Posted on 01/29/2010 9:49:10 AM PST by FutureRocketMan
WICHITA, Kan. — A man who said he killed prominent Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in order to save the lives of unborn children was convicted Friday of murder.
The jury deliberated for just 37 minutes before finding Scott Roeder, 51, of Kansas City, Mo., guilty of premeditated, first-degree murder in the May 31 shooting death.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
If your position is true, if such diamond clarity rings like the bell of truth around this concept, then there would be no damage whatever to the prosecuction's case if the defendent were given is right to explain his actions - and their reasons. After all, the premeditation part of the charge does, in fact, demand an explanation. And also after all, the law is so clear, so absolute under - how did you put it, "Natural Law or God's law" - that anything he would have given as an explanation would have had zero effect on his conviction.
But if that's the case, then why did the prosecutor and judge so strenuously object to him telling his reasons for the killing? Maybe they were worried that the stupid jury wasn't as sharp as you are about the absoluteness of the law? Or maybe - just maybe - the application of the law is not as utterly indifferent to nullification as you think it is? After all, even though you purport to "support in principle" jury nullification, it doesn't sound like you have much use for it. Even in this case, with an accusation of a known killer of thousands of full-term babies on one hand, and a murderer who was solely motivated by those killings on the other hand.
The application of jury nullification in such a scenario sure seems like an appropriate legal, social, moral, and cultural challenge to the validity of the law protecting the abortionist. In other words, an application of the actual REASON for the existence of the jury nullification process. In fact, jury nullification might have been so clearly applicable here that maybe - just maybe - the prosecution wasn't as absolutely confident in the proper application of murder one in this case as you are.
And, if he was allowed to speak, and the jury nullified the application of the murder charge under these conditions, then that would be lawful, wouldn't it? And the whole country would also learn about the power and purpose of jury nullification, wouldn't it?
Not that any of these consideration should impinge upon your ringing clarity of the meaning and application of "the law," of course.
Absolutely true.
Big, big difference between stopping a murderer in the act and yourself murdering someone who has performed legally authorized activities (whether you agree with the legality or not), and who wasn’t doing anything at the time he was shot.
Murder is not civil disobedience. Murder is not a morally acceptable response because, as others have noted on this topic, it can become quite the slippery slope deciding whose performance of legally authorized acts might yield an innocent death. Extremists on the other side could just as easily argue that the assassination of George W. Bush would have been appropriate using the same vile “logic.”
“He entered a room with his target known. He pointed a loaded firearm at that target and pulled the trigger. I would have convicted him as well.”
Exactly. Every assassin in history has felt their action to be morally justified.
I would have convicted him as well.
Actually Roeder acted in order to prevent the death of another child.
He stood up for the innocents...most others stand by him in theory but do not have the moral clarity and courage to defy sinful and immoral laws.
Evil men often feel they have moral clarity and courage. Indeed, they often feel they have cornered the market on those two qualities. As it is said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I didn’t think that late term abortions were legal. For me, how a “doctor” could take a full term baby apart, and not be charged with murder is unbelievable. That truly is murder in the first degree.
I, for one, am so glad he can’t kill any more babies.
Good he’s gone.
Are you stating here on Free Republic that you, eleni121, would commit murder to rid the country of an abortion doctor?
Do you have the "moral clarity and courage" to sin in defiance of the laws of God as written down by Moses in the 6th Commandment?
Do you?
“He was ‘pro-life’”
I’m rabidly anti-abortion, but I fought in a war and would not hesitate to pull the switch on a murderer. So you might call me “pro-innocent life”
I suspect most pro-life folks are more like me and less like you....
I have the feeling that he did it.
Scott is a believer, and he saved lives, Killing babies is murder. Killing the murderer is justified. He has more guts than me but if tomorrow I only had 2 weeks to live, killing a "tiller" might make me braver. God even forgives murder in tiller case. According to the British during the revolutionary war we were murderers. Scott was even more justified because of babies innocence.
IF the judge had allowed it. He ruled out VM and 2nd Degree.
I would guess its combination of ultrasounds changing minds and doctors not wanting to have to deal with protesters.
I'm not cheering for Scott Roeder, just celebrating the fact that Tiller can't commit any more acts of infanticide. I wish he would have dropped dead of heart attack.
The Bible says give unto Ceaser that which is Ceaser’s and give to GOD that which is GOD’s.
Babies are GOD'S!
If we had 20 thousands of Scott's, Doctors would not do the killing of Babies any more.
Yes, evidently Fox got that right and CNN didn’t.
I wonder if he was well advised by his lawyer. He wanted to be honest, but he was not obliged to plead guilty. He could have pled nolo contendere or even “innocent” on the basis that he was justified in defending the lives of future babies after the law had refused to intervene against numerous illegal actions on Tiller’s part.
As it was, he apparently was not allowed any scope at all by the judge.
I admire the witness for telling the truth on the witness stand, but not so much for killing another person. So many lie under oath it is sickening.
You would have engaged in jury nullification, fwiw. It wouldnt be the first time that happened.
Are you telling us that you don't even believe fully-formed, viable unborn children are human beings -- the Tiller was killing -- with a right to life? If so, you have all the morals of our fine President, which is to say you don't have any.
God's "ways," as Scripture says, are as far above man's ways as the heavens are above the earth; and so are God's thoughts above our thoughts. As for God's law: that is a different story. It has--- I would argue --- been fairly plainly revealed.
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