Last week 110 lawyers ganged up on Wyoming attorney and author Frederick Harrison.
Harrison represented Wyoming Right to Life in their efforts to defend the 2022 “Trigger Bill” (HB 92) and the 2023 “Life is a Human Right Act” (HB 152), which restored Wyoming’s century-long ban on abortions after the United States Supreme Court admitted that they were illegitimately struck down by Roe v. Wade.
These, and other laws that protect pregnant women and their unborn children, have been blocked from going into effect. The years-long legal battle was initiated by a cabal of Wyoming abortionists and came to a head on January 6, 2026, when the Wyoming Supreme Court declared these laws to be “unconstitutional” in Johnson v. Wyoming.
Apparently, Harrison’s insightful critiques of judicial activism hit the mark often enough to get under the skin of the 110 lawyers. But rather than offer point-by-point answers to his reasoning, they launched a statewide broadside against him.
First, they drew up an op-ed. Then, they sent it to two dozen media outlets across the state, accompanied by a chest-thumping press release. What their op-ed lacks in constitutional substance it makes up with straw-man arguments and loud claims to authority.
We’ve seen this behavior before. It bears the familiar hallmarks of lawfare.
They condescendingly explain terms like “judicial review” and “strict scrutiny” as if Wyomingites were too dumb to know what they mean. But they never get around to demonstrating that these judicial standards were accurately applied in the cases under dispute.
Rather, they tell us to trust the courts, not the legislators.
The Constitution, we are told, sets up the legislature, the executive and judicial as three equal branches of government. But, apparently, some are more equal than others.
Memo to the lawyers: Wyomingites do not dispute that every branch of government should follow the Constitution strictly. They are simply asking that our judges read its complete sentences rather than cherry-pick phrases and put them into an ideological blender.
Specifically, courts should incorporate into their opinion of what is constitutional the fundamental principle that ,“In their inherent right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, all members of the human race are equal” (Art. 1, Sec. 2).
And if they are going to negate that right to life with the “Right of health care access” (Art. 1, Sec. 38) that came 122 years later, they should, at the very least, read the whole section and not cherry-pick phrases to make it say what it does not.
It is the height of irony that the letter against Harrison fails either to consider the fundamental right to life or to read the right to health care in its totality - the very same errors that Harrison found in the Supreme Court opinion. To judicial activists, it is kryptonite to quote the constitution honestly.
In truth, Harrison is not the real object of their criticism. And even though the title says, “The Problem’s the Legislature,” their beef is really with the Freedom Caucus.
Weirdly, however, they ascribe to the Freedom Caucus what was passed overwhelmingly by the attorneys in Wyoming’s legislature.
For instance, HB 92 – “The Trigger Bill” – was passed with yea votes from every Republican attorney-legislator: Barry Crago, Mike Greear, Joe MacGuire, Bob Nicholas, Jared Olsen, Clark Stith, Tara Nethercott, and Drew Perkins, none of whom are members of the Freedom Caucus.
Is it fair for a bunch of lawyers to single out the Freedom Caucus for special flogging when those legislators voted in agreement with every practicing attorney? Equal justice under law is supposed to subject everyone to the same standards. One might think that those attorneys who voted for HB 92 and HB 152 would be the first in line to defend the Freedom Caucus.
The last time I recall so many Wyoming legal eagles attacking a fellow lawyer was in the lead-up to the 2022 election. Many of the same people who are now criticizing Harrison signed on to a letter that insinuated ethics violations against Rep. Harriet Hageman when she called out the obvious voting shenanigans during the 2020 election.
That letter has not aged well. Neither will this one.
Such partisan use of one’s standing at the Wyoming Bar is, no doubt, intended to lend credibility to the criticisms. It has, instead, had the opposite effect. When I read the weakness of its arguments, undersigned by prominent officers of the Wyoming Bar, it was the Bar that lost credibility, not Harrison.
Lawyers, like any other professional with credentials, are only as good as the arguments that they make. Judging by that standard, I’m glad that Fred Harrison is arguing for the constitutional rights of Wyoming’s women and children. Keep it up.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com
