Scott Roeder trial to start next month

BY RON SYLVESTER

The Wichita Eagle

WICHITA — A Sedgwick County district judge ruled this morning that Scott Roeder's murder trial will begin next month in Wichita and limited the use of the so-called "necessity defense."

But Judge Warren Wilbert said he would "leave the door open" for Roeder's defense to present other evidence and arguments that he killed Wichita abortion provider George Tiller in the belief that he was saving the lives of unborn fetuses.

That leaves open the possibility that Roeder's public defenders could ask jurors to consider crimes less than first-degree premeditated murder. Kansas law, for example, defines voluntary manslaughter as the "unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force."

A conviction of voluntary manslaughter would carry less than 10 years in prison for Roeder, compared with life imprisonment for murder.

But those issues will not be considered until the judge gives legal instructions to the jury before they hear closing arguments and begin deliberations.

Wilbert said, however, that he would find it difficult to allow testimony indicating Roeder was acting in self-defense, or defense of others, because the law requires a "imminent threat." Tiller was shot and killed May 31 inside the lobby of his church, where he was serving as an usher.

Wilbert denied a motion to move the trial outside Sedgwick County, based on defense claims that news coverage before the trial had made it impossible for Roeder to receive a fair trial. Wilbert said it was too soon to say an impartial jury cannot be picked until lawyers start questioning potential jurors when the trial starts Jan. 11.

Some 300 potential jurors are being summoned to the courthouse for the trial. That will be whittled to a final pool of 42, Wilbert said. From that, lawyers will pick 14: the 12 jurors who will decide the case and two alternates.

Wilbert said he will not, however, allow Roeder to use what has been called a "necessity defense," where the defendant claims that he or she broke the law to prevent a greater harm. Roeder has said he killed Tiller to save the lives of fetuses who were being aborted.

But Wilbert said the necessity defense is not recognized under Kansas law, and appeals courts have ruled it unacceptable in cases of trespassing on abortion clinics. If courts have ruled it not a viable defense in misdemeanor cases, it wouldn't apply to murder, Wilbert ruled.

LIFE IN KNOWING A KILLER

12/22/09