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 asks court to halt New Jersey AG's 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 1:30 p.m. EDT, Friday, Sept. 20
WHERE: Essex County Superior Court, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Justice Building, Courtroom 3B, 495 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Newark. To schedule an interview, contact ADF Media Relations Manager Jacqueline Ribeiro at (202) 961-9396.
NEWARK, N.J. – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing a Christian, pro-life medical non-profit will be available for media interviews following oral arguments Friday at the Essex County Superior Court in Platkin v. First Choice Women’s Resource Centers. The state court has directed First Choice to respond to a subpoena served by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who targeted First Choice for its pro-life views and demanded that it identify its donors and produce up to 10 years of its internal, confidential documents. First Choice has responded to the subpoena and produced documents, and ADF attorneys are now asking the court to pause further compliance with the subpoena while a federal court considers First Choice’s constitutional claims.
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.
“First Choice Women’s Resource Centers fulfills a vital need in its community by providing free ultrasounds, STD testing, baby clothes, 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 abortion viewpoints. We have complied with the court’s order—producing many documents—and are urging the court to allow First Choice to receive a ruling on its First Amendment rights from the federal court.”
ADF attorneys explain in First Choice’s federal 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 Fourteenth 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.