Cite as: 506 U. S. 263 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
conspiring to deprive women seeking abortions of their right to interstate travel. The court also ruled for respondents on their pendent state-law claims of trespass and public nuisance. As relief on these three claims, the court enjoined petitioners from trespassing on, or obstructing access to, abortion clinics in specified Virginia counties and cities in the Washington, D. C., metropolitan area. National Organization for Women v. Operation Rescue, 726 F. Supp. 1483 (ED Va. 1989). Based on its § 1985(3) ruling and pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1988, the court also ordered petitioners to pay respondents $27,687.55 in attorney's fees and costs.
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed, National Organization for Women v. Operation Rescue, 914 F. 2d 582 (1990), and we granted certiorari, 498 U. S. 1119 (1991). The case was argued in the October 1991 Term, and pursuant to our direction, see 504 U. S. 970 (1992), was rear-gued in the current Term.
I
Our precedents establish that in order to prove a private conspiracy in violation of the first clause of § 1985(3),1 a plain-1 Section 1985(3) provides as follows: "If two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire or go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another, for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws; or for the purpose of preventing or hindering the constituted authorities of any State or Territory from giving or securing to all persons within such State or Territory the equal protection of the laws; or if two or more persons conspire to prevent by force, intimidation, or threat, any citizen who is lawfully entitled to vote, from giving his support or advocacy in a legal manner, toward or in favor of the election of any lawfully qualified person as an elector for President or Vice President, or as a Member of Congress of the United States; or to injure any citizen in person or property on account of such support or advocacy; in any case of conspiracy set forth in this section, if one or more persons engaged therein do, or cause to be done, any act in furtherance of the object of such conspiracy, whereby another is injured in his person or property, or deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United
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