Cite as: 506 U. S. 263 (1993)
Stevens, J., dissenting
VII
Respondents have unquestionably established a claim under the second clause of § 1985(3), the state hindrance provision.34 The record amply demonstrates petitioners' successful efforts to overpower local law enforcement officers. During the "rescue" operations, the duly constituted authorities are rendered ineffective, and mob violence prevails.35 A
conspiracy that seeks by force of numbers to prevent local officials from protecting the victims' constitutional rights presents exactly the kind of pernicious combination that the second clause of § 1985(3) was designed to counteract. As we recognized in Griffin, the second clause of § 1985(3) explicitly concerns such interference with state officials and for that reason does not duplicate the coverage of the first clause. Griffin, 403 U. S., at 99.
Petitioners' conspiracy hinders the lawful authorities from protecting women's constitutionally protected right to choose whether to end their pregnancies. Though this may be a right that is protected only against state infringement, it is clear that by preventing government officials from safeguarding the exercise of that right, petitioners' conspiracy effects a deprivation redressable under § 1985(3). See Carpenters v. Scott, 463 U. S., at 830; id., at 840, n. 2 (Blackmun, J., dissenting); see also Great American Fed. Sav. & Loan
34 "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 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; . . . 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 States, the party so injured or deprived may have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation, against any one or more of the conspirators." 42 U. S. C. § 1985(3) (emphasis added).
35 See 726 F. Supp., at 1489-1490, and n. 4.
339
Page: Index Previous 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007