Posted on 05/13/2013 12:18:59 PM PDT by Morgana
The jury in the murder trial of abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell returned a verdict and found him guilty on three of the four first-degree murder charges he faced.
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.
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.
Last week, the wanted to re-hear testimony from Adrienne Moton, a medical assistant who told the court in March that she snipped the spines of at least 10 babies during unorthodox abortions. And she said Dr. Kermit Gosnell and another employee did the same sipping technique.
Moton, the first employee to testify, sobbed as she recalled taking a cellphone photograph of one baby left in her work area. She thought he could have survived, given his size and pinkish color. She had measured him at nearly 30 weeks.
“The aunt felt it was just best for her (the mother’s) future,” Moton testified.
Gosnell later joked that the baby was so big he could have walked to the bus stop, she said.
Jurors saw Moton’s photograph on a large screen in the courtroom, which took on a bizarre look Tuesday as she testified near a hospital bed with stirrups and other aging obstetric equipment. Denied the chance to bring jurors to the shuttered inner-city clinic, prosecutors are instead recreating a patient room in court.
Moton, 35, sobbed as she described her work at the clinic. Because of problems at home, she had moved in with Gosnell and his third wife during high school, and she went to work for him from 2005 to 2008. She earned about $10 an hour, off the books, to administer drugs, perform sonograms, help with abortions and dispose of fetal remains. Workers got $20 bonuses for second-term abortions on Saturdays, when a half-dozen were sometimes performed.
She once had to kill a baby delivered in a toilet, cutting its neck with scissors, she said. Asked if she knew that was wrong, she said, “At first I didn’t.”
If sentenced for the convictions, Gosnell could face the death penalty following the convictions by the jury in Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia.
Under Pennsylvania law, all 12 of the jurors must reach a unanimous verdict on any of the murder counts Gosnell faces for him to be convicted on any of them. Each of the elements of a charged crime must be proven to each juror beyond reasonable doubt for that juror to vote to convict on that count and one reluctant juror could lead to a mistrial on any of the first-degree murder charges.
Since prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty in the case, the jury will only be deciding whether Gosnell is guilty related to the charges. If convicted, a second jury will be impaneled to determine sentencing under the penalty phase of the trial. During this phase, the judge has already instructed jurors to only consider guilt or innocence.
Given the number of charges Gosnell faces, and the fact that Gosnell has a co-defendant the jury is considering for conviction as well, the jury make take a longer period of time to arrive at a verdict on each of the 250-plus charges.
Most of the focus in the murder trial of abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell is on the murder charges he faces for killing babies in abortion-infanticides and for killing a woman in a botched abortion.
But Gosnell faces more than 200 charges related to violating Pennsylvania state law that requires him to provide women with informed consent 24 hours prior to the abortion. Gosnell is charged with breaking that law by not giving women information about abortion risks and alternatives 24 hours prior to the abortion.
Eight other defendants who are former staffers of Gosnell’s Philadelphia abortion clinic have pleaded guilty to a variety of charges and are awaiting sentencing.
Previously, the judge in the case reinstated one of the murder charges and dropped another. Gosnell’s defense attorney asked the judge to drop three of the charges for killing the babies and the judge agreed with the contention there was not enough evidence to convict Gosnell on those charges. Another charge of infanticide was also dropped.
One of the dropped charges involved a 28-week-old baby Gosnell killed and whose remains were kept in an abortion clinic freezer.
Common pleas court Judge Jeffrey Minehart also dropped five counts of corpse abuse at the request of his defense attorney and did not explain his ruling dropping any of the charges.
The defense had argued that there were no live births at Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Center abortion clinic and contends the babies died during abortions and their necks were snipped afterwards. But former Gosnell staffers testified they saw signs of life even after the abortion had been completed — saying the babies “jumped” and “screamed” and tried to escape.
Gosnell, whose squalid “house of horrors” abortion clinic has surprised even investigative officials, has had almost flippant attitude toward his macabre abortion practices shocked the nation.
“The Gosnell case is a watershed moment for the issue of abortion,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation. “The discovery of his horrific practices helped shed light on an abortion industry that has run amok without oversight or accountability for decades, and has prompted significant changes in abortion laws and attitudes toward enforcement in several states.”
Previously, Gosnell’s wife Pearl pleaded guilty to assisting her husband at his Philadelphia abortion center where he killed a woman in a botched abortion and has killed hundreds of babies in abortion-infanticides. Pearl Gosnell was considering a plea deal similar to the one several of Gosnell’s former abortion center employees have made where they have pleaded guilty to receive a lesser sentence in exchange for testifying against Gosnell.
CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
Pearl also worked at the abortion center Gosnell ran that had him kill and injure women in failed abortions and kill perhaps hundreds of babies in grisly infanticides by birthing them and “snipping” their spinal cords. She worked at the Women’s Medical Society abortion business her husband ran as a full-time medical assistant from 1982 until she married Kermit Gosnell in 1990, when she switched to only working on Sundays.
At that time, the abortion business was officially closed but would do its latest-term abortions possible. The grand jury report indicates Pearl Gosnell testified that she alone helped Kermit do abortions on Sundays when she would “help do the instruments” in the operating room despite no medical training.
The murder charges also came in connection with the botched abortion death of 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, who died at Gosnell’s abortion clinic after a failed abortion. Mongar died November 20, 2009, after overdosing on anesthetics prescribed by the doctor.
Mongar’s family filed a lawsuit against Gosnell’s abortion business seeking damages. Gosnell and several staffers at his abortion center, including Pearl, were arrested in January after a grand jury indicted them on multiple charges after officials raided his abortion business following a woman’s death and discovered a “shop of horrors” filled with bags of bodies and body parts of deceased unborn children and babies killed in infanticides.
Meanwhile, women have spoken out about their treatment and one woman says she was drugged and tied up and forced to have an abortion. Authorities searching the facility found bags and bottles holding aborted babies scattered around the building, jars containing babies’ severed feet lining a shelf, as well as filthy, unsanitary furniture and equipment.
The grand jury investigation also shows state officials did nothing when reports came in about problems at Gosnell’s abortion center, which has upset incoming pro-life Governor Tom Corbett.
Gosnell’s abortion center was inspected only after a federal drug raid in 2010. It was the first time the facility had been inspected in 17 years because state officials ignored complaints and failed to visit Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society for years.
The abortion industry has been forced to suspend two abortion businesses that employed embattled abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell, who has been the subject of national controversy over his abortion business in Philadelphia.
Shepard is a national disgrace!
Yet they will fight all attempts to hold abortion clinics to the same cleanliness and health standards as hospitals.
And at the same time, they harass abortion alternative centers with clinical requirements (hallway size, etc).
"There was given to him a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies, and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him."
Thought of a better idea. We have a lot of feral hogs a few miles NW of us and there are a lot of fire ants there too. Tie his @$$ to a mound and leave him there overnight. If he survives, get a swarm of African honey bees and drop them next to him the next day.
May God have mercy on his soul.
He that sees evil and does nothing to stop it is guilty.
Mister Obama has said that he was unwilling to make a statement while the case was in progress. Maybe now the question should be put to him, “What do you think?”
Barack Gosnell Obama voted three times defending this horrific act.
Seconded.
Barack Gosnell Obama
Thank you for keeping up with this and letting us know. It’s been horrible.
That is good. It needs to spread like a meme.
He’s killed tens of thousands of babies. Thankfully not many people have more blood on their hands.
Just throwing this idea out there. And please use an open mind and look at the big picture, I don;t know why this thought came to me.
Would the following be a good thing or could anyone here support what I am about to try and express.
Because of this verdict, there probably are many, many abortionists(that may have done this same thing) that are sweating it out, especially if this guy gets death, which I think he should.
Here is the idea. Offer amnesty to all abortionists who agree to never commit an abortion again. They must be restricted to another line of medicine or outright banned from practicing.
I don’t know if any would take the offer as they are probably the type that think they are smarter than everyone else.
But what if hundreds or thousands did take the offer of amnesty and never performed an abortion again.
How many babies would that save?
I don’t know if I expressed my thoughts well here.
Offer 1 time deal, Amnesty for loss of ability to ever carry out any type of abortion. If they don’t take amnesty deal in 30-60 days, they are subject to prosecution at any time in the future.
Maybe even make them do public service ads telling of the horrors and dangers of abortions as well as alternatives, i.e. adoption.
Am I off my rocker for thinking this?
Good to see there’s still some civilization in Western civilization.
Thank you, dearest Morgana, for all the informative articles you posted throughout this monster’s long trial, despite the fact, that several were very graphic and gut wrenching to read.
Praise God! ~ and his juror peers for finding him guilty. We believe in the power of prayer, so we can know that our prayers influenced.
May God have mercy on our Republic. Today some good was done.
God bless and keep you, dearest Morgana.
God bless and keep everyone here.
Rough day for Obamatollah.
Murdering non-islamic babies born alive is his favorite hobby.
Thank you so much, dearest RedMDer!
Gosnell and Barack are the very same!!!!!
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