## Facts

- Anti-abortion activists and organizations circulated “WANTED”-style posters and maintained a website targeting identified abortion providers and clinics.
- The challenged materials included a “Deadly Dozen” poster, a poster focused on Dr. Robert Crist, and the “Nuremberg Files” website.
- The materials identified specific providers (including Dr. Warren Hern and Drs. Elizabeth and James Newhall) and included personal identifying information such as names, photos, and addresses.
- The materials portrayed the providers as “guilty” and compared them to war criminals, implying they should be brought to account for “crimes against humanity.”
- The plaintiffs contended that, even without explicit language promising violence, the materials communicated an implicit threat when viewed against a backdrop of prior murders of abortion providers following similar “WANTED”-type publications.
- Plaintiffs sued under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE), which authorizes civil liability for using a “threat of force” to intentionally intimidate a person because that person provides reproductive health services.

## Issues

1. How should “threat of force” in FACE be construed consistently with the First Amendment?
2. Whether the posters and website, considered in full context, constituted unprotected “true threats” or protected political advocacy.

## Decision

- The en banc Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment for the plaintiffs and reinstated relief after a panel had reversed.
- The court held that the posters and website constituted “true threats” and therefore fell outside First Amendment protection.
- The court construed FACE’s “threat of force” to align with the circuit’s true-threat doctrine.
- The court upheld the jury’s finding of liability and the district court’s injunction restricting further dissemination of the threatening materials.

## Legal Principles

- “Threat of force” under FACE is satisfied by a “true threat” as defined by circuit law: a statement that, in context and under all circumstances, a reasonable person would foresee would be interpreted by its recipients as a serious expression of intent to inflict bodily harm.
- True threats are categorically unprotected by the First Amendment, even when communicated through politically charged advocacy formats.
- Context is central to the true-threat analysis; speech that lacks explicit violent language may still be actionable if the surrounding circumstances make the message reasonably understood as a serious threat.
- The inquiry is objective and recipient-focused: the question is whether a reasonable person would foresee that the targeted individuals would interpret the communication as a serious threat of physical harm, not whether the speaker subjectively intended to carry out violence.
- Advocacy of violence in the abstract remains protected, but communications directed at identifiable individuals in a manner reasonably understood as threatening cross the constitutional line.

## Conclusion

The en banc Ninth Circuit held that targeted “WANTED”-style posters and an identifying website directed at abortion providers constituted actionable “true threats” under FACE, and that imposing civil liability and injunctive relief for such threats did not violate the First Amendment.


Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette, Inc. v. Am. Coal. of Life Activists, 290 F.3d 1058 (9th Cir. 2002) (en banc)