Judge: Roeder can build manslaughter defense BY RON SYLVESTER The Wichita Eagle

Judge: Roeder can build manslaughter defense

BY RON SYLVESTER

The Wichita Eagle

WICHITA - WICHITA — A Sedgwick County district judge today refused to prevent Scott Roeder from pursuing a defense of voluntary manslaughter.

Prosecutors had asked Judge Warren Wilbert to block Roeder, 51, from building a case that might lead to a lesser charge than first-degree premeditated murder.

Roeder is charged with killing Wichita abortion provider George Tiller May 31 at the doctor's church. Roeder has admitted to the shooting but said he killed to protect the unborn.

Kansas law defines voluntary manslaughter as the "honest but unreasonable belief" that the use of force was necessary in defense of another. It's called the imperfect self-defense.

But Wilbert said at a hearing this afternoon that voluntary manslaughter was a legal instruction given to a jury before it begins deliberations and it wouldn't be proper for him to rule on it before a jury was even seated. Jury selection is set to begin this morning.

"We don't fast-forward," Wilbert said during the hearing. "We don't jump to conclusions, and we don't arrive at the end of the process without a full and complete — and hopefully impartial — hearing."

Prosecutors said the "imperfect self-defense" required an imminent threat by Tiller, who was not at his clinic ready to perform abortions but in his church serving as an usher when he was shot in the head. The prosecution said the jury should consider only whether the killing was premeditated.

Under Kansas law, voluntary manslaughter is the "unreasonable but honest belief" that the use of force was justified.

The defense, however, argued those circumstances play into the "unreasonable" part of the law.

"Premeditation requires reason; the imperfect self-defense requires the absence of reasons," public defender Mark Rudy wrote, quoting Kansas case law.

Rudy also said Roeder viewed Tiller as a threat because of his abortion practices.

Prosecutors had argued that imminent threat, under the law, has to be immediate, not based on some future event.

The defense argued that in Roeder's mind, Tiller was not a threat "based on character, or exchange of words, or provocation of physical self defense, but instead based on abortion procedures that have resulted in deaths and been reported to the state of Kansas."

"The imminence of danger was greater than mere fear of future harm," Rudy added. "There was a state-licensed facility operating in Sedgwick County to perform abortions. It had staff. It had a practitioner. It had a budget. It had clientele. It assumedly had a schedule of pending abortion procedures. In the mind of Mr. Roeder, the victim presented a clear danger to unborn children."

The defense contended that whether Roeder is guilty of premeditated murder or voluntary manslaughter is a decision for a jury.

Today's hearing pushed jury selection back. That is now set to begin Wednesday morning.

Read more: http://www.kansas.com/news/featured/story/1132757.html#ixzz0cR2hRfV4