CV NEWS FEED // A New Jersey Christian pregnancy resource center filed a petition with the Supreme Court this week, asking it to require a federal district court to hear its case against the state’s attorney general.
Attorneys from non-profit law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed the petition on February 26 on behalf of First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, which was selectively targeted by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin because of its pro-life values.
As CatholicVote reported in December, Platkin “requested an ‘unreasonable and improper subpoena,’ from First Choice ‘under the pretense of conducting a civil investigation into possible violations’ of several [New Jersey] laws.”
First Choice sued Platkin, but a federal district court dismissed the case “for lack of jurisdiction.” The petition filed by ADF requests that the Supreme Court force the district court to hear the case.
“Congress has given federal courts the duty to hear and decide cases where government officials have allegedly violated constitutionally protected rights,” ADF Senior Counsel Lincoln Wilson stated in a press release. “But in New Jersey, after the attorney general targeted and harassed a Christian, pro-life, medical nonprofit, the district court has refused to hear this important case unless it litigates in state court first.”
According to the petition filed this week, the district court acknowledged that it is almost impossible for nonprofits targeted by state officials to make it through state court to fight once more in district court.
”The district court deprived First Choice of its right to a decision on its constitutional claims in federal court,” Wilson stated. “Now we are urging the Supreme Court to step in and provide relief requiring the district court to decide this case and to resolve the related conflict on the question in the lower courts.”
