A judge ruled on Tuesday that Kansas law doesn’t allow a so-called “necessity defense,” in the trial of a man charged with killing one of the nation’s few late-term abortion providers.
The decision was another blow to lawyers for 51-year-old Scott Roeder, who has confessed to shooting Dr George Tiller on May 31 and says it was necessary to save unborn children.
In his ruling, Judge Warren Wilbert cited a 1993 criminal trespassing case involving an abortion clinic in which the Kansas Supreme Court said that to allow the personal beliefs of a person to justify criminal activity to stop a law-abiding citizen from exercising his rights would “not only lead to chaos, but would be tantamount to sanctioning anarchy.”
But he noted that that case dealt only with a property rights issue, whereas the case involving Roeder has elevated the argument to whether it is justified to take one life for another.
“That is certainly not a position I want to be in — because I am not God,” Wilbert said.
However, the judge told attorneys he would “leave the door open” to consider later whether to allow specific evidence on the use of force for the defense of another person before letting the jury hear it.
“That doesn’t mean it is wide open ... we can discuss it,” Wilbert said.
The decision came during a hearing that mostly dealt setbacks to Roeder’s defense. The judge rejected a change of venue request and a motion that would have kept prosecutors from making peremptory jury strikes based on potential jurors’ beliefs about abortion.
While Wilbert denied the motion to prohibit the strikes, he said he would deal with such issues on a person-by-person basis during the trial, which is scheduled to begin on Jan. 11. He refused to move the case out of Wichita, where pre-trial publicity has been intense.
Roeder, 51, of Kansas City, Missouri, is charged with one count of premeditated, first-degree murder in Tiller’s death and two counts of aggravated assault for allegedly threatening two ushers during the May 31 melee in the foyer of the doctor’s Wichita church.
Roeder, who has pleaded not guilty, confessed to the shooting on Nov. 9, saying he had no regrets about killing Tiller and suggesting the necessity defense should be the only contested issue at his trial. He declined to say when asked if he would kill another abortion provider if he were acquitted.
The “necessity defense” has rarely been used successfully in abortion cases. Roeder’s attorneys — while arguing that their client has a right to present his theory of defense — have so far kept their own strategy secret.
Prosecutors have solid evidence against Roeder, chiefly the witnesses who identified him during a preliminary hearing as the shooter. Legal experts have said prosecutors likely will want to keep the trial limited to a straightforward murder case and avoid a discussion of abortion.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS