Hello All,
Here is an interesting take on the killing of abortionist George Tiller. I have only a brief comment to add to this article. That is, all that is legal under the written law is not morally lawful. Ask the survivors of the Nazi camps from WWII.
Godspeed,
Gill Rapoza
Veritas Vos Liberabit
Not All George Tiller’s Abortions Were ‘Legal’
By Dave Leach
The Covenant News ~ December 12, 2009
First in a series of excerpts, with translations, from the pro se brief being submitted by Scott Roeder to answer how the Necessity Defense justifies his shooting of Wichita’s late term abortionist, George Tiller, May 31. His trial is scheduled for January 10. Future installments will include: Abortion Stopped Being “Constitutionally Protected” in 1992 <> Federal Law Caused Roe’s “collapse” in 2005 <> The Theory that Stopping Kansas Abortions can’t be Justified because Abortion is Legal Originated in a Grammatical Misunderstanding in 1993 <> Not Even Roe Says Whether Abortion is Genocide is “Irrelevant” <> Preamble Constitutionally Protects “Our Posterity”, Making Roe Unlawful from its Inception <> Imminence and Alternatives <> Due Process Denied, when the Only Contested Issue of a Jury Trial is Hidden from the Jury.
By Dave Leach, author of Roeder’s pro se brief, with input from many. Contact him at Roeder@Saltshaker.US. Website: http://www.Saltshaker.US/Scott-Roeder-Resources.htm
The prosecutor rests her entire case upon a 16-year-old ruling which has been superseded for several years by both U.S. Supreme Court precedent and the U.S. Code.
The Prosecutor asserts that Defendant has no right to present his theory of the Necessity Defense to the jury, because what was in fact unthinkable harm, which he in fact successfully prevented, by killing Dr. George Tiller, was not “unlawful”, which is the only kind of harm which may justifiably be prevented according to City of Wichita v. Tilson, 855 P.2d 911 (Kan.), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 976, 114 S. Ct. 468, 126 L. Ed. 2d 420 (1993).
[Tilson said:] (1) the defense of justification by necessity cannot be used when the harm sought to be avoided is a constitutionally protected legal activity and the harm incurred is in violation of the law, and (2) evidence on when life begins was irrelevant in action for criminal trespass on property of abortion clinic and thus admission was error.
Neither the prosecutor, nor Tilson, nor Roe v. Wade 410 U.S. 113 (1973), dispute the widespread allegation that abortion is in fact an unthinkable harm, and even genocide itself; they say only in its defense that it is legal. Thus prosecutor alleges that whether or not he was committing genocide, “George Tiller was not engaged in illegal conduct at the time of his murder.” Tilson, actually contradicting Roe v. Wade, calls evidence that this conduct is, in fact, genocide, “irrelevant”.
Kansas law likewise will not help a hero who saves thousands of lives, if the “cruel and unusual” slaying of those human souls is legal: “21-3211(a) A person is justified in the use of force against another when and to the extent it appears to such person and such person reasonably believes that such force is necessary to defend such person or a third person against such other’s imminent use of unlawful force.”
In addition, several state supreme courts have asked, with Tilson, “How can a harm be legally [re]cognizable, if it is constitutionally protected?”
But all these precedents are out of date. Abortion has not been constitutionally protected since at least 2003. Abortion has been legally recognizable as a harm since 2005, the year Roe “collapsed”.
LEGALITY OF TILLER’S ABORTIONS, EVEN BY POPULARLY ACCEPTED LEGAL STANDARDS, IS NOT SO CRYSTAL CLEAR
Prosecutor rests her entire In Limine motion [to not allow the jury to find out about Roeder’s defense] on her insinuation that Dr. George Tiller’s abortions were all legal. But she cannot even nurture that insinuation into a clear, unambiguous assertion. Even the Prosecutor carefully dances around the issue of whether George Tiller’s abortions were legal by commonly accepted, understood, and applied legal standards! She writes,
“In the instant matter, [the case before us] the defense clearly has no applicability, even if the defense were recognized in Kansas. George Tiller was not engaged in illegal conduct at the time of his murder; he was serving his church as an usher. And while the victim’s provision of lawful abortion services to women may be the motive behind the defendant’s attack, those past or potential future services cannot serve as a legal justification for it. See, Tilson, supra.”
Notice she wants to say “Tiller was not engaged in illegal conduct” categorically, but must qualify it with “at the time of his murder; he was serving his church as an usher.” This is an oblique allusion to the Imminence requirement, addressed later. So we do not have, here, any kind of triumphant affirmation that “Tiller was not engaged in illegal conduct” when he was killing babies!
Next she glances at the hope that Tiller “provi[ded] lawful abortion services” exclusively, but she cannot spit it out. She chokes out that perhaps I [Roeder] was motivated by those of his abortions which were “lawful”. Well, yes I was, but what really made me despair that the political alternatives had shut down were the abortions he did, the legality of which even much of the public doubted, and yet the law could not or would not touch him.
Prosecutor in short would like to assert before the Court that Tiller’s abortions were all legal, by commonly applied law, but the closest she dares approach is to insinuate it. She bolsters her insinuation with quotes from Tilson which apply only if all of Tilson’s abortions are legal, further supporting her insinuation that all of them were in fact legal, yet it all adds up to, at most, an insinuation.
This swings wide the door to a factual inquiry by the jury whether all of Tiller’s abortions really were legal by any standard. The problem for the prosecutor is that before this inquiry is settled, an inquiry which remained publicly unsettled at the time of Tiller’s death, it cannot be glibly taken for granted that Tiller’s abortions were all legal, in order to rule, before trial, that Kansas 21-3221(a) is not available to defendant.
[This is what the prosector is trying to do with her November 12 motion In Limine: she wants a ruling from the judge, before trial (the hearing will be December 22), that Roeder not be allowed to say a word to the jury about his only defense, which is also the only contested issue of the trial, which also rests upon the fact question of the factual nature of abortion – and juries are supposed to be “triers of the facts”.]
Even if prosecutor had clearly stated the arguable proposition that all of Tiller’s abortions were legal, the matter cannot be assumed before the jury speaks on it. A ruling for her In Limine motion would surely, therefore, be reversible error. [“Reversible Error” means a legal error serious enough for an appeals court to overturn a jury’s verdict.]
But since there has been no clear statement even from the prosecutor that all of Tiller’s abortions were legal, there really is little reason to take prosecutor’s motion seriously. She hesitates to assert the facts which would make her case cites even relevant.
Contact:
Dave Leach
137 E. Leach
Des Moines IA 50315
cell 515/480-3398
Gill Rapoza
Veritas Vos Liberabit
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