Judge warns that lawyers for Dr George Tiller's killer Scott Roeder face 'daunting task' with voluntary manslaughter defence By Graham Smith

Judge warns that lawyers for Dr George Tiller's killer Scott Roeder face 'daunting task' with voluntary manslaughter defence

By Graham Smith

Defence lawyers for a man who killed an abortion doctor in front of 250 people have a 'formidable and daunting task' ahead if their client is hoping for a lesser sentence by pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter, a judge said yesterday.

Anti-abortionist Scott Roeder will take the stand to testify on his own behalf later today, his attorney Steve Osburn has confirmed.

At a previous hearing, the 51-year-old claimed that he believed he was saving unborn children when he gunned down Dr George Tiller in a Kansas church last May.

Anti-abortionist: Scott Roeder, pictured at an earlier hearing, will today testify that he believed he was saving unborn children when he killed Dr George Tiller

He has been charged with first-degree murder but earlier this month District Judge Warren Wilbert ruled he would allow Roeder to build a defence to the charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Lawyer Mark Rudy yesterday confirmed to the Wichita, Kansas, court that Roeder's legal team would follow this defence.

Victim: Dr George Tiller was gunned down in May 2009

Kansas law defines voluntary manslaughter as 'an unreasonable but honest belief' that there were circumstances to justify deadly force. It could bring a prison sentence closer to five years, instead of a life term for first-degree murder.

Roeder, from Missouri, Kansas, is also charged with two counts of aggravated assault for allegedly using a gun to threaten two ushers who tried to stop him after the shooting.

Judge Wilbert yesterday reminded attorneys that they must couple a voluntary manslaughter defence with a showing of imminent danger posed by Dr Tiller. He will rule at the end of the defence's case whether there is sufficient evidence to instruct jurors that they can consider the lesser charge.

Roeder will be allowed to testify about his personally held beliefs, the judge said, not about medical procedures of which he has no knowledge or expertise.

'He is not going to be able to get up there and just blurb out what he wants to say,' Judge Wilbert said.

The judge also threw out a subpoena defence attorneys had issued to Kansas Deputy Attorney General Barry Disney, the lead prosecutor in a case that alleged Dr Tiller failed to obtain a second opinion for late-term abortions from an independent physician, as required by Kansas law.

Tiller was acquitted just two months before his death after a trial Roeder has said he attended.

Grief: Dr Tiller's wife Jeanne looks away as the Kansas court was shown her husband's autopsy photos yesterday

Defence lawyer Mr Rudy had argued that Mr Disney's testimony was a necessary 'building block' in the defence case to show Roeder went to the trial and relied on the attorney general's honest belief as a prosecutor that Dr Tiller was breaking the law.

But District Attorney Nola Foulston replied: 'The state does not believe any of this mish mash is relevant.. to this case. This is the kind of psychotic, circuitous kind of logic we are dealing with.'

The judge told the defence they could put their client on the stand to make the same point.

Judge Wilbert said: 'Scott Roeder can testify 'til the cows come home about the (Tiller) trial.'

The judge will decide today whether to allow former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline to testify. Mr Kline, now a visiting assistant law professor at Liberty University in Virginia, filed charges against Dr Tiller in 2006 that were dismissed in a jurisdictional dispute with Foulston.

'We are not going to make this a referendum on abortion,' Judge Wilbert warned.

Anti-abortion activist: Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, demonstrates outside the Wichita court yesterday

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a friend-of-the-court brief yesterday on behalf of the National Abortion Federation, the ACLU and the ACLU of Kansas asking the court to bar Roeder from arguing his anti-abortion beliefs in support a voluntary manslaughter conviction.

Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, said outside the courtroom that if Roeder is allowed to argue that his anti-abortion beliefs justify reducing his accountability 'we fear for the safety of abortion providers' and women's access to abortions.

Eight abortion providers have been killed since 1977 and 17 others have faced murder attempts. That is in addition to 175 arsons and 41 bombings, Saporta said.

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