Yes, I was incorrect in that the case was about people and groups blockading an abortion clinic. Mea culpa.
However, what was being argued was that the clinic could not use an 1871 anti-discrimination law as the basis for their suit. Roberts readily acknowledged that the defendants were already in violation of various state laws, but that wasn't the issue.
From
http://factcheck.org/article340.html"...It is true that Roberts sided with the bomber and many other defendants in a civil case, but the case didn't deal with bombing at all. Roberts argued that abortion clinics who brought the suit had no right use an 1871 federal anti-discrimination statute against anti-abortion protesters who tried to blockade clinics. Eventually a 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court agreed, too. Roberts argued that blockades were already illegal under state law."
...
"In words and images, the ad conveys the idea that Roberts took a legal position excusing bombing of abortion clinics, which is false. To the contrary, during the Reagan administration when he was Associate Counsel to the President, Roberts drafted a memo saying abortion-clinic bombers "should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law." In the 1986 memo, Roberts called abortion bombers "criminals" and "misguided individuals," indicating that they would get no special treatment regarding requests for presidential pardons. Reagan in fact gave no pardons to abortion-clinic bombers."
...
"In Roberts' brief, and in oral arguments he made in person before the Supreme Court, the government argued that a particular part of U.S. law (Section 1985(3) of Title 42, which derived from the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871) applied only to conspiracies to deprive people of civil rights due to racial discrimination, not gender discrimination. They also argued that the protestors did "not aim their anti-abortion activities exclusively at women" but "at anyone, whether male or female, who assists or is involved in the abortion process – doctors, nurses, counselors, boyfriends, husbands and family members, staffs, and others." The court, in a 6-3 decision, ultimately agreed with much of the government's argument, saying that "the characteristic that formed the basis of the targeting" for protest "was not womanhood, but the seeking of abortion," which is entirely voluntary. The court also found that the protestors did not engage in a conspiracy to deprive women of their civil rights.
"To be sure, anti-abortion protestors saw the court's decision as a victory. It made them subject only to state actions for simple trespassing on the clinic's private property rather than for federal claims involving civil rights violations, at least as long as the protests stayed non-violent and didn't raise charges of assault or inciting to riot. But the ruling and the argument that led to hardly excuses violence, as the NARAL ad falsely claims. Nowhere in Roberts' court brief or oral arguments does he defend or excuse acts of violence."
Please do not try to claim to me that a person's past criminal history means that we can deny him the ability to defend himself during the one time when a particular law is actually being misapplied to him. That's something I would expect a conservative to advocate. "Well, we know he's guilty of something, he's been guilty in the past you know, lets just convict (or sue) him even if the law really doesn't apply in this case. He deserves it, after all."
Later,
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