Abortion Foe Loses Appeal of Jail Term : Sentencing: Attorney who represented protesters accused of trespassing at clinic faces 290-day term after state Supreme Court rejects his plea.

Anti-abortion lawyer Cyrus Zal, slapped by an El Cajon judge with a 290-day jail term, has lost his bid before the California Supreme Court to remain out of jail.

In a single-sentence announcement, the Supreme Court said that it had both denied Zal’s appeal and decided to lift an order it had issued June 14 blocking the beginning of his sentence. The court provided no hearing on the appeal.

The Supreme Court did not say when Zal, a Folsom-based attorney and former general counsel to the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, is scheduled to report to the San Diego County Jail. Zal, 42, said Thursday that he was asking for two weeks to prepare.

Municipal Judge Larrie R. Brainard imposed the sentence at a February trial at which Zal represented six anti-abortion advocates accused of trespassing at a medical clinic, finding that Zal repeatedly ignored an order not to discuss abortion during the case.

Known for his ever-present Bible and for making it clear that he wishes to use the trials of abortion protesters as a platform for debating and condemning abortion, Zal said Thursday that he views 290 days in jail as “no problem.”

“I regret that the California Supreme Court has joined the Hall of Shame in failing to preserve the lives of unborn babies and in failing to put an end to the holocaust in this country of their continued slaughter,” he said.

He also said that anti-abortion advocates are “going to try to use my jail sentence, politically, to the maximum political benefit. I don’t know how that can be, but we’re going to have a lot of heads thinking about that.”

Zal’s sentence originally was only 90 days. But Brainard also imposed a $10,000 fine, which Zal has indicated he cannot afford, so the judge gave him the option of paying it off at $50 for each additional day in jail, or 200 more days.

The El Cajon trial stemmed from a protest last Oct. 21 at a La Mesa clinic. Brainard refused to allow a defense that a trespass at the clinic was necessary to save lives and told Zal not to argue the morality of abortion.

However, Zal repeatedly brought up the abortion issue while questioning witnesses.

He asked one police officer, “Are you familiar with those facilities where two persons go in and only one person comes out alive?”

He asked another officer if he had ever been an unborn child. He asked whether another witness was worried about a future charge of murder. He asked a clinic employee, “How do you feel about working in a business that makes money from the blood of the babies?”

Brainard cited Zal for contempt 20 times. The six anti-abortion advocates, meanwhile, were convicted of trespass.

In a June 4 opinion, a state appellate court in San Diego upheld Zal’s sentence, saying it was not “cruel and unusual punishment.” The 4th District Court of Appeal also suggested that Zal was unlikely to succeed in any subsequent appeal, calling Brainard “patient and even-handed.”

Zal did pursue an appeal, though, telling the state Supreme Court that the sentence would punish him for merely doing his job. In his appeal papers, which prompted the Supreme Court’s June 14 order temporarily postponing the imposition of any sentence, Zal said his comments were “interruptive but not disruptive.”

The Supreme Court order issued Wednesday did not indicate how many, if any, justices believed Zal was at least due a hearing on the appeal. It was signed by Justice Edward Panelli.

Zal had been dispatched to the February trial by Operation Rescue. He resigned as general counsel of the group in May, citing its--and his--financial troubles.

Zal was handed a 16-day jail term for contempt in another trial last fall in Fresno but never served it, winning an appeal.