Kansas Supreme Court hears case of Roeder, killer of abortion doctor George Tiller

[Redfairen]

Source: Topeka Capital-Journal

Kansas Supreme Court justices focused almost exclusively Wednesday on whether jurors hearing the first-degree murder trial of Scott Roeder should have heard a self-defense of others instruction during his 2010 trial.

Justices asked public appellate defender Rachel Pickering whether circumstances in the shooting of George Tiller, who performed late-term abortions, was similar to hypotheticals where a doctor is shot to death after he turned off a ventilator of a terminal patient at the request of the family and the shooting of a CEO of a tobacco company whose products caused the deaths of smokers.

In both hypotheticals, the shooter thinks he is justified to use deadly force to defend a hospital patient.

.......

Roeder was scheduled to appear before the court at 9 a.m. Wednesday for oral arguments, appealing his convictions in the May 2009 murder of George Tiller. Roeder is appealing his conviction for one count of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault. He was sentenced to a hard 50 term for murder, and was given consecutive 12-month sentences on the aggravated assault counts.



Read more: http://m.cjonline.com/news/2014-01-29/kansas-supreme-court-hears-case-roeder-killer-abortion-doctor-george-tiller

[AtheistCrusader]

1. No shame at all. Wow.

He still thinks he was justified.

[alp227]

2. K&R + other reports

Wichita Eagle, AP

Also, non mobile users can vote the regular capital journal site by deleting "m." from the URL, and the regular URL auto redirects on mobiles.

Glad the court is not buying into Roeder's delusions.

[MynameisBlarney]

4. Tiller's delusions?

Uhh...
You mean Roeder's delusions, right?

[alp227]

7. FIXED...

that's what i get for phone typing & not wanting to add "Roeder" to my dictionary...

[MynameisBlarney]

9. LOL

I hear ya.

[MynameisBlarney]

3. When will they call O'Lielly to the stand?

IMHO, he's just as damn guilty as Roeder.

[KansDem]

6. Good point

O'Reilly needs to be held accountable for his role in stigmatizing Tiller as a killer. But seeing how right-wing pundits are never held accountable (Rush calls a woman a "slut" and suggests she post her sex videos for all to see. He's then honored with a bust in the Missouri capital), O'Reilly can rest easy.

It would be revealing to learn if O'Reilly's ranting influenced Roeder's decision to travel to Wichita and murder Tiller.

In the meantime, though, we can just assume the "Tiller/Killer" rhyme was too much for FOX News celebrities to ignore.

[MynameisBlarney]

10. I'd say he had PLENTY to do with it.

BOR had quite a few segments about "Dr. Tiller, Baby Killer" on his program.
So did Savage, if I'm not mistaken.

[eggplant]

5. OFFS.

He shot the guy in cold blood. At home. Was Tiller about to perform an abortion on his dinner table?

Sigh.

[KansDem]

8. Actually, Tiller was attending services at his church

On May 31, 2009, George Tiller, a physician from Wichita, Kansas, who was nationally known for being one of the few doctors in the United States to perform late-term abortions, was killed by Scott Roeder. Tiller was killed during a Sunday morning service at his church, Reformation Lutheran Church,[2] where he was serving as an usher.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_George_Tiller

[arikara]

11. It was a Vancouver BC doctor that was shot

at his breakfast table with his family sitting there. Garson Romalis.

Sigh

[eggplant]

13. You know, it sucks even more that there are too many of these to keep straight.

You are correct. My point still stands -- it wasn't like he was actually performing an abortion at church. It drives me nuts that we even have to have these conversations. Rrrrrrrrrrrrr. He better stay locked up forever.

[rocktivity]

12. What others?

Last edited Mon Aug 4, 2014, 01:53 PM - Edit history (1)

You're not an "other" until you survive being born, and you stop being an "other" once you're brain dead.

A doctor can't turn off a ventilator unless the patient is declared brain dead, and shooting him won't bring the patient back to life. And even if it did stop people from smoking, shooting of a tobacco company CEO is flat out discriminatory -- shouldn't ALL the owners, employees and stockholders of a tobacco company be legitimate targets, too? To save people from smoking tobacco, tell them it's potentially fatal while working to get off the market.


rocktivity

[sunnystarr]

14. If the court sends it back to allow

for an involuntary manslaughter plea which ends up with a year or two in jail then I think it would open the door for those on the left to murder many who have blood on their hands ... not really advocating for it myself so don't jump on me lol. I personally can think of quite a few who lined their pockets at the expense of the death of many, many innocents.

[uppityperson]

15. k&r for wider exposure and fuck that shit. eom

[Judi Lynn]

16. Why should they ever have even agreed to hear this goblin? n/t

[another_liberal]

17. Because it's Kansas.

They have nothing better to do.

[Monk06]

18. Neither of the hypothetical cases would would be legal defences. Both would be cases of murder.

Just as Roeder's case was an act of premeditated murder. The Kansas Supreme Court must be populated by legal imbeciles.

Kansas just wants another trial to keep this ghoulish charade in the papers.

[Jim Lane]

19. That's precisely the point of the justices' questioning.

Appellate judges will often press lawyers with questions that the judges believe go to a weakness in the lawyer's position. One very common example is of the form "If we accept your argument in the circumstances of this particular case, wouldn't it have clearly wrong consequences in some other case?"

I don't think the justices who asked this question were imbeciles. They were assuming, as you do, that in neither of those hypothetical cases would the killer have a valid defense. They were pointing out that Roeder's lawyer's reasoning would, however, lead to the conclusion that the defense in those cases would be valid. That's a classic way of exposing an error. (A implies B, B is not true, therefore A is not true.)

[Monk06]

20. I misunderstood. I thought the justices were positively affirming the analogies. An easy mistake

to make given the bizarre grounds for appeal and the fact that this is being heard before a Kansas court.