Platkin v. First Choice Women's Resource Centers
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.
ADF to court: New Jersey AG must stop harassment of pro-life ministry
WHO: Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys
WHAT: Available for media interviews following oral arguments in Platkin v. First Choice Women’s Resource Centers
WHEN: Immediately following hearing, which begins at 10:00 a.m. EDT, Tuesday, Oct. 15
WHERE: U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, Trenton Division, Clarkson S. Fisher Building & U.S. Courthouse, Courtroom 5W, 402 East State Street, Trenton. To schedule an interview, contact ADF Media Relations Manager Bernadette Tasy at (480) 356-0324.
TRENTON, N.J. – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing a Christian, pro-life medical non-profit will be available for media interviews following oral arguments Tuesday at the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, Trenton Division, in Platkin v. First Choice Women’s Resource Centers. ADF attorneys are asking the court to halt New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin’s targeting of First Choice because of its faith-based, pro-life views and his demand that it identify its donors and produce up to 10 years of its internal, confidential documents. First Choice responded to the subpoena and produced documents, and ADF attorneys moved the federal court to uphold First Choice’s constitutional rights and stop the Attorney General’s attempt to obtain any further documents.
“First Choice Women’s Resource Centers fulfills a vital need in its community by providing free ultrasounds, STD testing, baby clothes, counseling, and much more,” said ADF Senior Counsel Lincoln Wilson, who will be arguing before the court. “New Jersey’s attorney general is making a political example of First Choice simply because it provides pro-life and religious alternatives to his extreme pro-abortion viewpoints. We are urging the court to protect First Choice from these burdensome demands and uphold its First Amendment rights.”
Platkin targeted First Choice with a broad, baseless, and burdensome subpoena that requires the organization to expend its limited resources to produce massive amounts of confidential documents or face judicial penalties. The attorney general does not refer to any evidence of wrongdoing to justify his demands.
ADF attorneys explain in the lawsuit, filed in December, that Platkin sought help from Planned Parenthood to draft his office’s consumer alert warning New Jerseyans about pregnancy centers. The suit argues that the attorney general’s demands violate the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and are designed to harass and hurt First Choice’s ministry of caring for women and their children.
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.