{"id":12578,"date":"2016-01-26T04:30:30","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T04:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12578"},"modified":"2016-01-26T04:30:30","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T04:30:30","slug":"grand-jury-turns-tables-on-planned-parenthood-foes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12578","title":{"rendered":"Grand jury turns tables on Planned Parenthood foes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"Law-Concept-300x270\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Grand juries cannot always be depended on to do precisely what some folks want them to do.<\/p>\n

Take the case of a Harris County panel that had been impaneled to investigate Planned Parenthood’s activities. The district attorney launched the investigation at the urging of state officials — starting with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — into whether Planned Parenthood “sold fetal body parts” in violation of state law.<\/p>\n

Today, the grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing — and instead indicted two anti-abortion activists on charges of “tampering with government records.”<\/p>\n

It was a serious surprise. <\/a><\/p>\n

Here is part of how the Texas Tribune reported the story today:<\/p>\n

“The indictments \u2014 part of the county prosecutor’s investigation into allegations that Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue \u2014 include charges against anti-abortion activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt for tampering with a governmental record, a second-degree felony that carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison. The grand jury handed down a second charge for Daleiden for ‘Prohibition of the Purchase and Sale of Human Organs,’ according to the Harris County District Attorney’s office.\u00a0That charge is a class A misdemeanor that carries a punishment of up to a year in jail.<\/p>\n

“The grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston of breaking any laws.”<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood has become a whipping child for foes in Congress — and some Republican presidential candidates — over a heavily edited video that purported showing staffers talking about selling organs from babies.<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood, with a mission that goes far beyond assisting women who want to terminate their pregnancies, sees this no-bill from the grand jury as a significant victory in this public-relations campaign being waged against it by political adversaries.<\/p>\n

Will this end calls to defund the organization? Probably not. It’s possible that we’ll hear complaints from those who consider this some kind of “political decision.”<\/p>\n

Grand jurors lock themselves behind closed doors, listen to presentations by prosecutors and other witnesses. They are charged with weighing the evidence dispassionately and then deliver a decision based solely on what they hear in that room.<\/p>\n

Unless I hear otherwise — and grand jurors are sworn to secrecy about what they say and hear during the presentation of evidence — I’ll presume the grand jury did its job properly.<\/p>\n

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Grand juries cannot always be depended on to do precisely what some folks want them to do. Take the case of a Harris County panel that had been impaneled to investigate Planned Parenthood’s activities. The district attorney launched the investigation at the urging of state officials — starting with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — into … Continue reading Grand jury turns tables on Planned Parenthood foes<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,11],"tags":[122,1255,5897,3609,4728],"class_list":["post-12578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","category-medical-news","tag-abortion","tag-dan-patrick","tag-harris-county-grand-jury","tag-planned-parenthood","tag-texas-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12578"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12580,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12578\/revisions\/12580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}