Biography
Anne Elizabeth Walsh was a Catholic antiwar activist jailed for civil contempt in 1971, alongside Sister Jogues Egan, for refusing to testify before the federal grand jury in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania investigating the Catholic left and the alleged East Coast Conspiracy to Save Lives associated with the Berrigan brothers. Like Egan, Walsh refused to answer questions she argued were the product of illegal government wiretapping. The two women were held in contempt by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, and their challenge was decided together with companion cases by the Supreme Court in Gelbard v. United States (1972), which affirmed that grand jury witnesses may refuse to answer questions derived from unlawful electronic surveillance.
