First Choice Women's Resource Centers v. Platkin
Description: First Choice Women’s Resource Centers is a Christian, pro-life, medical nonprofit that serves pregnant mothers, mothers of newborns, and fathers. New Jersey’s attorney general selectively targeted the nonprofit based on its religious speech and pro-life views with a wide-ranging, unfounded, and burdensome subpoena that requires the organization to expend its limited resources to produce extensive documentation or face judicial sanctions. The attorney general does not refer to any substantive evidence of wrongdoing to justify his onerous demands.
NJ pro-life pregnancy center asks US Supreme Court for relief
The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Lincoln Wilson regarding a petition ADF attorneys filed Monday with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to swiftly act by requiring a federal district court to do its duty and hear the case First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Platkin:
“Congress has given federal courts the duty to hear and decide cases where government officials have allegedly violated constitutionally protected rights. 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. Worse, the district court acknowledged that the state court litigation would likely mean that nonprofits targeted by state officials can never get back to federal court. In this case, New Jersey’s attorney general targeted First Choice Women’s Resource Centers—a ministry that provides free ultrasounds, STD testing, baby clothes, and more to its community—based on its pro-life views. The district court deprived First Choice of its right to a decision on its constitutional claims in federal court. 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.”
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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ABOUT Lincoln Wilson
Lincoln Wilson serves as senior counsel on the Center for Life Team at Alliance Defending Freedom. Prior to joining ADF, Wilson served as chief of civil litigation and constitutional defense for the Idaho attorney general. Before entering government service, Wilson worked in private practice for several New York law firms, including Skadden Arps, Quinn Emanuel, and Dechert LLP, where he served as counsel. Wilson’s private practice focused on complex class action and products liability litigation in trial and appellate courts around the country. He also maintained an active pro bono practice focusing on religious freedom matters, including a petition for certiorari named a “Petition of the Week” by SCOTUSblog. Wilson earned his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law, where he earned the Academic Excellence Award and served as executive editor of the Law Review. He also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Idaho College of Law teaching appellate advocacy and complex litigation. He is admitted to practice in Idaho, Washington, and New York, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court and nine federal courts of appeal.