Blockbuster Ruling in Kansas Abortion Murder Trial

[merithyn]

It just strikes me as annoying gender double standard number 4 billion that people vent their anger at the male doctor since clearly he is forcing the poor victim women to get abortions and thus the monster.  It is just weird.  People will jump through incredible hoops of logic to make sure women stay passive figures incapable of making their own choices.

How the hell did you make this a gender thing? There are female doctors who do abortions, too. The reason they go after the doctors is that it's killing one person to avoid hundreds of abortions, rather than killing hundreds of women.

[Valmy]

How the hell did you make this a gender thing? There are female doctors who do abortions, too. The reason they go after the doctors is that it's killing one person to avoid hundreds of abortions, rather than killing hundreds of women.

Here is why: this dude who was just killed the sort of doctor I usually hear villified by people and threatened.  Also when I see protestors outside abortion clinics the signs they hold up constantly portray abortion as an attack on women, something forced on them that they are victims of.  'Women deserve more than abortion, love women and stop abortion' as if people are leading women to abortion clinics at gunpoint.  I find it strange.

Also Spicey saying that a doctor doing late term abortions is more savage than taking out a .22 and blowing somebody away and how the doctor should not be able to go to church...and it made me think if he would feel the same way if I announced I discovered my wife had had an abortion at 20 weeks in her past...would he then say I should leave her at once since she is murderer who is worse than a NKVD executioner?  Just makes me wonder.

[Martinus]

I dunno. If you're pro-life, shouldn't this man be lauded?

Yes, yes, there's the idea that ou still obey the law even if you disagree with it. but he killed hundreds of babies.

It's not that much different than an anti-war protestor assassinating a bomber pilot.

Unless the bomber pilot bombs only mindless lumps of cells, not really.

[Eddie Teach]

Unless the bomber pilot bombs only mindless lumps of cells, not really.

We're talking about the mindset of the person committing the crime. So take your bomber-pilot assassin apologism elsewhere plzkthx.

[Martinus]

Unless the bomber pilot bombs only mindless lumps of cells, not really.

We're talking about the mindset of the person committing the crime. So take your bomber-pilot assassin apologism elsewhere plzkthx.

But still killing a killer of humans and killing a killer of mindless biomass are both based in a different mindset. A better comparison would be a PETA fanatic killing a sushi chef, because he "slaughters the sea-kittens".

[Eddie Teach]

Both people are guilty of the same crime, murder. Both have the same motivation, that they feel their victim is the real murderer. Both of those "murderers" are carrying out acts sanctioned by the state. Whether we actually think abortion, collateral damage, or natural self-preservation are murder is a different topic.

[Martinus]

Fetuses are not humans. Retard.

[Admiral Yi]

 

[grumbler]

Whether we actually think abortion, collateral damage, or natural self-preservation are murder is a different topic.

And a rather boring one, since there is only one answer.

[Eddie Teach]

Fetuses are not humans. Retard.

[slargos]
Muslims are not humans. Retard.
[/slargos]

[Faeelin]

Except in the case of abortion doctors they are simply carrying out the will of their patients.  Essentially you are not even killing the murderer only the person who sold them the gun.  The women who decide to get abortions are the ones responsible and thus in your logic are the murderers who must be killed.

It's closer to a hit man than a gun salesman.

Wait, are we agreeing? I'm scared.

[Razgovory]

Fetuses are not humans. Retard.

What is and isn't human has been defined both broadly and narrowly in the past.  What seems obvious to you may not be the same assumption others will have.  I would have thought this could have occurred to you.

[Vince]

Guilty.   

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/28/kansas.abortion.roeder.verdict/index.html

A Kansas jury deliberated just 37 minutes before convicting an anti-abortion activist of first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of an abortion provider.

The jury found Scott Roeder, 51, guilty of gunning down Dr. George Tiller, who operated a clinic in Wichita where late-term abortions were performed. Roeder, 51, faces life in prison when he is sentenced on March 9.

Tiller's family said the jury reached a "just" verdict.

"At this time we hope that George can be remembered for his legacy of service to women, the help he provided for those who needed it and the love and happiness he provided us as a husband, father and grandfather," the family said in a written statement.

A day earlier, Roeder told jurors he had shot Tiller in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church as Sunday services began. Testifying as his only defense witness, he said he believed he had to kill Tiller to save lives. He said he had no regrets.

"There was nothing being done, and the legal process had been exhausted, and these babies were dying every day," Roeder said. "I felt that if someone did not do something, he was going to continue."

"His testimony was delivered very matter-of-factly, but its contents were chillingly horrific," prosecutor Ann Swengel said in her closing argument. "He carried out a planned assassination, and there can be no other verdict in this case ... other than guilty."

Quick verdict surprised prosecutor Video

Prosecutors initially fought to keep abortion out of the trial, claiming that Tiller's death was a straightforward case of premeditated murder.

Eventually, the abortion issue took center stage as prosecutors portrayed Tiller as a target of Roeder's anti-abortion agenda, and defense lawyers attempted to mitigate his culpability under the theory that he believed Tiller's death was justified to save the lives of others.

Defense attorney Mark Rudy told jurors in his closing argument that Roeder "thought that the babies kept on dying" and he had to stop Tiller from "killing more babies."

Another defense attorney, Steve Osburn, said Roeder was "disappointed," with the verdict. But he added, "He's known that this day was going to come, I think."

Osburn said his client "feels remorse toward the family, but not for what he did."

The trial drew activists from both sides of the abortion debate to the courtroom, and a van plastered with slogans and photographs of fetuses was parked in a prominent spot in front of the courthouse.

Among the attendees were the Rev. Michael Bray, whose history in the anti-abortion movement includes 1985 conspiracy convictions in connection with a string of clinic bombings, and Katherine Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Congregants from Reformation Lutheran testified that they had seen Roeder at church several times before the day he killed Tiller by shooting him at point-blank range in the head.

Jurors heard emotional testimony from church-goers who rushed to Tiller's side and attempted to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as he lay in a pool of blood. Others, meanwhile, followed Roeder into the church parking lot, where he threatened to shoot them.

Roeder also was convicted of aggravated assault in connection with threats he made to two ushers, Gary Hoepner and Keith Martin.

As Roeder pulled away in his car, Martin testified, something moved him to throw the coffee cup he was holding at the vehicle. "Frustration, I guess, lack of accomplishment, nothing else to do."

Prosecutors also called employees of the pawn shop where Roeder purchased the .22-caliber Taurus pistol believed to have been used to shoot Tiller. The gun was never found, but surveillance video and receipts showed that he purchased the gun on May 18 and received it on May 23, the week before he shot Tiller.

Roeder's defense team did not dispute much of the factual evidence. Roeder testified that he chose to target Tiller at church because it presented the best "window of opportunity" to attack Tiller, who traveled in an armored vehicle and whose clinic was a "fortress."

He admitted bringing the pistol with him to Lutheran Reformation on May 24 with the intention of shooting Tiller, but the physician did not attend services that day. So, Roeder testified, he returned the following week.

"Do you feel as though you've successfully completed your mission?" Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston asked Roeder on Thursday.

"He's been stopped," Roeder answered.

His testimony was intended just as much for the jury as it was to convince Judge Warren Wilbert that evidence existed to support a possible conviction of voluntary manslaughter. A conviction on the lesser offense, which is defined as "an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force," would have set Roeder free from prison after five years.

Earlier in the trial, Wilbert said he would rule after hearing evidence in the case, acknowledging that he felt the defense faced "an uphill battle." Ultimately, he rejected the theory, saying testimony did not support the defense claim that Roeder's beliefs justified using deadly force against Tiller.

"There is no imminence of danger on a Sunday morning in the back of a church, let alone any unlawful conduct, given that what Tiller did at his clinic Monday through Friday is lawful in Kansas," the judge said.

[citizen k]

I would have thought this could have occurred to you.

Why? Marty is very good at being willfully obtuse.