Wednesday, November 6

“Your Honor, the Defense Rests”


Judge William Orrick sends the jury home. They will return on Tuesday, November 12, to hear closing arguments and to receive their instructions from the Court.

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Wednesday, November 6, the court was in session for only about three hours.  The defense attorneys called their last two witnesses. These were identified as “expert witnesses” and each addressed a different subject. One subject was the monetary damages claimed by Planned Parenthood (PPFA). The other was the security procedures and practices of PPFA.

Paul A. Zimmer, a forensic accountant and a partner in Brinig Taylor Zimmer, Inc., in San Diego, was engaged to examine the monetary damages claims. PPFA’s hired expert, who two days ago gave testimony about his evaluation of plaintiffs’ damage calculations, had merely (in this writer’s opinion) rubber-stamped all of plaintiffs’ claims. Mr. Zimmer testified that the opposing expert’s testimony revealed serious flaws and omissions in his process of analyzing the cost and value of the security services for which Planned Parenthood is asking more than $630,000 in “damages.”

Jon Perkins, former policeman and longtime security consultant, president of Cover Investigations and Security, Inc. in Glendale, testified that there were also many flaws in the plaintiffs’ approach to providing security for their conferences and their employees, as well as failures of Planned Parenthood personnel to follow their own procedures in security protocols for conferences. He found fault as well with the data on violence against abortion providers that plaintiffs’ witnesses had provided.

On the intertwined matters of (1) what security against “infiltration” of its conferences Planned Parenthood truly needed, and (2) why Planned Parenthood spent several hundred thousand dollars on security in the last few months of 2015, defense counsel referred once again to a piece of evidence that they have cited many times.

This evidentiary exhibit is an e-mail which the head of the Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountain clinic, a woman named Vicky Cowart, sent to the PPFA national leadership. It was sent on July 17, 2015, three days after the release of the first CMP video. As the plaintiff’s witnesses have repeatedly declared in court the past few days, all of Planned Parenthood was in shock at that moment and flailing about for remedies. Ms. Cowart, evidently a no-nonsense administrator, e-mailed leadership to say that a few minutes spent in cost-free internet searches for BioMax had quickly made clear to her that the company was a sham, and she expressed regret that she had only done this “after the fact.”

When Mr. Perkins left the stand, attorney Charles Limandri said to the judge, “Your Honor, the defense rests its case.”

Judge Orrick explained to the jury that they had now heard the evidence, and that the next task for them would be to hear the closing arguments of both parties, and to receive the Court’s instructions. “The lawyers and I have a lot of work to do to get the case ready to present to you”. He told them that they were free until Tuesday, November 12, and predicted that the case would be turned over to them on Wednesday morning. He reminded them to “keep an open mind,” and said, as he usually does in closing, that they should “remember the admonitions” not to discuss the case with anyone, not to do any research of their own, not to read reports or commentary about the case, and so on.

While the jurors are absent, the judge and attorneys will be in the courtroom on Thursday, November 7, and Friday, November 8, having their Jury Instruction Conference. The judge expects to have the product of that conference finished by noon on Friday. 

The Jury Instruction Conference convenes at 8:30 a.m. on November 6, in the same venue, Courtroom 2, and the gallery for observers will be open as usual.

Visit Live Action News for the Best Reports

For detailed reports on each day’s courtroom action, the best I’ve found are posted on the LIVE ACTION website. The report on November 5’s session is posted; and a similar report on November 6’s session should be posted there on November 7.

                           --- by J. A. Gray, correspondent