Michael Bray
\n28 December, 2009<\/p>\n
A couple days before Christmas, while most of the world was distracted with celebration of the emergence of the Jesus Fetus from the womb of Mother Mary, Judge Wilbert made his announcement. Concerning the defense strategy chosen by Scott Roeder, the Judge decided not to permit any presentation of the true personhood of the \u201clate term fetuses\u201d that Abortionist George Tiller formerly aborted. (The abortionist was shot by Roeder on Pentecost Sunday while the former was performing his ushering duties at a \u201cchurch\u201d in Wichita.) Judge Wilbert determined not to permit the basic, age-old, \u201cnecessity defense.\u201d That argument maintains that there are occasions where doing harm, even of the lethal sort, is justified. Such occasions are generally obvious when a criminal is in the throes of doing harm to an innocent person. Not so, however, in cases pertaining to those pesky little fetuses. <\/p>\n
But how can such a basic principle of law be considered for application in relation to performing \u201creproductive care services\u201d? <\/p>\n
Well, how about the situation at hand? A defendant is charged with murder and says that he killed the abortionist because said defendant believed that the abortionist was a true murderer of real people. And whether a jury wishes to believe the story of the defendant or not, it is the right of the defendant to put on the defense of his choice. And it ought to be the right of a duly empanelled jury to hear the defendant\u2019s defense. (After all, it\u2019s all about choice. Right?)<\/p>\n
\tQuite \u201clawfully\u201d (i.e. under the auspices of the Roe Opinion since 1973) a man was authorize to abort a \u201cfetus\u201d at will during the first trimester. Jurists of the subsequent decade amidst socio-political rumblings opined in various \u201crulings\u201d that it could be lawful to terminate one\u2019s fetus at any time before birth as long as a mom\u2019s \u201cmental health\u201d was alleged to be at stake. Consequently, an abortionist may terminate the life of the fetus at virtually anytime. And in the first decade of the new century the practiced devaluation of human beings has segued to the killing of children after their birth by the leaving of unwanted children to expire or to have their necks snapped ASAP. This putatively barbaric behavior inspired the passing of legislation known as the Born Alive Act which was designed to save the lives of those fetuses which survived abortion or came into the world before the procedure could be \u201cperformed\u201d and lay on hospital tables among practitioners suddenly stricken with a problem. What to do with this which was not to be!<\/p>\n
But to return to the particular situation of Mr. Roeder, the Los Angeles Times describes District Judge Wilbert\u2019s decision as follows: <\/p>\n
“Judge Warren Wilbert said he would ‘leave the door open’ for Scott Roeder to present other evidence and arguments that he killed the Wichita doctor in the belief that he was saving the lives of fetuses. That means Roeder’s public defenders could ask jurors to consider crimes less than first-degree premeditated murder.<\/p>\n
\t“Kansas law, for example, defines voluntary manslaughter as the ‘unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force.’ A conviction of voluntary manslaughter would carry a sentence of fewer than 10 years in prison for Roeder, compared with a life sentence for murder” (Dec. 23).<\/p>\n
Wilbert \u201csaid he would not let Roeder use a necessity defense\u201d because \u201cRoeder has said he killed Tiller to save the lives of the unborn.\u201d The necessity defense, as the judge judges, must involve an effort to \u201cstop someone else from committing a crime.\u201d But \u201cthat wasn’t the case with Tiller, Wilbert said, because abortion is legal.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Which, of course, is the matter which is under dispute from state to state all the way to the splitting asunder of the nation. And it will not go away as the laws of the states never ought to have been abolished by judicial fiat in the first place. The people, through their juries, ought to have the opportunity the review such arrogant tyranny. Let the people right a wrong or let the guilt which the judges have brought upon the nation be truly earned by the people themselves.) <\/p>\n
One must wonder why a judge would not permit a man who obviously has acted from principles of justice or at the least in earnest pursuit of them to fully present the grounds for his actions. And why prejudice the jury by denying the legitimacy of his plea of \u201cnecessity\u201d? <\/p>\n
Is he himself prejudiced or does he have a particular moral suasion of his own? It was not too long ago that the Judge who sits in judgment upon matters that have to do with sexual activity and the consequent popular \u201cabortion solution\u201d was himself caught up in his own sexual malfeasance. <\/p>\n
As recently as the Ides of March, 2006, a \u201cseven-member committee of judges and lawyers found that Wilbert, 53, last summer \u2018pursued a personal relationship with a subordinate employee beyond the appropriate boundaries\u2019 of professional conduct\u201d (Ron Sylvester, Wichita Eagle, March 18, 2006). A sexual harassment complaint had been filed against the judge. <\/p>\n
It was the sexual libertinism of the sixties which drove the nation to the liberalization of its anti-abortion laws the following decade to accommodate the sexual revolution. The two went hand in hand and wreaked all kinds of social trauma in divorce, single parenting, and broken families leading to increased crime and general social degeneracy. The judge\u2019s actions make him unfit to sit on the bench. Period. And even much less appropriate is it that he should sit in judgment in this case. <\/p>\n
Is there a righteous judge in Wichita who can preside over the trial of Scott Roeder?<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/nation-and-world\/la-na-abortion-tiller23-2009dec23,0,515228.story<\/p>\n
http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20091222\/ap_on_re_us\/us_abortion_shooting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michael Bray 28 December, 2009 A couple days before Christmas, while most of the world was distracted with celebration of the emergence of the Jesus Fetus from the womb of Mother Mary, Judge Wilbert made his announcement. Concerning the defense strategy chosen by Scott Roeder, the Judge decided not to permit any presentation of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":655,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions\/655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}