"These indictments indicate that the Justice Department didn't just abandon its abortion violence investigation, as some anti-abortionists had mistakenly claimed in January," said Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority Foundation.
In related news, John C. Salvi III was convicted of pre-meditated murder in the December, 1994 shooting deaths of two abortion clinic workers in Brookline, MA, Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols. The jury rejected a claim by Salvi's defense lawyers that Salvi was insane at the time of the shootings. Salvi will serve two life sentences without parole.
"We are relieved that Salvi will spend the rest of his life behind bars," said Smeal, "but we question if others worked with him, and whether they too will be brought to justice. After committing the murders in Brookline, Salvi traveled over 700 miles, past more than 172 women's health clinics, to an obscure women's health clinic in Norfolk, VA, where he fired several rounds of ammunition at the exterior of the clinic. What are the odds that this gunman from New Hampshire and Massachusetts, who formerly lived in Florida, could have found this clinic without assistance from someone?"
Salvi is granted an automatic appeal under Massachusetts law. Legal experts expect Salvi to appeal based on the judge's refusal to let him give testimony to the jurors.
