Pro-Life Group: David Daleiden Never Should’ve Been Prosecuted
Life Legal Defense Foundation, which has been helping with David Daleiden’s legal representation following the Center for Medical Progress’ release of videos showing Planned Parenthood’s trafficking of aborted baby body parts, announced Thursday it had requested his indictment in Harris County, Texas, be thrown out.
The motion seeks to invalidate the charges filed against the pro-life investigative journalist after he was indicted by a grand jury for allegedly using a fake identification and violating a state statute prohibiting trafficking in fetal tissue. The second charge, based on the video evidence Daleiden made public, should have also applied to Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, but none of its officials were ever charged.
Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson has come under fire as a result.
“District Attorneys have a great deal of latitude in how they conduct grand jury investigations and can readily obtain indictments in cases they want to prosecute,” Life Legal Executive Director Alexandra Snyder said. “It is famously said that prosecutors have so much influence over grand juries that they can get them to ‘indict a ham sandwich,’ yet DA Anderson refused to connect the dots between paying for an aborted specimen and fetal tissue trafficking. We are hopeful that the judge reviewing today’s motion will recognize the absurdity of charging David for the crime committed by Planned Parenthood.”
She added this isn’t the first time Anderson, a former judge, has failed to indict when presented with overwhelming evidence of criminal activity. Her grand jury investigation three years ago into late-term abortionist Douglas Karpen—who earned the nickname “the Kermit Gosnell of Houston”—failed to return a single indictment, even though the abortionist’s former employees stated that babies were born alive and then murdered in his clinic on a daily basis.
“In 2014, Karpen’s attorney donated over $25,000 to Anderson’s campaign,” Snyder noted.
Life Legal continues to coordinate Daleiden’s defense, including preparing for possible charges in California after Attorney General Kamala Harris raided David’s apartment and seized his personal property. Life Legal also heads up Daleiden’s litigation team in three separate lawsuits filed against him by StemExpress, the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood.
