A federal judge has paused an attempt by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) to imprison Christian pro-life activists for up to ten years.
Judge Matthew Leitman, an Obama appointee, paused the DOJ’s FACE Act and felony conspiracy case against seven pro-life activists who are awaiting sentencing over a peaceful protest at a Michigan abortion clinic, citing the results of the 2024 election and the potential for the next presidential administration to handle such cases differently.
“As further discussed on the record, the Court will conduct another status conference during the week of March 24, 2025, to receive a report from the Government trial team as to whether there has been any change in the Government’s position with respect to the continuation of this case and/or with respect to the positions expected to be advanced by the Defendants in their post-trial motions,” Leitman said in a Nov. 19 order obtained by Breitbart News.
Steve Crampton, senior counsel for Thomas More Society and a lawyer involved with the case, told Breitbart News in a phone interview that Leitman ordered for the case to be revisited 60 days after Trump’s inauguration, in spite of the government’s objections, to see whether the DOJ had implemented a new policy or not.
“I would say it’s pretty unusual in my 40 years of practice. I’ve never seen it before,” Crampton said, when asked if a judge pausing such a case in an anticipation of a new administration is out of the ordinary.
The activists — including 89-year-old communist concentration camp survivor Eva Edl — were found guilty in August of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and conspiracy against rights for their participation in peaceful protest at the Northland Family Planning Clinic in Sterling Heights in 2020. They face up to ten years in prison — a potential sentence bolstered by the DOJ’s use of a federal law created to target Ku Klux Klan members after the Civil War.
READ MORE – Explainer: DOJ Uses KKK-Era Charge to Extend Prison Time for Pro-Life Activists
The Michigan case is one of several FACE Act cases aggressively prosecuted by Biden’s DOJ to put pro-life activists behind bars following the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision. In Dobbs, the Supreme Court overturned in 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which had invented a constitutional right to abortion, and sent issue back to individual states and their elected representatives.
Leitman’s order pausing the Michigan case comes after Trump repeatedly pledged during his campaign to review and potentially pardon “every political prisoner who’s unjustly victimized by the Biden regime,” including pro-life activists, “…so we can get them out of the gulags and back to their families where they belong.”
During a June 22 speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, Trump specifically mentioned the case of 75-year-old Paulette Harlow, who was sentenced to 24 months in prison for violating the FACE Act and for conspiracy against rights in a 2020 protest at a D.C. abortion clinic infamous for late-term abortions.
“Paulette is one of many peaceful pro-lifers who Joe Biden has rounded up, sometimes with SWAT teams, and thrown them in jail,” Trump said. “Many people are in jail over this. … We’re going to get that taken care of immediately — [on the] first day.”
The Future of the FACE Act
The FACE Act was signed into law in 1994 by then-President Bill Clinton and outlaws “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.” The act was written to equally protect abortion clinics, pro-life pregnancy resource centers, and churches, however, 97 percent of FACE Act cases since the law’s inception have been against pro-life advocates.
The Biden administration has been accused of weaponizing the FACE Act more so than any other previous administration. Data obtained by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) shows that in less than four years, Biden’s DOJ has accounted for over a quarter of all 211 FACE prosecutions. At least 55 FACE Act cases have been prosecuted during the Biden administration, only five of which were against pro-abortion attacks on pregnancy centers, despite the increase in attacks against pro-life pregnancy centers and churches following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.
Biden’s DOJ has been blatant in its support for abortion, establishing a “Reproductive Rights Task Force” in 2022 to “protect access to reproductive health care” in anticipation of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. The DOJ also strategized before the end of Roe to pair the FACE Act charges and conspiracy against rights in order to increase sentencing for pro-life activists specifically.
“In my view — and I’ve been defending FACE Act cases really from the time FACE was adopted back in 1994 — it’s always been about abortion,” Crampton assessed. “They put the window dressing of protecting churches and so forth in there just to buy some Republican support and make it bipartisan, but it’s always been about shutting down the pro-life movement.”
Crampton said FACE Act prosecutions brought under other administrations usually “involved some sort of violence — maybe an attempting bombing or something of that nature,” and that only under Biden and after the end of Roe “did the government pounce” on pro-lifers and bring charges against activists for incidences that happened years prior.
“I think everything points to the fact that these [prosecutions] are politically motivated. They were brought basically as punishment after the overturning of Roe v. Wade,” he said. “And the fact that the Biden administration formed the so-called reproductive rights task force also after Dobbs only strengthens the case. They made this interdepartmental … effort to engage in, effectively, a witch hunt against pro-lifers.”
In light of Trump’s pledge to review and pardon jailed pro-life activists, Crampton said Thomas More Society is currently working to prepare a formal petitions requesting presidential pardons, not just for the pro-life activists they represent, but for many others in similar cases.
“We’re going the extra mile and doing the hard labor of preparing formal petitions, and we’re going hand them over to Trump’s transition team in hopes that he will follow through,” he said.
Besides hope for pardons, two other avenues could potentially spell the end for the FACE Act, which some conservatives and Republicans argue is unconstitutional.
READ MORE: Rep. Chip Roy Calls on GOP to Repeal Law Used to Throw Pro-Lifers in Prison
Roy and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced a bill in September of 2023 to repeal the FACE Act, contending at the time that “Biden’s Department of Justice has brazenly weaponized the FACE Act against normal everyday Americans across the political spectrum, simply because they are pro-life.” Roy further said he thinks the law is “an unconstitutional federal takeover of state police powers.”
With Republicans set to control the House, Senate, and the White House, Roy has more recently called on the GOP to repeal the law as soon as possible.
“Obviously, we need to move the bill forward, and it would be critical because of what we’re seeing with respect to the persecution of Americans being put in jail,” Roy told the Daily Signal in late November.
“We’re after the election now, so I feel like we ought to put it out there this year. Go ahead and vote on it so that more Americans can’t get persecuted,” he added. “…I think with the trifecta, we should be able to pass it. We should bring it forward. But look, Republicans are going to have to get the nerve to actually stand up for both free speech and life.”
“It should be repealed,” Crampton agreed. “It was Congress’s creation in the first place, and Congress should be the one to take it down. I think it was always, frankly, unconstitutional.”
The FACE Act could also eventually end up before the Supreme Court, Crampton said.
“Even with a pardon, it appears that the law would permit us to continue an appeal,” he said. “A pardon is more like forgiveness for something — it’s not a declaration of innocence. So you still kind of have that specter of guilt hanging over your head, and we would like to erase that all together.”
“Our hope is to pursue this, and I do believe it has Supreme Court potential. But of course, actually persuading four of the justices to accept is no easy task,” he continued.
He said Thomas More Society is working to appeal two huge FACE cases, one in D.C. and one in Tennessee, which have been consolidated and also put on hold.
“We’re standing out there, kind of in limbo, implicitly recognizing the change of administration and the fact that there may be a change of policy. So that thought is certainly broader than just the Michigan trial court judge’s opinion,” he said.
“We’ve got a multi-pronged approach, but none of them are moving forward at a rapid pace at this point,” he added.
Overall, Republicans have a narrow window to address the FACE Act before the next presidential election — and with no guarantee of how future administrations could employ the law.
“I think it would be really politically naive to leave the law out there and just rest on the assurance of future pardons,” Crampton said.
“I mean, it’s so extraordinary that President Trump is even considering this action on the front end of his administration,” he said, while warning that the potential for future weaponization is “quite strong.”
“Especially in light of the fact that in many respects, I would say the Biden administration has sort of gotten away with it up to this point,” he said. “They were successful, at least at the trial court level in effectuating these prosecutions and including that punitive conspiracy against rights charge.”
Crampton additionally suggested an investigation into the FBI raids of pro-life activists Paul Vaughn and Mark Houck, which he called “completely over the top and unnecessary.” The FBI allegedly arrested both Vaughn and Houck at gunpoint in front of their wives and children. Houck was ultimately found not guilty in his FACE case, while Vaughn, who participated in a peaceful protest, was sentenced to three years of supervised release. Both faced a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison.
“So that use and abuse, I would suggest, of the FBI also is something that ought to be investigated, and if wrongdoing is found — and I think there was wrongdoing — they should be prosecuted too,” Crampton alleged. “The real criminals here were the folks who brought these charges on the federal level.”
The case is United States v. Zastrow, No. 23-cv-20100 in the U.S. District Court Eastern District of Michigan.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
