{"id":307457,"date":"2024-02-22T06:46:04","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T12:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=307457"},"modified":"2024-11-21T23:55:39","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T05:55:39","slug":"attorneys-appeals-court-dismiss-case-investigator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/attorneys-appeals-court-dismiss-case-investigator\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorneys asks appeals court to dismiss criminal case against pro-life investigator"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>(<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-admin\/post-new.php\">Liberty Counsel<\/a>) Liberty Counsel\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lc.org\/PDFs\/LC\/021924Merritt-Writ(Submitted%5b32%5d.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">filed<\/a>\u00a0an appeal to the California First District Court of Appeal pursuing the dismissal of the criminal case against Sandra Merritt brought by former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra for her undercover journalism and videos which exposed Planned Parenthood\u2019s trade in baby body parts.<\/p>\n<p>Liberty Counsel\u2019s appeal asks the State Court of Appeal to dismiss the remaining criminal counts because those counts are based on California\u2019s recording law. The Ninth Circuit federal Court of Appeals recently ruled that Oregon\u2019s substantially similar recording law violates the First Amendment Free Speech Clause.<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-title entry-title left\"><strong>WATCH: <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/six-years-pro-life-investigators-aborted-parts\/\">Six years ago, pro-life investigators exposed the gruesome market for aborted body parts<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In a recent precedent set by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in\u00a0<i>Project Veritas v. Schmidt<\/i>, Oregon\u2019s similar ban on surreptitious recordings of conversations was determined to be a content-based restriction infringing on free speech. California\u2019s Penal Code section 632(a) is nearly identical to Oregon\u2019s unconstitutional statute. It should suffer the same fate and Merritt\u2019s case should be dismissed.<\/p>\n<p>Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, \u201cThe criminal charges are based on an unconstitutional recording law. Sandra Merritt did nothing wrong. All her recordings were done in public places. The decision from the Ninth Circuit declaring that Oregon\u2019s recording law is unconstitutional justifies dismissing the remaining criminal counts against Sandra Merritt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Editor&#8217;s Note: This press release was published at <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-admin\/post-new.php\">Liberty Counsel<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/actnow.io\/ARQQhk1\"><b><i>The DOJ put a pro-life grandmother in jail for protesting the killing of preborn children. Please take 30-seconds to TELL CONGRESS: STOP THE DOJ FROM TARGETING PRO-LIFE AMERICANS.<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Liberty Counsel) Liberty Counsel\u00a0filed\u00a0an appeal to the California First District Court of Appeal pursuing the dismissal of the criminal case against Sandra Merritt brought by former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra for her undercover journalism and videos which exposed Planned Parenthood\u2019s trade in baby body parts. Liberty Counsel\u2019s appeal asks the State Court of Appeal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":686,"featured_media":211743,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Attorneys asks appeals court to dismiss criminal case against pro-life investigator<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cThe criminal charges are based on an unconstitutional recording law....All her recordings were done in public places.&quot;\" \/>\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\/attorneys-appeals-court-dismiss-case-investigator\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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