Jurors also convicted Roeder of two counts of
aggravated assault for threatening two men who chased him as he fled
Tiller’s church after the shooting.
The verdict came on the sixth day of Roeder’s trial
in a high-profile case that brought both national abortion-rights
leaders and anti-abortion militants to
Roeder took the stand Thursday as the only witness called by the defense after Wilbert refused to allow former
Roeder, 51, of the
area, was charged with premeditated, first-degree murder in Tiller’s
death. He testified Thursday that he killed Tiller, one of a handful of
doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions, on
Roeder told jurors that he bought a .22-caliber handgun on
Roeder also revealed that he had taken a loaded gun to Tiller’s church on three previous occasions — in
Roeder testified that over the years, he had
considered other ways to stop Tiller from performing abortions,
including cutting Tiller’s hands off with a sword, ramming Tiller’s car
with his own, and taking a sniper shot at Tiller outside his clinic.
But he said he ended up choosing to kill Tiller in his church because
“it was the only window of opportunity that I saw where he could be
stopped.”
Roeder’s supporters, several of them who have served
prison time for abortion clinic arsons and bombings, were disappointed
at the verdict. Abortion-rights advocates said justice was served.
For decades, Tiller and his clinic faced continuous
protests because he was one of a handful of doctors in the country who
performed late-term abortions. The clinic was bombed in 1986, but no
one was ever charged in the incident. In 1991, more than 1,700
anti-abortion activists were arrested for blocking his clinic gates
during Operation Rescue’s “Summer of Mercy” protests. In
Abortion foes had long accused Tiller of performing
illegal late-term abortions. Kline tried unsuccessfully to prosecute
him in 2006, and in 2008, Kline’s successor charged him with 19 counts
of allegedly violating a state law that required an independent second
physician’s concurring opinion before performing late-term abortions.
A jury found Tiller not guilty last March. Roeder testified Thursday that he attended some of the trial.
Wilbert had barred Roeder from using a so-called
necessity defense, aiming for an acquittal by arguing that the killing
was necessary to prevent a greater harm — killing babies. But the judge
allowed Roeder to present evidence that he sincerely believed his
actions were justified to save unborn children — a defense that could
have led to a conviction on the lesser offense of voluntary
manslaughter.
On Thursday afternoon, however, Wilbert ruled that
he would not give jurors the option of considering a voluntary
manslaughter conviction, because such a defense requires that a person
must be stopping the imminent use of unlawful force.
—
(c) 2010, The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.).
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