Scott Roeder

BREAKING: Roeder Found Guilty Of Murdering Dr. George Tiller

Justin Elliott | January 29, 2010, 12:06PM

Scott Roeder in court , January 29, 2010

A Kansas jury just found Scott Roeder guilty of first degree murder in the killing of abortion doctor George Tiller at his church last May.

The jury reportedly deliberated for less than hour. Roeder, an extremist anti-abortion activist, admitted on the stand that he killed Tiller.

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Tiller Trial

Will Admitted Killer Of Abortion Doc Be Allowed To Put Abortion On Trial?

Justin Elliott | January 26, 2010, 11:30AM

Dr. George Tiller and Scott Roeder

Pro-choice groups fear a decision by the judge in the murder trial of abortion doctor George Tiller will essentially give defendant Scott Roeder a high-profile platform to argue that he was justified in killing Tiller last May.

In what one legal expert calls an "unprecedented" decision, Sedgwick County Judge Warren Wilbert two weeks ago declined to bar Roeder's lawyers from pursuing a defense based on "voluntary manslaughter" -- a lesser charge than first-degree murder that carries a sentence of roughly five years. Roeder faces a life sentence if convicted of murder.

But attorneys for pro-choice groups tell TPMmuckraker the real fear is not that Roeder will be convicted of the lesser crime, but that the judge's move sets a bad precedent, and could in essence put the issue of abortion and Tiller's practice on trial.

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Phill Kline

Tiller Stalker: Ex-AG's Crusade Against Kansas Abortion Doctor Revealed In New Complaint

Justin Elliott | January 21, 2010, 4:41PM

Former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline

In a new ethics complaint that alleges large-scale abuse of office, the former attorney general of Kansas is accused of dispatching staff to record license plates of women entering George Tiller's abortion clinic, getting records from a motel where patients stayed, and obtaining state medical files under false pretenses, then retaining them after his term as AG was over and repeatedly lying about it in court.

All of this occurred during Attorney General Phill Kline's unsuccessful pursuit of Tiller, the doctor who ran Women's Health Care Services of Wichita and was shot to death, allegedly by an anti-abortion extremist, in 2009.

Kline is also accused of violating professional standards by appearing on the O'Reilly Factor five days before the 2006 election to talk about his pursuit of Tiller, flouting a warning from the state Supreme Court not to publicize legal positions. He was up for reelection as AG at the time.

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Scott Roeder

Anti-Abortion Activist Behind Auction For Roeder: For-Sale Items Do Not Glorify Violence

Justin Elliott | November 2, 2009, 1:46PM

Anti-abortion activist Regina Dinwiddie

Regina Dinwiddie, the Kansas anti-abortion activist who set up an eBay auction to benefit the suspect in the George Tiller murder, tells TPMmuckraker in a phone interview that she's angry that eBay pulled her items -- and that she believes they did not glorify violence, but rather "glorify the end of a very violent man."

"Actually I thought [eBay] was the last bastion of free enterprise in America, where normal people could put things up for sale," Dinwiddie told us. "I see they do have a political agenda."

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Scott Roeder

Anti-Abortion Extremists Auction Lurid Prison Art On eBay To Raise Money For Tiller Murder Suspect

Justin Elliott | November 2, 2009, 9:51AM

Art for sale on eBay for Scott Roeder's legal defense.

Supporters of the man charged with the May killing of Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller are raising money for his legal defense through an eBay auction on items including prison art glorifying the murder and a commissary cookbook by the woman who is serving time for shooting Tiller in both arms in the early 1990s.

Allies of Scott Roeder want to hire a private lawyer who will use a so-called "necessity defense," arguing that the killing was justified.

(See a slideshow of the now-scrubbed items here.)

Auction organizer Dave Leach told the Kansas City Star, which first reported the auction, "I really am hopeful that eBay can see that once this is up, that it is not a glorification of violence."

But the items, like illustrations produced by a fellow inmate and signed by Roeder, do just that. One David-and-Goliath drawing shows a figure with a sling holding up a severed head labeled "Tiller" standing over a bloodied body labeled "Child Murdering Industry."

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