I'm beginning to wonder myself.
Posted on 05/10/2013 10:59:46 AM PDT by Morgana
An emotionally exhausted jury in the murder trial of abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell is going home for the weekend.
After two weeks of deliberations — with much of it spent getting an understanding of how to apply the law from the judge in the case and listening again to testimony of Gosnell staffers about how he and his staff killed babies in abortions and infanticides — the jury has no verdict.
Two local reporters provided more details.
Bryan Kemper of the pro-life group Stand True has been closely monitoring the case and put it in perspective for pro-life people getting impatient about a verdict. “Everyone needs to understand the jury must have 227 verdicts, not just one in the Gosnell murder trial. This can take a long time. Keep praying for the Jury and also for the soul of Gosnell,” he said. Gosnell is charged with four counts of first-degree murder for killing babies following delivery in an abortion process that involved “snipping” their necks and spinal cords. He also faces a third-degree murder charge related to the death of a woman, Karnamaya Mongar, 41, of Virginia, from a botched legal abortion. Gosnell, who has been in jail since his January 2011 arrest. CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
The abortionist faces 258 counts total and other charges against him include one count of infanticide and one of racketeering, 24 counts of performing third-trimester abortions and 227 counts of failing to follow the 24-hour waiting period law before an abortion so women can consider its risks and alternatives.
Recently, LifeNews published an article to help answer the question of why the jury in the murder trial of abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell is taking so long.
Difficult for them to sentence a human being to death, I guess.
Gosnell is lucky they don’t find it as easy as he did.
I guess splitting legal hairs is more difficult than snapping human spines.
Or perhaps all need more time to meet with their agents?
My bet is that there is one pro-choice holdout who will not convict under any circumstances.
I suspect Gosnell is going to walk.
Perhaps. Maybe they can share a particularly toasty hearth in Hell with Gosnell some day.
You didn’t read the post. They have over two hundred charges to examine. It’s not if he’s guilty. It’s about all the different charges, and they have to decide which ones or probably all of them they will vote guilty on. It clear he’s guilty and violated the law in many, many ways, but I think the jury is simply trying to get it right. He’s an evil man, but he still is supposed to get a fair trial.
What do the jurors LOOK like?
That's what I'm thinking. One or two holdouts trying to hang the jury.
That'd set some bad precedent. (Also, it would raise the question "what would an abortionist have to do to be convicted [of murder]?")
The requirement to render 227 separate verdicts is excessively burdensome. They’ve already spent days listening to read-backs of testimony. How many more days/weeks will they be deliberating?
I’m afraid this jury, and trial, may be a lost cause. Those poor babies and that woman who was murdered...
Prayers for the jurors, and for justice to be done!
People.
Expedite this by sending the jury home and paroling Scott Roeder.
I agree; just noting that the laws of America have become far too complex - splitting hairs.
I understand that as many charges as possible are brought so if defendant gets off on a technicality on some its difficult for them to get off on all in such a manner.
That should not be the way things work, however, if the system of laws and the court proceedings were closer to being just.
It’s pretty cut and dried from a simplistic point of view - man killed babies. It was him (not a case of wrong man being accused), the babies did die, he was responsible, and it was not an accident, it was done purposefully.
But highly schooled lawyers have turned our courts into an art form of playing with language, i.e., “that depends on what you mean by the word is”.
Two hundred years ago such shenanigans would not be humored by courts.
IMHO, there’s a real and practical and very concrete difference between getting a trial that’s rushed and does not hear all evidence, or purposefully infringes on a defendant’s right to defend themselves in court in some other way - and getting a fair trial where the truth of one’s guilt simply comes out and a guilty defendant is found guilty. We don’t convict if there’s a reasonable doubt; the word reasonable used to mean something back in the day.
IMHO, once a case gets buried in a large number of charges and too much complexity, the jury (who are not professional lawyers) can get very tired and have great difficulty rendering a verdict. Of course, if the charges apply in the case they should be brought. But it’s the complex way in which lawyers have designed the whole body of law that makes the consideration of them by a random group of citizens very difficult.
Maybe they are stalling to keep getting paid; Philadelphia has high unemployment. The verdict would seem certain by the “standards” of Philadelphia: Not Guilty NO MATTER WHAT!
Yes. There has to be at least one hard core abortionist in the mix.
De reverend Al Shaupton be waitin’ no why ya’ll be pickin’ on da blak man.
“Difficult for them to sentence a human being to death, I guess.”
No, that’s not it.
“...one pro-choice holdout who will not convict under any circumstances.”
And that’s not it.
“There has to be at least one hard core abortionist in the mix.”
Maybe. But not it.
These people have been through horrifying testimony. Some of them will probably have nightmares for the rest of their lives. But there are 258 total counts/charges? I think that was done deliberately to assure that no jury could possibly deal with it all.
We know what’s going to happen.
God help us.
I'm beginning to wonder myself.
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