Posted by Thomas More Society (August 3, 2010 at 4:36 pm)
For Immediate Release
Chicago—This afternoon, in a wake of national interest in the case, the Thomas More Society secured a dismissal of all charges against the first arrestee under the city’s “bubble zone” ordinance, which prevents certain types of picketing activity outside local abortion clinics. Joseph Holland, a Northwestern University graduate student, was arrested outside Planned Parenthood’s Near North Side facility on July 3 after the facility’s staff called the police and claimed he violated the ordinance by praying on the public sidewalk.
“We are pleased that the City of Chicago has dismissed these false and baseless charges against Joe Holland,” said Peter Breen, Thomas More Society executive director and legal counsel. “The First Amendment protects prayer on a public sidewalk in Chicago the same as in any other city in the country. We hope that the city will cease the suppression of pro-life speech under the ‘bubble zone’ ordinance and dismiss the lone remaining case, brought against David Avignone, who was arrested a few days after Joe.” [Continue reading ...]
Posted by Thomas More Society (August 3, 2010 at 1:42 pm)
Check out this great video of this morning’s interview on FOX & Friends with Thomas More Society Executive Director Peter Breen and Joe Holland, the grad student arrested for violating Chicago’s “Bubble Zone” ordinance.
Update: Fox news did a follow-up piece on this story that you can read here.
Peter and Joe were also on Moody Radio’s In the Market with Jane Parshall yesterday afternoon. You can hear that interview here. Just click the “Hour 1″ button to hear Peter and Joe’s segment.
Posted by Thomas More Society (August 2, 2010 at 3:35 pm)
A new website from the Thomas More Society, Students for Life of America and Students for Life of Illinois, ArrestedForPraying.com is raising support and awareness of the arrest of Joe Holland for praying outside a Planned Parenthood facility. Joe’s arrest is the first under the Chicago “Bubble Zone” law that restricts sidewalk counseling outside abortion clinics in the city.
Visit ArrestedForPraying.com today and sign their petition urging Chicago mayor Richard Daley to drop all charges against Joe. Read the full story of Joe’s arrest here and read about the huge national media response to the story here.
Posted by Thomas More Society (August 2, 2010 at 11:06 am)
The story of graduate student Joe Holland, who was the first person arrested under the outrageous Chicago “Bubble Zone” ordinance, has caught the attention of the media. Today, the story made the front page on FoxNews.com! Today’s poll on the Fox News site also centers around Joe’s arrest. Be sure to stop by the site and cast your vote today.
In addition, Joe and TMS attorney Peter Breen will appear on Moody Radio this afternoon at 5:05 Eastern, 4:05 Central to discuss the arrest and the ordinance. Listen live at the Moody Radio Chicago website.
Then tomorrow morning at 5:20 a.m. Central, 6:20 a.m. Eastern, Joe and Peter will be on FOX & Friends, the Fox News morning show.
This is a fantastic opportunity for the public to see how ridiculous the Chicago “Bubble Zone” and its enforcement really are. Be sure to vote in the Fox News poll today, and don’t miss any of this great coverage today and tomorrow.
Posted by Thomas More Society (July 27, 2010 at 4:06 pm)
This morning, Thomas More Society attorney Peter Breen entered a “not guilty” plea to the charge of disorderly conduct on behalf of Joseph Holland, the first person arrested under the new Chicago “Bubble Zone” ordinance, which prevents certain types of picketing activity outside local abortion clinics. Holland, a Northwesten University graduate student, was praying the rosary on a public sidewalk outside the Planned Parenthood Near North abortion facility on July 3 when staff called the police, claiming that he had violated the new ordinance.
The “Bubble Zone” ordinance prohibits approaching within eight feet of a person, without consent, “for the purpose of passing a leaflet or handbill to, displaying a sign to, or engaging in oral protest, education, or counseling.” According to witnesses and available video, Holland was engaged solely in prayer activity and not in leafletting, picketing or “sidewalk counseling.” Video of Holland’s alleged disorderly conduct can be viewed here:
Posted by Thomas More Society (July 17, 2010 at 7:46 am)
Trespass Cases Against the “ND88″
“ND88″ Attorneys Allege “Viewpoint Discrimination” in Criminal Prosecutions
South Bend, Ind.—This week, another pretrial hearing was held in St. Joseph County Criminal Court involving the criminal trespass charges that the University of Notre Dame and the county prosecutor continue to press against the “ND88.” In a key ruling, Chief Judge Michael Scopelitis confirmed that Thomas More Society attorneys may take a deposition of a Notre Dame official, the former Director of Residential Life at the University.
The ND88, a group of pro-life demonstrators including Alan Keyes, Norma McCorvey and Fr. Norman Weslin, were arrested on Notre Dame’s campus in May 2009, while praying the rosary, singing religious hymns and bearing peaceful, prayerful witness to the sanctity of life as part of a demonstration against Notre Dame’s honoring of President Barack Obama during its Commencement exercises. [Continue reading ...]
Posted by Thomas More Society (July 8, 2010 at 9:08 pm)
For Immediate Release
For more information, contact:
Stephanie Lewis, TC Public Relations
312-422-1333, Stephanie@tcpr.net
CHICAGO—Today, attorneys from the Thomas More Society, on the eve of seeking emergency injunctive relief in federal court, secured an agreement from the city of West Chicago to allow a pro-life protest to proceed as scheduled tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. in West Chicago, Illinois.
West Chicago officials had notified the Thomas More Society early Thursday that the Pro-Life Action League’s “Face the Truth” Tour protest, which involves people holding abortion signage at busy intersections in various municipalities, would not be permitted to take place Friday morning in that city, due to a new ordinance covering demonstrations and protests. Adopted just this past Tuesday by the city of West Chicago, the ordinance requires would-be demonstrators to apply for a permit at least 90 days prior to a demonstration. The ordinance also allows denial of a permit based on the city administrator’s determination whether he believes a demonstration will negatively affect public “comfort, morals, and welfare.” [Continue reading ...]
Posted by Thomas More Society (June 18, 2010 at 3:06 pm)
Paul Benjamin Linton, special counsel to the Thomas More Society, has just had an article published in the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal enitled Long Road to Justice: The IL Supreme Court, the IL Attorney General, and the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995. In it, he explores the Illinois General Assembly’s 35 year struggle to enact an enforceable statute requiring the consent of or notice to the parents of a pregnant minor before she undergoes an abortion.
These efforts to secure an enforceable, effective parental notice law in Illinois have been repeatedly thwarted, despite polls that consistently show dominant majorities of citizens favoring parental notice (including even many abortion supporters) and the existence of parental involvement laws in all Midwestern states surrounding Illinois. In many cases, the statutes themselves were struck down as violative of the governing federal constitutional standards. In another instance, the Illinois Supreme Court failed—or refused—to adopt procedural rules for confidential, expedited “bypass” hearings and appeals, measures deemed necessary for parental involvement laws to satisfy federal constitutional requirements.
Linton explains through the most comprehensive history to date of the 1995 Parental Notice of Abortion Act how both the Illinois Supreme Court and the Illinois Attorneys General—past and present—have failed the people of the state by not taking the steps needed to implement and enforce an otherwise constitutional law, and one with overwhelming public support.
Most recently (see our post on columnist Dennis Byrne’s OpEd), while Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s attorneys defeated the ACLU’s latest attack on the parental notice law, in which the ACLU had charged that the law violated Illinois’ state constitution, her trial attorneys agreed with the ACLU that the law’s enforcement could be “stayed,” i.e., suspended, for as long as it took for the ACLU to appeal the ruling to higher courts. In effect, she won the lawsuit but then threw in the towel! Cook County Chancery Judge Daniel Riley, although dismissing the ACLU’s lawsuit as meritless, entered an “Agreed Order” suspending the law’s enforcement yet again. Thomas More Society, representing downstate county prosecutors, tried repeatedly to intervene in the case to mount a robust defense of the parental notice law and to oppose this latest “stay” of enforcement. But its efforts were rebuffed by Judge Riley when the Attorney General and ACLU objected. The Society has appealed those rulings and will seek to vacate the “stay” when the case reaches the Illinois Appellate Court.
Read the complete article below (Click “Fullscreen” for the best reading experience):
Posted by Thomas More Society (May 27, 2010 at 10:19 pm)
Friday, May 21, Judge Neal Cerne denied motions to dismiss three of the five counts in the zoning lawsuit against the City of Aurora, Illinois and Planned Parenthood. The suit involves the building of the “Abortion Fortress” of Aurora in 2007 when Planned Parenthood entered the city under a cloud of deception.
Planned Parenthood presented itself to the city as a general use medical facility under the name Gemini Office Development and told the city council point blank that they didn’t know what tenants would be occupying the building. They represented the project as a general use, for-profit medical building that might house dentists or family doctors. [Continue reading ...]
Posted by Thomas More Society (May 27, 2010 at 9:59 pm)
On May 4, U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett denied motions to dismiss the case of pro-lifers who were allegedly unjustly arrested and mistreated while participating in a “Face the Truth” display in Maryland.
In August of 2008, pro-life leader Jack Ames was leading a group of pro-lifers in a display of graphic abortion photos along a Maryland highway. After complaints from local citizens, state troopers told Ames he had to leave town, so he moved the display four miles away into a neighboring Bel Air, Maryland. [Continue reading ...]
Chicago—This afternoon, in a wake of national interest in the case, the Thomas More Society secured a dismissal of all charges against the first arrestee under the city’s “bubble zone” ordinance, which prevents certain types of picketing activity outside local abortion clinics. Joseph Holland, a Northwestern University graduate student, was arrested outside Planned Parenthood’s Near North Side facility on July 3 after the facility’s staff called the police and claimed he violated the ordinance by praying on the public sidewalk.
A new website from the Thomas More Society, 
For Immediate Release
Paul Benjamin Linton, special counsel to the Thomas More Society, has just had an article published in the 
Friday, May 21, Judge Neal Cerne denied motions to dismiss three of the five counts in the zoning lawsuit against the City of Aurora, Illinois and Planned Parenthood. The suit involves the building of the “Abortion Fortress” of Aurora in 2007 when Planned Parenthood entered the city under a cloud of deception.
On May 4, U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett denied motions to dismiss the case of pro-lifers who were allegedly unjustly arrested and mistreated while participating in a “