Columbia SC anti-abortion protester sang hymns and quoted scripture. He still lost

Steven Lefemine has quoted the Bible and sung hymns.

In his yearslong quest to overturn a criminal conviction in federal court for blocking a Columbia abortion clinic’s door, he has fought the good fight.

But now man’s law has won — again.

Late last week, a 2-1 ruling by a U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld Lefemine’s March 2024 conviction for blocking the door to a Columbia abortion and reproductive services clinic off Forest Drive

Man’s law was written by Congress and it says, quite simply: You cannot block an abortion clinic door.

That’s why Lefemine was easily convicted in March 2024 in U.S. District Court in Columbia of violating the Freedom of Access to a Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act. The act prohibits people from obstructing individuals seeking reproductive health care, and Lefemine did just that.

On Monday, Lefemine emailed to The State his response to the denial of his appeal.

His response said in part that the denial “continues the long trail of unjust proceedings which has characterized this case beginning with the FACE Act indictment by the Biden Department of Justice in February 2023, continuing through the unjust prosecution, and trial in Columbia US District Court, conviction, sentencing, and incarceration in federal prison in the fall of 2024.”

Lefemine also pointed to three issues he wanted the judges take up but they did not:

• God’s law is the rightful, just basis for man’s law.
• Human life begins at conception; a human being exists at conception.
• Every human being has a Creator, god-given right. unalienable right to life as a natural ‘person’ which should rightly be considered in law as legal personhoos.

Lefemine’s issues are not legal arguments; they are statements of theology. Judges normally consider laws that have been enacted by legislatures or Congress, or rulings handed down by courts. It would be far-fetched for a judge to consider theological holdings as part of a legal argument.

At his trial, before U.S. Judge Joe Anderson with no jury, there was no disputing the video evidence and witness testimony that proved Lefemine blocked the door.

Lefemine, who represented himself, took the stand and read off — as his own lawyer — some 30 questions to himself, which he then answered.

He also played a selfie video of himself at the clinic door, where he could be heard singing the old hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy” while police asked him to leave. And he quoted the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and passages from Exodus, Psalms and the books of Matthew and Acts.

Anderson, who heard the case without a jury, sentenced Lefemine to 60 days in prison and a $1,000 fine.

Lefemine appealed, arguing that the proceeding was legally flawed because he had a constitutional right to a trial by jury — and he had been tried only by a single judge. Congress intended for FACE Act violators to have a jury trial, he argued.

But the judges ruled that Lefemine was not entitled to a jury trial under the specific provisions of the FACE Act that he was tried under — provisions that say that for a nonviolent physical obstruction, his punishment is limited to a maximum of a $10,000 fine and six months in jail.

Had Lefemine been tried under a different section of FACE that provided a maximum one year in prison, he would have had the right to a jury trial, the Fourth Circuit panel’s ruling said.

The constitutional right to a trial by jury “only applies to serious offenses,” the appeals panel said.

Lefemine has served his two months’ in prison.

Judges in the majority were D’Andrea Benjamin, of South Carolina, and Robert King, of West Virginia.

Judge Allyson Rushing of North Carolina was in the minority.

At the district court trial, assistant U.S. Attorney Tommie DeWayne Pearson prosecuted the case. The FBI investigated.

In a sentencing memo before Anderson gave Lefemine two months in prison and a $1,000 fine, Pearson had asked for 90 days in prison and a $5,000 fine.

“Lefemine takes the shield of religion and attempts to use it as a blunt cudgel against any who dare to have a different belief structure,” Pearson wrote.

Lefemine makes a “misleading argument that the worship of God dictates adherence to his own narrow viewpoints. Every American with deeply held religious beliefs is not in lockstep with Lefemine on the issue of abortion,” Pearson wrote.

The federal Freedom of Access of Clinic Entrances Act is a measure passed by Congress in 1994 in response to waves of violence and mass protests against abortion clinics.