Wichita anti-abortion protester acquitted of battering clinic guard

A jury found an anti-abortion activist not guilty Tuesday of battering a security guard who took his protest sign outside a Wichita clinic that provides abortions.

The defendant, David Schmidt, 74, was convicted of the charge in February in Wichita Municipal Court, but appealed his case to Sedgwick County District Court. The six-member, all-male jury deliberated about 15 minutes before acquitting Schmidt after a two-day trial.

Afterward, Schmidt credited the work of his lawyers, Peter Orsi of Wichita and Martin Cannon of Iowa. Cannon is an attorney with the Thomas More Society, a national nonprofit law firm that litigates abortion and religious-liberty cases.

“These two guys got me out from under a pile of manure,” Schmidt said shortly after the verdict was read.

The charge stemmed from an incident outside the Trust Women South Wind Women’s Center on July 13, 2016.

Schmidt was a member of the Kansas Coalition for Life, a group of about 75 volunteers who have conducted a rolling protest on the sidewalk out front of the clinic since 2004.

He and fellow KCFL member Joseph Elmore had lashed a sign to a lawn chair set up in front of the clinic’s entrance near the southeast corner of Bleckley and the Kellogg access road.

Believing the sign to be illegally posted, the clinic guard, John Rayburn, went out to seize the sign from Schmidt and his fellow protester, Joseph Elmore.

Security video showed – and Schmidt admitted – shoving Rayburn as Rayburn untied the sign from the chair.

“I informed him with bad language that he’d be leaving me and my sign alone,” Schmidt testified.

The case hinged on whether Schmidt had acted like a reasonable person in defending the sign.

Assistant Wichita City Attorney Cathy Eaton argued that Elmore, who didn’t physically confront Rayburn, had acted responsibly in the circumstances, and that Schmidt hadn’t.

“This is a sign,” she said. “A sign made of cardboard with a picture on it. Is it reasonable to batter someone to protect that sign?”

Judge Terry Pullman ruled that Rayburn had no legal right to seize the sign because he’s a private citizen and had not been trained by the city in sign-code enforcement.

Cannon argued that meant Schmidt had the right to protect the sign, which was private property belonging to KCFL, and the only question was whether he had been excessively forceful in doing so.

Schmidt is almost completely blind and had to be led by the arm to the witness box. Cannon said his push was about the least amount of physical force that could have been used in the situation.

Mark Gietzen, the longtime president of KCFL, said it was only the second arrest in more than 35,000 hours of sidewalk demonstrations over the last 13 years.

He said the other case involved a protester who appeared to have stepped onto clinic property, but surveyor records showed the demonstrator was still in the public right-of-way and the case was dismissed.

Schmidt said he hasn’t protested at the clinic since his arrest and doesn’t intend to go back.

This story was originally published July 25, 2017 at 5:39 PM with the headline "Wichita anti-abortion protester acquitted of battering clinic guard."