Accountability [Project] stated in their <a href=\"http:\/\/lc.org\/030821NGOamicusMerritt.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">brief<\/a> that undercover reporting is necessary to a free society; deception is central to undercover reporting; and investigative deception is constitutionally protected. They argue that the kinds of \u201cdamages\u201d awarded to Planned Parenthood are barred by the First Amendment because they would chill and kill free speech.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The organizations state, \u201cThe First Amendment cannot countenance a system of law in which exposure of putative misdeeds\u2014even by deception\u2014is judged to be the actionable cause of injuries to the bad actor, rather than the potential misdeeds themselves. Any other rule would leave investigative reporters prostrate before the financially and politically powerful. Indeed, if left standing, the district court\u2019s various decisions on recoverable damages will be a roadmap for investigative subjects to sue journalists, activists, and whistleblowers to chill their undercover investigative work\u2026 To be clear, organizations considering an undercover investigation now face the specter of potentially debilitating liability because they engaged in an investigation on a matter of public concern. In the end, if investigative reporting is to have any role in exposing fraud, abuse, malfeasance, and criminality, or facilitating dialogue and debate on matters of great public concern as it has for over a century, First Amendment limits on recoverable damages for nondefamation civil claims must be vigorously enforced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Liberty Counsel\u2019s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, \u201cFor years, journalists have used the same undercover investigation methods as Sandra Merritt and David Daleiden. They did everything according to California law. Now the top law enforcement officers from 20 states and several nonprofit animal rights organizations see the danger in punishing Merritt and Daleiden for their First Amendment journalistic efforts to uncover the truth regarding Planned Parenthood\u2019s illegal actions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Editor&#8217;s Note: This press release was reprinted from <a href=\"https:\/\/lc.org\/newsroom\/details\/030821-ags-and-animal-rights-groups-support-sandra-merritt-case\">Liberty Counsel<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveactionnewsonline\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Liberty Counsel)\u00a0Twenty state attorneys general and several nonprofit organizations such as Animal Outlook, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Mercy For Animals, Inc. (MFA), and the Government Accountability [Project] have filed amicus briefs at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Sandra Merritt and her colleague, David Daleiden. Their briefs argue [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":686,"featured_media":215045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077,3473],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Animal rights groups file court briefs supporting pro-life investigators&#039; free speech<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The briefs argue that a lower court\u2019s decision against Merritt and Daleiden harms First Amendment journalism which uses undercover recordings.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/animal-rights-groups-pro-life-investigators-speech\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Animal rights groups file court briefs supporting pro-life investigators&#039; 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