A Texas judge on Tuesday dismissed all criminal charges facing two anti-abortion activists who had assumed false identities in an attempt to buy fetal tissue from a Planned Parenthood in Houston and film the transaction.



The district judge Brock Thomas dismissed charges of tampering with government records against David Daleiden, 27, and Sandra Merritt, ruling that the grand jury which indicted the two activists had exceeded its authority.

A grand jury indicted Daleiden and Merritt in January for using false driver’s licenses in order to pass themselves off as executives of a biomedical research company to a Houston Planned Parenthood clinic. Once inside, Daleiden secretly filmed their encounters. He used the footage in an explosive series of videos accusing the women’s healthcare provider of illegally selling fetal tissue for profit.

But Daleiden’s sting backfired when a grand jury, which the Harris County district attorney’s office convened to look into the activities of Planned Parenthood, indicted Daleiden and Merritt instead. The grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing.

In addition to the felony tampering charge, Daleiden received a second indictment under a law prohibiting the purchase and sale of human organs. Merritt and Daleidin each faced a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Both have previously rejected plea deals for probation.

In April, attorneys for Daleiden and Merritt argued that the grand jury, because it was only charged with investigating Planned Parenthood, had exceeded its mandate when it indicted the two activists.

The Harris County district attorney’s office also asked for the charges to be dropped. Initially, though, the district attorney, Devon Anderson, said she supported the grand jury’s decision. “As I stated at the outset of this investigation, we must go where the evidence leads us,” Anderson said in January. “All the evidence uncovered in the course of this investigation was presented to the grand jury. I respect their decision on this difficult case.”

Planned Parenthood on Tuesday issued a scathing response to the news that Daleiden would not face prosecution.

“The decision to drop the prosecution on a technicality does not negate the fact that the only people who engaged in wrongdoing are the extremists behind this fraud,” said Melaney A Linton, the president of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. “Daleiden and other anti-abortion extremists … spent three years creating a fake company, creating fake identities, and lying. When they couldn’t find any improper or illegal activity, they made it up. They spread malicious lies about Planned Parenthood.”

Planned Parenthood has denied the accusations that it profits from the sale of fetal tissue, saying it donates specimens to medical research companies at no cost. The only money it has ever received, the group says, was reimbursement for transportation and storage costs. (The group no longer accepts reimbursements.)

The accusations in the video are broadly considered to be false, the product of aggressive and misleading editing. More than a dozen states have completed investigations that cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing or have declined to investigate altogether, citing a lack of evidence.

Still, Daleiden’s videos, which he released through a nonprofit called the Center for Medical Progress, have inspired six separate congressional investigations and a wave of state legislation aimed at stripping Planned Parenthood of federal family planning funds and Medicaid reimbursement.

The National Abortion Federation and a private biomedical research company are in separate civil litigation with Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress to block the further release of any videos. In another lawsuit, Planned Parenthood has accused Daleiden and the center of “engaging in wire fraud, mail fraud, invasion of privacy, illegal secret recording, and trespassing”.

Daleiden maintains he is a journalist and his practices are a traditional form of undercover journalism. In February, the presiding judge in the National Abortion Federation’s lawsuit against the center ruled that Daleiden had not “use[d] widely accepted investigatory journalism techniques” or produced “pieces of journalistic integrity, but misleadingly edited videos and unfounded assertions of criminal misconduct”.

Last month, a group of 18 prominent journalists and first amendment scholars filed a brief saying Daleiden’s claims that he is a journalist are “wrong and damaging to the vital role that journalism serves in our society”.

“Today’s dismissal in Houston is a huge win for the first amendment rights of undercover journalists,” Peter Breen, Daleiden’s attorney, said on Tuesday. “David Daleiden used standard undercover journalism techniques and followed all applicable laws in doing so. This meritless and retaliatory prosecution should never have been brought. Planned Parenthood did wrong here, not David Daleiden.”