WICHITA, Kan. - A jury found Scott Roeder guilty of first degree murder in the shooting death of Dr. George Tiller, whom Roeder said he killed to stop him from conducting late term abortions. Roeder's lawyers had tried to mount a defense that would have reduced the crime to manslaughter. The jury took 37 minutes to decide to convict.
Roeder shot Tiller in church as Tiller served as an usher. He testified that he had taken a gun to the church on three previous occasions intending to kill Tiller. But on those occasions Tiller was not in attendance at the services.
Roeder said that he had considered other measures to stop Tiller, including cutting off his hands with a sword, ramming Tiller's car with his own or taking a sniper shot at Tiller outside of his clinic. He finally settled on church as the scene for the murder because it was the only "window of opportunity."
Tiller was harassed for decades over his practice of performing late-term abortions. His clinic was bombed in 1986. No charges were filed. In 1991, the clinic was blocked by 1,700 protesters. In 1993 Tiller was shot by an Oregon woman as he attempted to drive away from the clinic. In 2002, Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline launched an investigation against abortion clinics, which later earned him a formal disciplinary complaint for violating rules of professional conduct. Kline tried to prosecute Tiller in 2006 for performing illegal late term abortions, but the charges were dismissed. In 2008, Kline's successor Paul Morrison reviewed Kline's 30 misdemeanor charges to be "absolutely wrong," but filed 19 more charges of allegedly violating the requirement to get a second doctor's concurring opinion. Tiller was found not guilty.
Kline, who now teaches at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., came to Wichita to testify for the defense. The presiding judge, Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert, cleared the jury from the room to listen to Kline to determine if the testimony should be admitted. Though he had failed to make his charges stick when prosecuting Tiller, Kline said he believed Tiller was performing illegal abortions. Wilbert dismissed Kline, calling the testimony improper.
Roeder was a member of the Freemen, a militia group that believed that there is a constitutional difference between the rights of "organic sovereigns," i.e. white Christians, whose rights were supposedly given by God, and the rights of "14th Amendment citizens," whose rights were merely granted by the federal government. Roeder claimed that he had found Christ on the 700 Club TV show.
Pro-life advocate Jack Cashill dismissed the killing as not important. Though he said Roeder was "obviously guilty" and "deserved whatever his fate is," he remained firm that the real issue was the crimes of Tiller. Cashill told Fox News Channel 4 WDAF TV in Kansas City, "Violence is not a real issue in this debate, especially considering the stakes. In fact there's a remarkable restraint among pro-life people when it comes to this issue."
The day before the Roeder verdict, Cashill wrote on his website, "In the same week that the state of Kansas was trying the admitted killer of late-term abortionist George Tiller, its judicial establishment was continuing to hound the man who almost brought Tiller to justice, former attorney general Phill Kline. The January 19th lead in the Kansas City Star captures the giddy spirit of the hounding, 'Phill Kline disobeyed the Kansas Supreme Court, misled judges and withheld information from a grand jury, according to an ethics complaint made public Tuesday.'"
Sentencing for Roeder is scheduled for March 9.
My having found Christ at about 9 years of age does not give me special privilege to unilaterly enforce my idea of world justice on society.
If we are to be a society of law and order, then we cannot allow individuals to take law into their own hands.
District Judge Wilbert was absolutely correct when he disallowed any one othe than Roeder, himself, to try justifying his actions with the abortion issue.This trial was not about pro or anti abortion. It was a premeditated act of one person defying the protection afforded citizens of this nation through the court systems.
We live in a complex society that requires careful adjudication of proper action or re-action of all members of society in disputed situations. The guilty verdict in this trial was mandatory if our system of justice is going to survive. Our system had tried and acquited the murdered victim of criminal activity.
Amen, amen. Roeder saw Tiller as a murderer and now a jury of his peers sees Roeder as a murderer, too. It is interesting that Roeder's likely sentence to life in prison shows a lot more mercy than Roeder ever showed Tiller. For that, Roeder's loved ones can be glad--but to Tiller's loved ones, a permanent and final blow has been dealt.