CV NEWSFEED // The Wisconsin Supreme Court is considering whether it will review lifting a 2020 injunction a lower court placed on a pro-life protester who has been accused of harassing a Planned Parenthood nurse.
Trempealeau County Circuit Court Judge Rian Radtke on Sept. 9, 2020, issued a harassment injunction against the defendant, Brian Aish, ordering him to stay away from Nancy Kindschy, until September 2024, according to court documents.
In October of that year, Aish unsuccessfully attempted to appeal the decision, on the grounds that there was no evidence to support the claim that his actions amounted to harassment and that the injunction infringed upon his First Amendment rights.
According to the Court of Appeals’ opinion filed in March 2022, Kindschy testified during a two-day injunction hearing in 2020 that her interactions with Aish began in 2014. Aish protested at clinics where Kindschy worked, and their early interactions were not confrontational. The conversations were about Aish and his beliefs. However, Aish’s behavior towards her changed significantly in the fall 2019.
“Kindschy testified that Aish became more aggressive and confrontational toward her, and he seemed to single her out while protesting,” the document said.
According to the document, Kindschy testified that on Oct. 8, 2019, Aish was a few feet away from her car when he told her, “You have time to repent. You will be lucky if you don’t get killed by a drunk driver on your way home. Bad things are going to start happening to you and your family.” About a week later, Kindschy said, Aish followed her again as she was leaving work, “and said to her in an angry, cold, and loud tone, ‘You have blood on your hands.’” In another instance, Aish “ran out into the road after [Kindschy] pumping his anti-abortion sign into [her] car window within inches of it.”
Wisconsin Public Radio reported on March 20 that Aish’s lawyer, Joan Mannix, stated that Aish’s comments came “from a place of love and non aggression” and that the court’s decision might be “improper” if Aish had followed Kindschy to her house.
“But in a First Amendment, traditional public forum — which is like the wild west of First Amendment speech — I can phrase my message in a very startling, obnoxious, frightening, intimidating way,” Mannix said, according to Wisconsin Public Radio’s article.
Justices are debating whether to send the case back to the circuit court, in response to a June 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Billy Raymond Counterman v Colorado. The court decided in that case that “the State must show that the defendant consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence.”
According to Wisconsin Public Radio’s article, Kindschy’s attorney, Diane Welsh, said the “practical effect” of remanding the case may be minimal since Kindschy has retired and the clinic she worked at closed. Welsh maintains that the ruling in Billy Raymond Counterman v Colorado does not apply to Wisconsin laws regarding harassment injunctions.
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