Bible quotes didn’t help Columbia anti-abortion protester. Federal judge found him guilty

It was a rare court hearing in which man’s law and God’s law were debated. But in a Columbia federal courtroom on Monday, man’s law decided the case.

After a four-hour, non-jury trial, U.S. Judge Joe Anderson found Steven Lefemine, 68, a Bible-quoting, hymn-singing, Constitution-citing anti-abortion activist guilty of obstructing the entrance to a Columbia Planned Parenthood clinic in November 2022. The clinic, located off Forest Drive, provides abortions and also numerous other aspects of reproductive and women’s health care.

It was the second case, but first conviction, in South Carolina under the federal Freedom of Access of Clinic Entrances Act, a measure passed by Congress in 1993 in response to waves of violence and mass protests against abortion clinics nationwide at that time, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Columbia said.

“The defendant is now adjudged guilty,” Anderson said after hearing evidence from three witnesses and Lefemine, who represented himself and took the stand and read off — as his own lawyer — some 30 questions to himself, which he then answered.

The charge is a misdemeanor and Lefemine is subject to a sentence of up to six months in prison. Anderson said he will pass sentence in two months but did not set a specific date.

Anderson said he respected Lefemine’s “deeply held beliefs” and that he had acted “in accordance with an age-old tradition in this country that sometimes has resulted in changes in the law.” Anderson was referring to civil disobedience, whereby activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. have deliberately disobeyed laws they believed were immoral and suffered fines or jail to bring attention to their causes.

Although there was plenty of undisputed evidence — including videos taken by Planned Parenthood staff, police and selfies by Lefemine himself — showing the defendant in the clinic doorway, and the law banning such interference was clear, that didn’t stop Lefemine from bringing up matters he asserted were relevant.

At one point, as Lefemine sat in the witness stand, calmly questioning himself about the late 1980s beginnings of an anti-abortion movement called Operation Rescue, he began to talk about America’s “corporate blood guilt that comes upon a nation for shedding innocent blood” and linked that to the current “invasion” of the Southern border and to violence in schools.

“Objection, your honor!” said prosecutor DeWayne Pearson, jumping up and telling the judge that Lefemine was “off on a rant.”

Anderson said politely but firmly, “Mr. Lefemine, your position about the Southern border and violence in schools has no relevance in this case.”

Other times, however, Anderson overruled Pearson, giving Lefemine wide latitude in his testimony and final argument to refer to numerous matters such as his belief that “children living within the wombs of their mothers are natural persons... and ought rightfully to be recognized as legal persons.”

In addition to his own belief that science says that human life “begins at fertilization/conception,” Lefemine also cited evidence on his behalf in 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. He also mentioned Marbury vs. Madison, a seminal case in American legal history which holds that laws inconsistent with the Constitution — such as the one he was being tried under — can be declared null and void.

He also played numerous segments of a selfie video he had taken while blocking the Planned Parenthood clinic entrance, singing over and over in a baritone voice verses from a still-popular 200-year-old Christian hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

The day of his arrest, Nov. 15, 2022, was a Tuesday, one of two days a week the clinic performed abortions, and Lefemine said he had deliberately blocked the door on that day. When he was asked to leave by clinic staff and police, he answered that he would only leave if “they agree not to kill babies today,” according to video in the case.

In his presentations to the judge, Lefemine also emphasized that evidence showed he was not a threat to the clinic because he informed Columbia police Chief Skip Holbrook the day before of his intent to block the clinic entrance that morning and that he went peacefully with officers when arrested.

Pearson put up two witnesses, including Holbrook, who testified that protesters often coordinate their actions with police to make sure each side understands the other, and that is what Lefemine did.

“We told him what he could expect” if he refused to move after blocking the clinic door, Holbrook testified.

Two Planned Parenthood staffers — Marketta Portee and Allison Terracio, a Richland County Council member — testified that while Lefemine was asked repeatedly to leave, he had not been violent. His obstruction caused clients to go to the back door, they testified. Terracio was called to the stand by Lefemine.

Some partners of women coming to the clinic that day learned of Lefemine’s blocking the door and wanted “to go out and have a physical confrontation” with him, Portee testified.

In his cross-examination of Lefemine, Pearson asked the defendant how he made his living. Lefemine replied that he had his own independent sources of income. When Pearson tried to get more information, Lefemine objected and the judge upheld the objection.

After Columbia police arrested Lefemine on a city trespassing charge, the FBI became involved and worked with the U.S. Attorney’s Office to bring a federal charge. Several FBI agents were in the courtroom Monday but did not testify.

Lefemine was indicted in February 2023 for physically obstructing and interfering with the people trying to access the Planned Parenthood clinic off Forest Drive in Columbia on Nov. 15, 2022.

Earlier this year, Lefemine was tried in a city of Columbia courtroom on the trespassing charge, found guilty and sentence to a $465 fine, which Lefemine said after Monday’s trial had been paid.

Lefemine said following the trial, “As Christians, we are not necessarily called to win all the time, we are called to be a witness.”