David Daleiden’s legal battles are far from over, but the Planned Parenthood investigator chalked up a big win on Tuesday when Houston-area prosecutors dropped a felony charge against him.
Daleiden and his accomplice, Sandra Merritt, are no longer facing charges that could bring them up to 20 years in prison and $10,000 in fines, after the Harris County District Attorney’s office tossed a grand jury indictment for steps they took to infiltrate a Planned Parenthood clinic disguised as human tissue buyers.
“We’re very hopeful that seeing what happened in Texas will send a message to prosecutors throughout the country that this is not meritorious,” said Peter Breen, an attorney with the Thomas More Society, a nonprofit law firm defending Daleiden in the Texas case and several others.
“David followed the applicable laws,” Breen said. “Prosecutions are not the way to react to undercover journalism.”
Breen is representing Daleiden in several other lawsuits brought by Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation. The groups are suing Daleiden for disguising himself as a human tissue buyer at multiple meetings within their facilities to obtain undercover footage of employees discussing the procurement and transfer of aborted fetal tissue.
Daleiden released the footage in a series of videos last year, thrusting Planned Parenthood under heavy political fire as Republican sought to defund the group, and prompting House Republicans to form a special investigative committee.
The case brought by the National Abortion Federation is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, with arguments likely in October. Federal judge William Orrick, who has issued a temporary retraining order against Daleiden’s Center for Medical Progress, heard arguments earlier this month in the case brought by Planned Parenthood.
Should Daleiden and Merritt lose those cases, they could face millions of dollars in legal fees and damages.
But attorneys for the duo called the dismissal of the charges a big win for their clients, saying it shows the grand jury acted outside its boundaries by targeting Daleiden instead of Planned Parenthood.
Originally set up to investigate whether Planned Parenthood broke laws governing the transfer of fetal tissue, the grand jury cleared the group of wrongdoing earlier this year and instead indicted Daleiden for tampering with government records and attempting to illegally buy human organs.
The Harris County District Attorney said Tuesday that the jury was limited by Texas law in what it could do, as it issued the indictment during an extension period.
“At the last minute they turned the indictment towards Sandra and David and they had no authority to do that,” said Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, the group representing Merritt.
Abortion foes also had cried foul at reports that the grand jury never voted on possible criminal charges against Planned Parenthood, and that a prosecutor on staff in Harris County was a board member of the Houston Planned Parenthood clinic, although the staffer wasn’t involved in investigating it.
Planned Parenthood responded Tuesday by stressing that the grand jury cleared its Houston clinic of any wrongdoing and saying the charges against Daleiden were dismissed on a “technical concern.”
“Daleiden … spent three years creating a fake company, creating fake identities and lying,” said President of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast Melaney Linton.
“When they couldn’t find any improper or illegal activity, they made it up,” she added. “The decision to drop the prosecution on a technicality does not negate the fact that the only people who engaged in wrongdoing are the extremists behind this fraud.”
At issue is whether Daleiden acted appropriately to gain his undercover footage. Planned Parenthood says he broke multiple confidentiality and disclosure laws, but Daleiden argues he was acting merely as a journalist when he assumed a fake identity and secretly taped conversations with employees of the women’s health and abortion provider.
Abortion foes cheered the dismissal of charges. “Justice won out today,” said Live Action President Lila Rose. “David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt have done a tremendous service on behalf of the most defenseless in our nation.”
