Photograph by Mike Hutmacher
Jeanne Tiller, wife of Dr. George Tiller, the slain abortion provider, at the trial on Thursday.
It took jurors 37 minutes on Friday to convict Scott Roeder, an abortion opponent, of first-degree murder in the death of George R. Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country to perform late-term abortions.
Mr. Roeder’s lawyers had called for his acquittal. Mark Rudy, a public defender, told jurors that Mr. Roeder had developed such strong feelings about his religious faith and against abortion that he ultimately felt compelled to shoot Dr. Tiller, who had performed abortions for three decades and was a focal point for controversy nationally.
“I did what I thought was needed to be done to protect the children. I shot him,” he testified, adding at another point, “If I didn’t do it, the babies were going to die the next day.”
Was he remorseful? No, Mr. Roeder said without emotion. After the killing, he said, he felt “a sense of relief.”
Mr. Roeder told jurors that he had a growing sense of his own faith and opposition to abortion in the 1990s after watching “The 700 Club,” the evangelist Pat Robertson’s television talk show. Mr. Roeder’s views on religion and abortion, he said, went “hand in hand.”
So, Nola Foulston, the prosecutor asked Mr. Roeder, do you feel you have successfully completed your mission?
“He’s been stopped,” Mr. Roeder said.
But do you feel you have successfully completed your mission?, she asked again.
“Yes,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/us/30roeder.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
Friday, January 29
Guilty Verdict in Murder of Abortion Doctor
Photograph by Mike Hutmacher
Jeanne Tiller, wife of Dr. George Tiller, the slain abortion provider, at the trial on Thursday.
It took jurors 37 minutes on Friday to convict Scott Roeder, an abortion opponent, of first-degree murder in the death of George R. Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country to perform late-term abortions.
Mr. Roeder’s lawyers had called for his acquittal. Mark Rudy, a public defender, told jurors that Mr. Roeder had developed such strong feelings about his religious faith and against abortion that he ultimately felt compelled to shoot Dr. Tiller, who had performed abortions for three decades and was a focal point for controversy nationally.
“I did what I thought was needed to be done to protect the children. I shot him,” he testified, adding at another point, “If I didn’t do it, the babies were going to die the next day.”
Was he remorseful? No, Mr. Roeder said without emotion. After the killing, he said, he felt “a sense of relief.”
Mr. Roeder told jurors that he had a growing sense of his own faith and opposition to abortion in the 1990s after watching “The 700 Club,” the evangelist Pat Robertson’s television talk show. Mr. Roeder’s views on religion and abortion, he said, went “hand in hand.”
So, Nola Foulston, the prosecutor asked Mr. Roeder, do you feel you have successfully completed your mission?
“He’s been stopped,” Mr. Roeder said.
But do you feel you have successfully completed your mission?, she asked again.
“Yes,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/us/30roeder.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
