Attorneys for the two pro-life advocates behind the undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood selling aborted baby parts have rejected plea deals in association with the bogus charged a biased district attorney filed against them. Accepting the deals would have David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt admitting they broke the law in conjunction with filming the videos.
David Robert Daleiden, 27, and his colleague, Sandra Susan Merritt, 63, both of California, are prepared to go to trial to fight the charges, their attorneys said.
“I don’t advise my clients to accept responsibility for cases that they haven’t done anything wrong in,” said Dan Cogdell, Merritt’s attorney.
After a brief status hearing Friday in court, attorneys said they will not accept offers of pretrial diversion, a low-level probation that would have allowed the charges against them to be dismissed if they did not break the law for a year.
It is commonly offered by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office to first offenders with minor charges, such as shoplifting.
Earlier this month, attorneys for Daleiden filed motions to quash the indictments against him, arguing that the Harris County grand jury that handed down the indictments was not properly empaneled.
His attorneys, Jared Woodfill and Terry Yates, have said the indictments are “fatally flawed.”
SIGN THE PETITION: Drop the Charges Against David Daleiden and Charge Planned Parenthood
The rejection of a plea deal comes after pro-abortion pro-abortion California Attorney General Kamala Harris
stole unreleased video footage concerning Planned Parenthood during a raid of Daleiden’s home.
California authorities seized a laptop and hard drives containing the video footage collected during Daleiden’s 3-year investigation of Planned Parenthood’s involvement in the illegal sale of aborted baby remains, according to a
written statement made by Life Legal Defense Foundation, which is helping to defend Daleiden.
The move prompted
pro-life advocates to call for Harris’ resignation.
Their attorneys and pro-life groups have condemned the bogus charges related to their
undercover investigation and exposure of the Planned Parenthood abortion business selling the body parts of aborted babies.
Dozens of pro-life advocates turned out to support them
A Texas grand jury indicted David Daleiden and another pro-life activist, Sandra Merritt, behind the videos. Instead of prosecuting Planned Parenthood for selling aborted baby parts, Daleiden was indicted for buying them.
Daleiden and Merritt were charged with one felony related to tampering with a governmental record and a misdemeanor count related to buying human tissue. The felony charge was in reference to the use of a fake ID. If convicted,
Daleiden faces 20 years in prison while Planned Parenthood officials face no legal consequences for their actions.
Daleiden rejected a deal for probation on those charges today and his attorney said he demands an apology.
“I think we all know that every day that goes by that the Texas authorities do not prosecute Planned Parenthood for their illegal trade in baby parts, they are sending a message to the entire country,” Daleiden told supporters outside the courthouse in February. “The state of Texas right now is open for business in baby body parts.”
Daleiden’s attorney compared undercover tactics used by Daleiden’s anti-abortion group, the California-based Center for Medical Progress, to investigations done by the CBS news show
60 Minutes.
“If we’re going to be prosecuting undercover journalists, we are sending ourselves down a very, very dark path,” he said. “This is fully in the tradition, a long storied tradition, of undercover journalism.”
“What we want is an apology,” he told supporters. “He deserves an apology at this point. He is innocent of those charges.”
Alexandra Snyder, a pro-life attorney from the Life legal Defense Foundation, was with Daleiden in Houston during the February court hearing and she explained the charges Daleiden faces and said the charges are politicized in nature and trumped up because he exposed the nation’s biggest abortion business as opposed to something more politically correct.
“If David’s investigation had revealed evidence of criminal conduct in a meatpacking plant, his freedom would not be threatened,” she told LifeNews.com. The videos would be seen as providing a valuable public benefit and prosecutors would act on the information.”
“We are confident that other agencies will take an objective look at Planned Parenthood’s willingness to engage in illegal activity, including altering the abortion procedure to obtain intact fetal cadavers, that is clearly evident in the videos. In the meantime, we will do everything we can to defend David from these baseless charges,” she added.
“The tampering charge, which is a felony offense, is for the use of a California identification to enter the Planned Parenthood facility for the purpose of the investigation. It is the same charge that would be leveled at a minor who used a fake ID to purchase alcohol. However, the law also provides a defense where the false information has “no effect on the government’s purpose for requiring the governmental record.” The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison,” Snyder explained.
Daleiden was also charged with human organ trafficking, a misdemeanor charge, for allegedly offering to purchase fetal body parts from Planned Parenthood. Inexplicably, Planned Parenthood was not charged with the corresponding crime of offering to sell human organs. Moreover, an attorney for Planned Parenthood has reported that the grand jury never even voted on charges against his client.
Snyder said the charges filed against Daleiden and Merritt do not in any way diminish the overwhelming evidence obtained by the Center for Medical Progress showing that Planned Parenthood has engaged in and is more than willing to profit from the sale of fetal tissue.
CMP released a new video on Tuesday that shows Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s Director of Research discussing “remuneration” and “compensation” with Daleiden, who posed as a fetal tissue buyer.
Other pro-life groups are calling on the district attorney to drop the charges against Daleiden.
Texas Right to Life Senior Legislative Associate Emily Horne told LifeNews.com, “While indictment is not indicative of guilt, we urge District Attorney Anderson to drop all charges against David and Sandra, and turn her attention to the lawbreakers of Planned Parenthood who commit injustices against unborn Texas children every day.”
“As our state and country continue to see the reality of abortion through the actions of Planned Parenthood caught on camera, we as an organization seek to change the law. These shocking videos underscore the need for Texas to make dismemberment abortion illegal. Without the violent dismemberment of children in the womb, the abortion industry would not be able to strategically harvest saleable parts, and the issue of trafficking baby body parts would be moot,” her organization said.
But Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson has defended her indictment of pro-life advocate David Daleiden despite the fact that a Planned Parenthood abortion business board members works as a prosecutor in her office. And new information LifeNews uncovered
shows Anderson’s campaign received more than $25,000 from the attorney who works for a late-term abortionist.
Since the indictment, Anderson is facing criticism over her failure to prosecute
an abortionist known as the Kermit Gosnell of Houston.
Anderson oversaw a previous abortion-related grand jury investigation of Houston abortionist
Douglas Karpen after Operation Rescue released evidence in the form of photos and witness testimony that babies were being born alive during abortions and intentionally killed by twisting their necks. This case garnered publicity in the wake of the conviction of Pennsylvania abortionist Kermit Gosnell on three counts of First Degree Murder for intentionally killing babies born alive during abortions in a similar fashion.
That Anderson-led grand jury failed to indict Karpen despite the considerable evidence against him.
Karpen was represented at his trial by attorney Chip Lewis, who donated more than $25,000 to Anderson’s re-election campaign.
Anderson has an extensive relationship with Lewis as did her husband when he was district attorney.
Anderson has also come under considerable fire for what pro-life advocates call a politically motivated indictment and because a Planned Parenthood board member works for Anderson as an assistant district attorney. Lauren Reeder is a prosecutor in the Harris County District Attorney’s criminal family law division. Reeder is listed as a non-compensated “Director” on the
990 Tax Form for 2014 filed by Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast.
Although Anderson indicates Reeder had no role in the Daleiden indictment, there’s really no way of knowing if that is truly the case. Because of that,
pro-life advocates have called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into the indictment and the fact that
the grand jury never voted on charges related to Planned Parethood’s sale of aborted babies.
With her top campaign contributor representing a prominent abortion practitioner and a Planned Parenthood board member working in her office, the attorney for pro-lifer investigator Susan Merritt said it’s no wonder that Devon Anderson indicted the pro-life investigators as opposed to Planned Parenthood.
Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, told LifeNews: “There is a history of bias in the DA’s office involving abortion doctors and Planned Parenthood. We will intend to shine the light on the process. We believe the prosecutor and the grand jury twisted the law. Sandra Merritt should never have been indicted. The focus and the inquiry should and will remain on the horrific abortion practices of Planned Parenthood.”
The expose’ videos catching Planned Parenthood officials selling the body parts of aborted babies have shocked the nation. Here is a list of all eleven:
- In the first video: Dr. Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on baby-crushing: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
- In the second video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter joked, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated the best price for baby parts.
- In the third video: Holly O’Donnell, a former Stem Express employee who worked inside a Planned Parenthood clinic, detailed first-hand the unspeakable atrocities and how she fainted in horror over handling baby legs.
- In the fourth video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Savita Ginde stated, “We don’t want to do just a flat-fee (per baby) of like, $200. A per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.” She also laughed while looking at a plate of fetal kidneys that were “good to go.”
- In the fifth video: Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood-Gulf Coast in Houston boasted of Planned Parenthood’s skill in obtaining “intact fetal cadavers” and how her “research” department “contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here, you know we’re one of the largest affiliates, our Research Department is the largest in the United States.”
- In the sixth video: Holly O’Donnell described technicians taking fetal parts without patient consent: “There were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”
- In the seventh and perhaps most disturbing video: Holly O’Donnell described the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term fetus aborted at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, CA. “‘You want to see something kind of cool,’” O’Donnell says her supervisor asked her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think.”
- In the eighth video: StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer admits Planned Parenthood sells “a lot of” fully intact aborted babies.
- The ninth video: catches a Planned Parenthood medical director discussing how the abortion company sells fully intact aborted babies — including one who “just fell out” of the womb.
- The 10th video: catches the nation’s biggest abortion business selling specific body parts — including the heart, eyes and “gonads” of unborn babies.The video also shows the shocking ways in which Planned Parenthood officials admit that they are breaking federal law by selling aborted baby body parts for profit.
- Unreleased Videos: Unreleased videos from CMP show Deb Vanderhei of Planned Parenthood caught on tape talking about how Planned Parenthood abortion business affiliates may “want to increase revenue [from selling baby parts] but we can’t stop them…” Another video has a woman talking about the “financial incentives” of selling aborted baby body parts.
- The 11th video: catches a texas Planned Parenthood abortionist planning to sell the intact heads of aborted babies for research. Amna Dermish is caught on tape describing an illegal partial-birth abortion procedure to terminate living, late-term unborn babies which she hopes will yield intact fetal heads for brain harvesting.
SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must Investigate Planned Parenthood for Selling Aborted Baby Parts
The full, unedited videos have confirmed that revelations that
some aborted baby remains sold by Planned Parenthood go to biotech companies for the purpose of creating “humanized” mice. Meanwhile,
Planned Parenthood has been exposed as having sold body parts from aborted babies for as much as 15 years.
The federal law that technically prohibits the sale of aborted babies and their body parts was written by a pro-abortion Congressman decades ago and essentially spells out a process by which sellers of aborted baby body parts can meet certain criteria that allows the sales to be legal.
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