FLINT – Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions and sentences of four protestors of a local women’s health clinic.
Matthew Joseph Connolly of St. Paul, Minnesota, William Louis Goodman of Seattle, Washington, Lauren Brice Handy of Alexandria, Virginia, and Patrice Woodworth- Crandall of Winona, Minnesota were each sentenced to 45-days-in-jail after a jury convicted each of them of resisting and obstructing police, a two-year felony, along with the misdemeanor charges of trespassing and disturbing the peace.
The four were arrested after they entered the Women’s Health Clinic in Flint Township on June 7, 2019, and began handing out red roses to patients sitting in the clinic’s waiting room and urging them not to get an abortion.
The Court of Appeals noted in its opinion that the clinic provides various pregnancy-related services to women including ultrasounds and pregnancy testing. The clinic also performs abortions. The Court also
noted that the protestors did not know the patients who were sitting in the waiting room, nor did they necessarily know the purpose or reason for the patients’ visits to the clinic.
The clinic manager demanded the protestors leave the building and when they refused to do so, she called the police. Both Michigan State Police and Flint Township police arrived on the scene and ordered the protestors to leave the building or face being arrested, but they continued to refuse to do so and instead, they either knelt or sat while singing religious songs.
When the police informed them they were under arrest and ordered them to stand and leave the building, the protestors went limp requiring the police to physically carry them out of the building.
In their appeal of their jury trial convictions and jail sentences, the protestors’ lawyers argued several legal challenges revolving around their claimed constitutional right to exercise their religion. The Court of Appeals denied each claim and affirmed the convictions and sentences.
“The protestors have every right to publicly and zealously state their personal and deeply
held beliefs and to advocate for their position as long as it is done in the proper time,
place and manner which clearly, in this case, they did not do…” Prosecutor Leyton said.
