Courts and Abortion Politics

A San Francisco County judge has dismissed the final remaining felony charge against undercover activist David Daleiden and ordered his yearslong criminal case expunged, formally ending a prosecution that began under then–California Attorney General Kamala Harris after his 2015 videos targeting Planned Parenthood’s fetal‑tissue practices. Daleiden and fellow undercover journalist Sandra Merritt had faced 15 felony counts filed by AG Xavier Becerra in 2017, but in January 2025 both pleaded no contest to a single felony each under a settlement that dismissed the rest and imposed no jail time, fines, or admission of wrongdoing in exchange for staying away from and not naming the recorded individuals and ceasing unlawful recordings. Current Attorney General Rob Bonta had publicly cast that plea deal as a victory for reproductive‑health access, emphasizing that his office had secured felony convictions even as pro‑life groups and Daleiden denounced the case as political "lawfare" launched in the Harris era. Daleiden announced on X that the "final charge has been DISMISSED and the case completely expunged" after what he called a months‑long administrative delay and a "bizarre" last‑minute bid by Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation to upend the state’s agreement. The closure of the case caps a decade‑long fight over whether his covert recordings constituted protected investigative journalism or illegal, surreptitious taping under California law, and is already being used on social media by anti‑abortion activists to argue that Democratic AGs weaponized state power to shield Planned Parenthood from scrutiny.