[ad_1]
The first tests of Texas’ unprecedented and much controversial program to enforce a ban on almost all abortions came from two non-Texans – the two former lawyers struck off the bar for alleged misconduct who are effectively calling on the courts to strike down the law for constitutional grounds.
Oscar Stilley, a former Arkansas lawyer, filed one of two civil lawsuits filed in Bexar County District Court on Monday against a San Antonio abortion provider who publicly admitted to performing an illegal procedure. Stilley is being held by the Federal Bureau of Prisons on a 15-year sentence for tax evasion and conspiracy, according to the complaint posted on his personal website.
Felipe N. Gomez, an Illinois lawyer, filed the other lawsuit; he is currently suspended from the state bar on charges of sending harassing and threatening emails, the records show.
“In some ways, the identity of these early plaintiffs highlights the absurdity of the law,” said Kate Shaw, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law and legal collaborator with ABC News.
“No connection to the problem, no connection to the parties, no connection – as far as we can judge from the complaints – to Texas, at all. And yet they might have the capacity, the way the law is drafted, to go to court and have the courts really hear their case, “she continued.
Gomez is a self-proclaimed “pro-choice plaintiff,” according to the two-page complaint obtained by ABC affiliate KSAT, and has explicitly asked the court to overturn the SB8 law.
SB8 prohibits abortions after approximately 6 weeks of pregnancy in Texas and allows “anyone, other than an official or employee of a state or local government”, to bring a civil action against a person suspected of having “Aided or abetted” an illegal abortion.
“The law says anyone can bring a complaint. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a state constitutional limit on who can file a complaint,” said Irving Gornstein, executive director of the Georgetown Law Center Supreme Court Institute, “But this person appears to be someone who doesn’t mind abortions, he just wants to earn a bounty.”
Stilley, who seeks to claim a minimum reward of $ 10,000, and Gomez, who says he is not claiming any financial damage, have both sued Dr. Alan Braid, a San Antonio-based OB-GYN, who has publicly acknowledged in an op-ed on September 6, he performed an abortion in the first trimester in express violation of state law.
“I acted because I had a duty of care to this patient, as I do to all patients, and because she has a fundamental right to receive this care,” Braid wrote. “I fully understood that there could be legal consequences – but I wanted to make sure Texas didn’t get away with its attempt to prevent this blatantly unconstitutional law from being tested.”
The US Supreme Court voted 5-4 on September 1 to allow SB8 to come into effect for procedural reasons, despite what the majority recognized as “serious questions” on constitutionality. The judges did not answer these questions.
Legal experts have said that new civil cases are now “vehicles” for state and federal courts to examine the merits of SB8 itself – the near-total statewide ban on abortions – and, ultimately account, to suspend the application of the measure as a violation of the long-standing supreme law. Case law.
“There will eventually be an appeal against one of these civil judgments,” said Paul M. Smith, a veteran Supreme Court litigator and vice president of the Campaign Legal Center, “and at this point it’s difficult to imagine what the jurisdictional issues would be, that would prevent it from being decided, but it might take some time.
Smith warned that the procedural quirks of SB8 in the way it is applied – effectively replacing the population at large – could continue to complicate options for judges to block the law statewide rather than in limited cases.
“Dr. Braid is going to win,” said Steve Vladeck, professor of constitutional law at the University of Texas, in an article on Twitter. “The problem is, his victory will not bind anyone else or prevent other plaintiffs from making the same claims over and over again. It is intentional.”
“That’s why the real key here is the relief that prevents SB8 enforcement lawsuits from even being brought – whether that’s preventing plaintiffs from bringing them in or preventing courts from filing them,” a- he added.
Over the past three weeks, there appears to be a concerted effort within the anti-abortion community to prevent people from suing under SB8 in order to preserve the status quo. Since the law came into effect, it has had a chilling effect on clinics across Texas and forced women seeking abortion care to consider extraordinary out-of-state measures.
“The major anti-abortion groups … are telling people not to press charges until the Supreme Court decides (the main abortion law case in Mississippi),” Gornstein said. This case – Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which will be debated in December – is asking judges to squarely reconsider 50 years of abortion precedent since the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is suing Texas in federal district court, seeking a general injunction against the law statewide, asserting the government’s “deep sovereign interest” in ensuring that the constitutional rights of Americans “remain recoverable in federal court”. A hearing is set for October 1.
“These claims in Texas state courts will likely run in parallel,” Shaw said. “So I think that sooner rather than later, state and federal courts may weigh in on the substantive constitutionality of this law, ultimately giving the United States Supreme Court an opportunity to review one or more of these cases.”
[ad_2]
Source link