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Lawyers for indicted activists behind Planned Parenthood videos blame 'runaway grand jury'

A Planned Parenthood clinic in Warren, Michigan. Katherine Welles / Shutterstock.com

Updated: Lawyers for anti-abortion activists behind controversial videos attacking Planned Parenthood say the case is legally flawed, the New York Times reports.

David Daleiden, director of the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress, and Sandra Merritt ended up being indicted by a Houston grand jury looking into their claims of wrongdoing by the women’s health organization. Daleiden and Merritt were indicted Monday on charges that they manufactured fake IDs, which is a felony. Daleiden was also charged with a misdemeanor for attempting to purchase fetal parts.

At a news conference Wednesday, their lawyers said they intend to ask the Harris County district attorney to drop the case. District Attorney Devon Anderson’s office launched the grand jury investigation at the urging of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Both Anderson and Patrick were elected as Republicans.

“We believe that this is a runaway grand jury that has acted contrary to the law,” Jared Woodfill, one of the defense lawyers, said at the news conference. “Instead of indicting the wrongdoers here, the organization trafficking in baby body parts, they’ve gone after the whistleblower.”

Woodfill is the former chairman of the Harris County Republican Party and was spokesman for a group that pressed successfully last year to get voters to overturn an anti-discrimination ordinance that included sexual orientation. The opponents framed the issue as one of public safety, with the simple message: “No Men in Women’s Bathrooms,” the Times reported last November.

Terry Yates, the other defense lawyer, mocked the felony charge: “How many of us have used a fictitious driver’s license to buy beer? Can you imagine very kid that did that being charged with a second-degree felony? This grand jury has overreached.”

The lawyers don’t deny that Daleiden and Merritt used fake California driver’s licenses with false names, but they say it was not to defraud Planned Parenthood. “They were intending to expose the truth,” Woodfill said.

Woodfill told the Associated Press that it was the same as “tactics used by investigative reporters all around this county for decades.”

The AP noted that most professional news organizations either discourage or specifically prohibit reporters from posing as someone else or misrepresenting themselves.

Josh Shaffer is a Houston lawyer who represented Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in the grand jury investigation. Shaffer said that after the April meeting with officials for the organization, Daleiden sent an email to Planned Parenthood seeking to buy fetal tissue for $1,600 per sample, but that the organization did not respond, the ABAJournal.com reported earlier.

Responding to reporters’ questions about the defense lawyers’ intention to ask that the case be dropped, a spokesman for the Harris County district attorney said: “Just like we do with every case here, we will continue to investigate and welcome any new evidence that is brought forward. Sometimes justice is served by dismissing cases.”

In a recorded statement published and transcribed at Houston Public Media, Anderson stated that she would not re-present the case to another grand jury.

“We have a long-standing policy against grand jury shopping,” Anderson said. “That means when a grand jury comes back with a decision we don’t like, we don’t go and find another one to get the result we want. That violates the integrity of the whole system. The only time we re-present is if new evidence comes to light.”

The defendants are expected to travel from California to Houston to turn themselves in. Bonds for Daleiden and Merritt were set at $11,000 and $10,000 respectively, the AP reports.

Updated at 4:53 p.m. to include Anderson’s statement.