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Roeder Found Guilty

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on January 29, 2010 - 12:32pm

Considering that Scott Roeder admitted in court to killing Dr. George Tiller, it doesn't come as much of a surprise to find out it took the jury just over a half-hour to find him guilty of murder:

A man who says he killed prominent Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller to protect unborn children has been convicted of murdering the doctor.

A jury deliberated for 37 minutes Friday before finding Scott Roeder (ROH'-dur) guilty of premeditated, first-degree murder. The 51-year-old Kansas City, Mo., man faces a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

Roeder testified that he shot Tiller in the head May 31 in the foyer of Tiller's church in Wichita because he believed Tiller posed an "immediate danger" to unborn children.

His attorneys were hoping to get a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter for Roeder, but the judge ruled that the jury could not consider such a verdict.

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Scott Roeder: From the Prosperity Gospel to the Justifiable Homicide Defense

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on September 2, 2009 - 12:52pm

Earlier this week it was reported that Scott Roeder, the man accused of murdering Dr. George Tiller, had hired a prominent anti-abortion attorney and planned to use a "justifiable homicide" defense. The article also reported that Roeder's defense was getting assistance from outside activists:

Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist in Des Moines, Iowa, who in 1996 reprinted the Army of God manual that lists ways to damage abortion clinics, recently wrote a legal brief for Roeder's case on the "necessity defense." He argued that had the alleged shooter not acted, the killing of hundreds of babies every week would have continued. He sent it to Roeder's public defenders, but they have not responded.

Last night, Alan Colmes had Leach on his program to defend his brief [PDF] and Leach repeatedly asserted that the destruction of clinics and the murder of doctors are entirely justified. Leach insisted that Roeder was being denied a jury trial, which is untrue, and tried to keep the discussion narrowly focused on that issue but Colmes was having none of it and pressed him to explain how, if Roeder is found not guilty at this trial, this wouldn't give anti-abortion activists carte blanche to go out and kill abortion providers.  In response, Leach asserted that a successful justifiable homicide defense would actually mean that no other abortion provider would ever be killed because activists would be able to shut down their clinics by simply blocking access to them.  But Leach also asserted that such a defense would probably only work for Roeder because Tiller's actions were "pretty extreme":

The most interesting aspect of this discussion actually came after the interview with Leach ended when Roeder's ex-wife called into the show and explained how, when they were first married, Roeder was an average guy but eventually became extremely invested in the prosperity gospel movement and began sending large sums of money to evangelist Robert Tilton. After that, Roeder found himself unable to pay his bills and so he stopped paying his taxes and, from there, proceeded to go completely off the deep end:

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Bill Donahue Attempts to Distance the Hate Crimes Bill from...Hate Crimes

Submitted by Anonymous on June 18, 2009 - 3:12pm

It is no surprise that Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, is displeased with the Hate Crimes bill that is making its way through Congress. It's also no surprise that he labeled Eric Holder a "master of demagoguery" after the Attorney General supported the bill and cited the recent murders of Dr. George Tiller and Stephen Johns, the fallen Holocaust Museum security guard, to show the hatred that still exists in our society.

What's troubling is Donahue's attempt to sever the connection between the actions of Scott Roeder and James von Brunn and the radical, hateful beliefs that they held. He claims that Roeder wasn't propelled by an extreme anti-abortionist viewpoint and that von Brunn didn't storm the Holocaust Museum due to anti-Semitic views. Rather their actions were solely prompted by possible mental illnesses:

Roeder was never involved in any pro-life organization, and von Brunn is an old man who was as much anti-Christian as he was anti-Semitic. In other words, it is nothing if not demagogic for Holder to exploit these two recent tragedies—committed by madmen, not political activists.

Obviously, the facts directly counter Donahue's claim. Roeder had been in contact with Operation Rescue prior to Dr. Tiller's death and was arrested in 1996 for having the ingredients to make a bomb in the trunk of his car. He was a regular member of anti-abortion rallies in Kansas and a member of the Freeman, a radical anti-government group.

Von Brunn is an anti-Semitic white supremacist whose views were known by federal authorities. The day of the Holocaust Museum shooting, police found a note in his car which undeniably portrays von Brunn's ideals and motive:

"You want my weapons; this is how you'll get them," von Brunn wrote in a note he had signed, according to the arrest affidavit.

"The Holocaust is a lie," the note read. "Obama was created by Jews. Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do. Jews captured America's money. Jews control the mass media."

Roeder is an anti-abortion fanatic who killed Dr. Tiller for a political purpose. Von Brunn is an anti-Semitic white supremacist who chose the Holocaust Museum for a reason. Therefore, it is baseless for Donahue to label Holder a "demagogue" for simply explaining the need for hate crimes legislation by logically citing two very timely examples of political hate crimes.

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