Janet Reno Sues ORN, Flip Benham, and Other Christians Under Civil FACE

Happy April fool's day!

On April fool's day Rev. Flip Benham was served with a federal civil lawsuit in the Lynchburg City Jail where he has been incarcerated since February 18, 1998. See other stories, this site.

This civil lawsuit alleges violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Law in Dayton/Cincinnati last summer.

Janet Reno, representing the USA, is seeking both permanent and preliminary injunctive relief, damages for the abortion clinics, and civil penalties. Click here for the entire lawsuit.

This is civil not criminal.

Consider as you read that this is civil lawsuit not a criminal action. Janet Reno was hired as Attorney General of the USA to enforce the laws of the land on federal criminals like big-time drug traffickers, counterfeiters, embezzlers, mobsters, racketeers, illegal foreign campaign contributors, obstructors of justice, etc. Only the government can prosecute these criminal activities. Private entities can never prosecute criminal activity.

Civil actions on the other hand are normally handled by private individuals, corporations, or their paid attorneys. Government is not normally involved in civil actions.

The FACE law provides for both criminal and civil penalties. Of course as discussed above, only the government can prosecute the criminal penalties. However, the FACE law was written so that the government may prosecute civil actions as well. The key word is "may" because private individuals or corporations may sue civilly as well. The government is not required to do anything under civil FACE. Anything that Janet Reno does under civil FACE, unlike criminal FACE, the abortion clinics could do for themselves by hiring their own lawyers. Janet Reno is just saving the abortion clinics a bunch of money by spending the taxpayers money. There are eight government lawyers listed at the end of this lawsuit including Janet Reno herself. What would eight lawyers cost the abortion clinics?

Why a civil action?

The burden of proof is less in a civil action than in a criminal action. A civil action requires a "preponderance of evidence" where a criminal action requires "beyond any reasonable doubt." Injunctions is what they really want and injunctions can result from either a criminal or a civil action. So, they might as well take the easiest way.

All the criminals must be in jail.

It's good to know that all the criminals have been taken care of and that all Janet Reno and seven of her lawyers have left to do is to go after dear Christians who are peacefully laying down their lives to prevent little boys and girls from being ripped apart in their mother's wombs and preventing those mothers from possibly being hurt by something they will regret the rest of their lives.

Note the horrendous allegations.

In this complaint, these vast radical right wing Christian extremists are alleged to have, "physically obstructed the . . . clinic by rendering access to the clinic impassable and unreasonably difficult or hazardous." How awful! Bring on the tanks!

No mention of violent activity at all.

The "hazard" was that the mothers, in their delicate conditions, might have tripped and fallen over one of the defendants as they stepped over them on their way in to have their babies killed. Of course, there's no mention of the hazard to the babies.