Judge: Company that wants to stop pro-life video release probably won't win

Tissue collection company StemExpress is not likely to prevail in its lawsuit against the pro-life group Center for Medical Progress (CMP), a California judge said in a ruling late yesterday.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joanne O’Donnell denied a request by StemExpress for copies of undercover videos made by CMP during its investigation into the fetal tissue industry. The videos are part of a three-year investigation into Planned Parenthood’s involvement in selling pieces of aborted babies to companies like StemExpress, who pass them along to research scientists.

Earlier this month, another judge issued an emergency injunction forbidding CMP from releasing any footage taken of StemExpress executives during a May lunch meeting with undercover journalists posing as tissue buyers. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Aug. 19. As part of the discovery process for building its case against CMP, StemExpress asked for copies of the footage.

“Plaintiff does not persuade the court that the discovery it seeks is necessary to obtain the preliminary injunction,” O’Donnell wrote. “That is because it appears unlikely that the court is going to grant the preliminary injunction.”

StemExpress is not likely to win its case because persuading a judge to permanently bar CMP from releasing its videos would constitute a prior restraint on the group’s First Amendment rights, O’Donnell wrote. Restrictions on prior restraint apply even to false and defamatory speech, as well as anything that violates privacy rights or might otherwise be illegal.

StemExpress accuses CMP of violating California’s wiretapping laws.

But even if the company persuades a judge CMP did something illegal, that still doesn’t justify preventing the group from releasing the videos, O’Donnell wrote.

Attorneys representing CMP celebrated the ruling.

“People who don’t have anything to hide don’t go to court to stop journalists from reporting the truth,” said Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund president Chuck LiMandri. “The court was right to deny StemExpress’ request to gain access to damaging material against them obtained through solid investigative journalism. Americans have the right to know the truth about Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby body parts and the ‘fiscal rewards’ Stem Express says that it provides to abortion clinics.”

CMP founder David Daleiden has said StemExpress is trying to block footage showing a top staffer admitting the company “sometimes gets fully intact fetuses shipped to their laboratory from the abortion clinics they work with.” Daleiden insists he and his undercover citizen journalists followed all applicable laws in collecting their video footage.