The ruling by
“There was nothing being done, and the legal process
had been exhausted, and these babies were dying every day,” Roeder
said. “The lives of those children were in imminent danger. If someone
did not stop him, the babies were going to continue to die.”
Closing arguments will begin Friday morning. Then
jurors will begin deliberations on whether to convict Roeder of
premeditated, first-degree murder.
The defense presented its case Thursday with Roeder as its only witness.
Roeder had hoped that if he had the chance to
explain in detail to jurors why he killed Tiller, they might see the
necessity of his actions and convict him of voluntary manslaughter.
In fact, that became a linchpin issue in the past
month after the judge said he would allow such testimony. His decision
galvanized people on both sides of the abortion issue.
Roeder supporters were delighted that he would have
the chance to expose what they described as a “baby-killing industry.”
But abortion-rights advocates were outraged, saying that turning the
trial into a referendum on abortion could lead to further violence
against doctors.
In the end, Wilbert allowed the testimony but
restricted how much Roeder could say about abortion. And at the end of
the day he ruled that he would not give jurors the option of
considering a voluntary manslaughter conviction.
Such a defense requires that a person must be stopping the imminent use of unlawful force, he said.
“There’s no imminence of danger on a Sunday morning in the back of a church,” Wilbert said, “let alone unlawful conduct.”
“In the state of
Dressed in a black suit, white shirt and red tie,
Roeder began testifying before noon after Wilbert denied the defense’s
attempt to call former
Roeder testified that the evidence presented by the prosecution was accurate, and in fact he added some details.
Roeder said he bought a .22-caliber handgun on
In his testimony, Roeder also revealed that he had taken a loaded gun to Tiller’s church on three previous occasions — in
and to an evening service the night before Tiller died. He said he
intended to kill Tiller each time, but Tiller was not at those services.
And Roeder disclosed what he did with the .22-caliber Taurus handgun that he used to shoot Tiller. He said he stopped in
“There was a parking lot with gravel and a big dirt pile,” he said. “I wrapped the gun in cloth and then buried it in the dirt.”
He said he intended to eventually retrieve the
still-loaded gun if he hadn’t been caught. Roeder testified that he
later told his attorneys where to find the gun but that efforts to
locate it were unsuccessful.
Roeder also said that he’d considered other ways to
stop Tiller from performing abortions, including cutting Tiller’s hands
off with a sword and taking a sniper shot at him outside his clinic.
Roeder said he ultimately chose to kill Tiller in church because it was the only place the doctor was accessible.
“He had an armored vehicle, a bulletproof vest, a
security guard escort. … He lived in a gated community,” he said. “It
(Tiller’s church) was the only window of opportunity that I saw where
he could be stopped.”
Roeder testified that he admired
He said he also sought out other abortion foes who were open to using
force against abortion doctors and considered them his friends.
Roeder said he’d been to Tiller’s church as far back as 2002 and protested there a couple of times after that. He said that in
he took a loaded 9 mm revolver to Tiller’s church, wearing it on a
shoulder harness and hiding it under his suit coat. But Tiller wasn’t
there, he said. On
Roeder said he decided to keep going back until he succeeded at killing Tiller. On
He said he took the loaded gun to the church’s
“I got up at that moment and followed him out in the
foyer area,” Roeder said. “I did what I thought was needed to be done
to protect the children: I shot him.”
He said he lingered for two or three seconds and saw
Tiller fall to the floor, then ran out. Roeder admitted that he pointed
the gun at two ushers who chased him as he fled but said he never
intended to harm them.
He said he stopped on his way home to get gasoline
and some pizza. He planned to go to work the next day but added, “I
felt that eventually I would be apprehended.”
Roeder began his testimony by telling jurors how he
became involved in the abortion issue. He said he attended church with
his family as a boy but didn’t develop a firm belief in Christ until
1992, when he said he was “born again.”
“I had been watching the ‘700 Club’ regularly. … I
was alone in my living room, and that day I kneeled down, and I did
accept Christ as my savior at that time,” he said.
After that, he said, he began to develop strong beliefs about abortion.
Prosecutors objected numerous times as Roeder
attempted to describe various abortion procedures — particularly when
he mentioned one “where they go in and tear the baby limb from limb.”
The judge told Roeder he could not talk about specific procedures or
issues on which he had no expertise.
Roeder said he became involved in sidewalk counseling outside abortion clinics in
“We did have a few successes,” he said.
But he said he became increasingly frustrated
because Tiller remained in business: “He was one of the three late-term
abortionists in the country.”
Roeder said that continual protests, sidewalk
counseling and other attempts to stop Tiller were unsuccessful. Even
when the clinic was bombed in 1986 and Shannon shot Tiller in 1993,
Tiller didn’t stop, Roeder said.
He said he was hopeful that the law would step in
and do something, and he was excited when Kline filed charges against
Tiller in 2006. But those charges were dismissed the next day on
jurisdictional grounds, and misdemeanor charges filed later by Kline’s
successor resulted in Tiller being found not guilty by a jury in
Before the defense’s opening statement, Roeder’s
attorneys brought Kline before the judge to describe what his testimony
would be. The defense wanted Kline to testify about his investigation
of Tiller. Kline spent 45 minutes answering questions about the case.
Afterward, an irritated Wilbert said Kline couldn’t testify, saying that doing so would result in a debate on abortion.
“To bring in
collaterally bolster up his (Roeder’s) beliefs or give them credence or
validity is not appropriate,” he said. “As I sit here and listen to
He said he “would not allow this courtroom to turn into a referendum on abortion.”
Wilbert had barred Roeder from using a so-called
necessity defense — an argument that the killing was necessary to
prevent a greater harm — saying such a defense wasn’t recognized by
law. But the judge allowed Roeder to present evidence that he sincerely
believed his actions were justified to save unborn children, a defense
that could lead to a conviction on the lesser offense of voluntary
manslaughter.
—
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