By Rusty Pugh
August 23, 2001

(AgapePress) - An attorney with the American Family Association says he will appeal the conviction of a pro-life pastor who he says is the victim of a conspiracy by the abortion industry to silence any opposition.

The AFA Center for Law & Policy has announced it will appeal Federal Judge Richard Arcara's criminal contempt conviction of Pastor Michael Warren. Attorney B.J. Brown says the conviction comes on the heels of what the judge ruled was a violation of a 20-day temporary restraining order which prevented Warren and another protester from walking on a sidewalk across from a Rochester, New York, abortion clinic.

"The judge ruled that his temporary restraining order lasted as long as he said it lasted," Brown says. "[The judge said in effect that] he didn't really care about Congress's rules [or] that [our] clients did not stipulate to it that they actually told [the judge] they didn't want it to last any longer than twenty days." In continuing to paraphrase the judge's ruling, Brown says all that matters to the judge is that he spoke, and all others must obey -- which they did not do.

Brown says he even raised the argument that the order is in conflict with itself because it says it is not intended to circumvent any First Amendment activities.

"All these men were doing were walking down a sidewalk, holding a sign, offering pamphlets -- silently, peacefully -- to abortion-bound couples," the attorney says. "And the judge said ... there's some ambiguity there, but it's not enough to raise a question in [the judge's] mind, so [he ruled] against [our] clients."

Brown says the abortion industry in Rochester teamed with the State of New York to bring about the charges. He says Warren has been wrongly convicted, and the case must be remedied for the good of America's constitutional republic. That is why Brown plans to appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals "with a lot of hope and faith" that that court will reverse the conviction.

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