Persecution of Pro-Life Americans Continues With This Week's Sentences in DC FACE Act Case
Louis Knuffke-Opinion : May 16, 2024
LifeSiteNews.com
May God bless the courageous "DC Nine", who stood in the breach in defense of life, and may He grant them strength to continue to bear witness before judges and courts.
(Washington, DC) — [LifeSiteNews.com] The two days of sentencing that took place in our nation's capital on May 14 and 15 demonstrated clearly both the insecurity and aggressiveness of our government's present persecution of pro-life Americans and the resilience of the "DC Nine" pro-lifers who are bearing the brunt of that persecution. (Screengrab image: via LifeSiteNews)
I was there through it all, and it struck me that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's attempt to appear merciful toward the DC Nine, who were brought to trial on charges that carried the heavy threat of an 11-year prison sentence, was a form of insecurity. Knowing the case would likely collapse should the actual evidence of what happens in an abortion be allowed to see its day in court, she insisted at every sentencing that "the case is not about abortion" as though afraid to be confronted with the ugly truth of what it actually was these pro-lifers had gone to stop.
On the other hand, Judge Kotelly, appointed by the same president who enacted the egregious FACE Act, which has led to the imprisonment of the DC 9, seemed perturbed by the strong and open refusal of every pro-lifer to apologize for having stepped in the way when the life of the precious unborn was at stake.
Kotelly demonstrated her unmerciful will when sentencing 74-year-old infirm Jean Marshall to a further punishment of more than a year in prison despite the abundant testimony about her critical health needs and the lack of proper, essential, urgent medical care during the past nine months of her detainment. The gross medical neglect of both Judge Kotelly and the Alexandria Detention Center—where Jean has been held in custody since last September—as well as the DOJ's complicity in Marshall's mistreatment and neglect, was on full display in the courtroom at Jean's sentencing.
I heard at the sentencing that not only has the judge denied the prescribed hip replacement surgery that Jean Marshall's doctor scheduled last fall, but when Jean was taken into custody, the jail took from her a medical hip belt, designed to keep her hips even, merely because the belt contained metal. This medical belt was never returned to her, and her condition has significantly worsened, resulting in continual extreme pain in her right leg and, recently, the inability to bend the right knee as well as numbness of the right leg.
The DOJ claimed on Wednesday that there was no documentation submitted to the court regarding Jean Marshall's urgent health conditions, which her lawyer quickly refuted by reading the letter of her own doctor sent to the judge the day before Marshall was convicted last September. The letter detailed her need for the recommended hip replacement surgery, which was originally scheduled by the same doctor and then canceled because of the judge. The document had been entered into the court's docket for the trial, but Judge Kotelly appears to have never actually read the letter, as its contents were "news" to her on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, a full 8 months, nearly to the day, after the letter had been sent to her on September 14, 2023.
Nothing less should have been expected of this aggressively pro-abortion judge, who surmised in a pretrial memo that the so called "right to abortion" was perhaps contained in the 13th amendment—which abolished slavery in our nation!—an idea so ridiculous that not even the DOJ opted to use it in their courtroom arguments.
In addition to the serious medical neglect Judge Kotelly and the DOJ are inflicting on Jean Marshall, they have now also effectively rendered her homeless. As Marshall made known to the court, the retirement housing in which she resided prior to incarceration last fall requires the renewal of her residency by next January in order to be maintained. Without either husband or children to do so for her, she will have been evicted from her home by the time she is released from prison under Kotelly's sentence: an elderly, infirm, Catholic pro-life woman and retired RN rendered homeless at 74 by a pro-abortion judge and DOJ.
On the part of the pro-lifers sentenced over the past two days, our nation has witnessed a resilience that will outlast the pro-abortion Biden DOJ and see its day of vindication... Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here
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