FACEing Injustice
by Monica Miller, Crisis Magazine:
Nine pro-lifers are each facing up to 11 years in prison under the FACE Act, and a fellow pro-lifer has turned and is providing testimony against them.
In 1960, five black students at Alton Technical College protested Jim Crow segregation laws by peacefully sitting at a “whites only” lunch counter at the Woolworth’s dime store in Jackson, Mississippi. Refusing to leave when police arrived, they were arrested and charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct. The five black students pled “not guilty” and opted for a jury trial.
The trial began with voir dire, the phase when potential jurors are questioned as to their suitability to serve on the jury. Ten potential jurors admitted that they were members of the Ku Klux Klan, financially supported the KKK, attended KKK rallies, believed black people were not the equal of whites, and supported segregation. The judge presiding over the trial did not strike “for cause” six of these jurors because when asked if they could be impartial and unbiased in weighing the evidence the jurors said, “yes,” despite their strongly held racist views. Four of these racists managed to sit on the jury.
I will happily assume that readers of this article are appalled that a judge would permit committed racists to serve on the jury of black civil rights activists. Surely, though stating they could be fair and impartial, it is most likely, if not completely assured, that such jurors could never be truly “fair and impartial” and that no one really expects they could be or would be unbiased.
On August 9, 2023, five pro-lifers filed into the federal courtroom of Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. They are five of ten pro-lifers who, on October 22, 2020, conducted a pro-life rescue at the Washington Surgi-Center where unborn children are killed through the ninth month of gestation by abortionist Cesare Santangelo.
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