RSSJustifiable Murder? Who Is Scott Roeder?
Gene Lalor | March 1, 2010
Murder: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought: Merriam-Webster
Justifiable Homicide: That which is committed with the intention to kill or to do a grievous bodily injury, under circumstances which the law holds sufficient to exculpate the person who commits it: Lectlaw.com
After a one-week trial, jurors in Kansas deliberated all of 37 minutes before convicting a man charged with murder. Petty larceny trials take longer than that in some venues. This was a kangaroo court with a foreordained conclusion.
Testifying in his own defense, Scott Roeder 
freely admitted he had premeditated the murder, the execution, of his victim who was serving as an usher at his church on the morning of May 31, 2009 when Roeder entered and shot him in the head.
Within eight months, Roeder had been arrested, arraigned, indicted, tried, and convicted of one count of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault, an excellent example either of swift justice or of a swift railroading.
Neither the State of Kansas nor the defendant wanted the case to drag on longer than necessary, the state because it just wanted it over, the defendant because he claimed he committed the crime not to end a life but to save lives and was unashamed and unrepentant for what he did.
The victim, George Tiller, 
was a physician who took the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm in his practice but who did daily harm for 36 years by performing abortions and specializing in late term abortions of pre-born infants.
Those procedures, the killing of viable babies in the womb, have been termed infanticide.
Roeder, 51, divorced father of one child, had held various jobs prior to the shooting. He had also suffered from mental illness for years but was far from insane. In fact, he firmly believed that killing Dr. Tiller would save lives, which it has done, and therefore was justifiable.
He believed abortion was a premeditated act of murder and that Dr. Tiller was guilty of numerous instances of such killings and more “preborn children’s lives were in imminent danger” because he was continuing to perform abortions.
The real issue in the trial of Scott Roeder was not the named victim but the hundreds of unnamed victims who died via Dr. Tiller’s various tricks of his abortion trade at Women’s Health Care Services in Wichita where he was the owner-practitioner.
To the consternation of the prosecution, Judge Warren Wilbert originally allowed the defense to plead to voluntary manslaughter but took that plea off the table following Roeder’s testimony. During their 2280 seconds of deliberation the jurors had a stark, Sophie’s Choice to make: acquit him or find him guilty of first degree murder.
They chose the latter option.
In addition to his fragile mental state, which should at least have mitigated his offense, Judge Wilbert saw fit during the brief trial to muzzle Roeder’s pro-life defense.
Two witnesses, including a former Kansas Attorney General, Phil Kline, had been subpoenaed to testify on his behalf but Wilbert refused to permit them to take the stand. He felt, oddly, that nothing they could say could bolster Roeder’s motives and they could prejudice the jury: http://bit.ly/9GzyAt
Roeder attempted to clarify his motivations by detailing abortion procedures used by Tiller but was overruled by the judge who claimed, again oddly, that Roeder’s lack of medical expertise would render such testimony useless to the jury.
The prosecutors did all in their power not only to convict Roeder, which was their duty and responsibility. However, by repressing testimony that would afford the defendant his right to a fair trial and any real opportunity to explain his motivations, they deprived Roeder critical elements of his defense.
This wasn’t a matter of petty larceny, car jacking, or simple assault; the defendant was facing life in prison.
No doubt Scott Roeder will appeal and then may get the chance to prove to a new panel of his peers that his killing of George Tiller may have been against the law but served a higher good, a higher purpose, saving the lives of countless children.
If someone were capable of executing mass murderers such as Jeffrey Dahmer, or Ted Bundy, or David Berkowitz–or a Hitler, a Stalin, or an Attila–to end their rampages, would that person be guilty of a crime?
True, it was vigilante justice on Scott Roeder’s part, but was it murder or justifiable homicide?
Next: Justifiable Murder? Who Was George Tiller?
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2 Responses to “Justifiable Murder? Who Is Scott Roeder?”
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Yes, Scott Roeder was denied a fair trial because as usual, the abortion proponents had the final say and influenced the judge probably at the urging of Kathleen Sebelius. Kathleen Sebelius was governor of the State of Kansas at the time and as such she cleared the way for Tiller’s money-making operation. Any obstacle which appeared in his path was disposed of by Sebelius. She looked the other way at what Tiller was doing because to do otherwise would compromise her campaign contribution source.
It has been a stacked deck against unborn infants because they don’t vote, pay taxes, can’t even speak, and so they are the disposable ones that the new feminist chooses to dispose of for reasons such as NOT CONVENIENT.
Sebelius had the audacity to berate Roeder for what he did but in actuality she played a large part in his execution. It was her interference that kept Tiller form the imprisonment he should have received as the result of his crimes. If she had not and had let justice run its course perhaps Tiller would be alive today in prison and not Scott Roeder
As a sidenote, it was revealing but sad that an protestor against abortion was peacefully demonstrating when he was assassinated for daring to show pictures of aborted babies. As someone else pointed out, it seems to be okay to kill babies, just don’t show their pictures.
And there was no national outpouring of grief for this man who never killed anyway. A lopsided morality if there ever was one.