Six pro-lifers are set to stand trial today in Little Rock on charges of misdemeanor trespassing at an abortion facility in 2021.
Eva Edl of South Carolina; Chet Gallagher Tennessee; Dennis Green of Virginia; Calvin Zastrow of Michigan; Emily Nurnberg of Kansas; and Heather Iddoni of Michigan face misdemeanor criminal trespassing charges for allegedly blocking the entrance to Little Rock Family Planning Services — a surgical abortion facility in Little Rock — on January 15, 2021.
Court records show the pro-lifers were convicted in February of 2022. Each was ordered to pay a $350 fine.
However, their attorney appealed the conviction, and they are scheduled to appear in court today.
In a separate case, five of the defendants also have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Tennessee for allegedly violating the Free Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
The FACE Act is a federal law generally intended to prevent people from obstructing abortion facility entrances.
A federal indictment unsealed in October of last year alleges that Gallagher, Iddoni, Zastrow, Green, and Edl blocked a Tennessee abortion facility entrance in March of 2021.
Iddoni also has been charged with violating the FACE Act in a separate federal case at an abortion facility in Washington, D.C.
If convicted in federal court, they face up to 11 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000. The federal case against them is currently set to go to trial next year.
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has reversed Roe v. Wade, abortion is prohibited in Arkansas except to save the life of the mother, and Little Rock Family Planning Services is shut down.
It is unclear at this point what bearing those facts might have on these cases.
