Will Women's Medical Records Be Given To A Killer?
As jury selection in the trial of Scott Roeder for the murder of Dr. George Tiller ground to a temporary halt yesterday after a Kansas judge decided that a jury might consider a charge of "voluntary manslaughter," the doctor's widow went to court to try to quash a defense motion that would put the names of Tiller's patients in the hands of his killer.
Late last week, Roeder's defense served Jeanne Tiller with a subpoena demanding she produce "professional calendars, appointment books, records of scheduled procedures, or similar document," for all procedures scheduled at Tiller's Wichita clinic between May 1st and June 31, 2009.
Roeder murdered Tiller on May 31, 2009.
In Kansas, "voluntary manslaughter" is defined as an "unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force" during an intentional killing.
Clearly, in demanding these documents, Roeder's defense wants to show that his client believed he was saving the lives of perhaps dozens of unborn children when he gunned the 67-year old doctor down in the foyer of the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita.
In their motion, Mrs. Tiller's lawyers argue that those records are held not by Mrs. Tiller personally, but in a medical trust administered by the law firm, as required by Kansas state law, so that former patients might access them should they be needed in the future.
Releasing these records would not only violate precedent, it would be a "failure to provide adequate protections to the privacy of Dr. Tiller's patients, who sought or obtained constitutionally protected medical services. Disclosure of patient names alone, let alone other identifying information to the public, and most certainly to an avowed anti-abortion terrorist, would constitute the most egregious violation of their rights of privacy imaginable"
"There is no law or logic which places any rights of the defendant above those rights of privacy."
Foreshadowing arguments prosecutors are likely to make before Judge Warren Wilbert regarding a defense of "voluntary manslaughter," Mrs. Tiller's attorneys say in their filing that the records are "wholly irrelevant to any material issue in the pending case." Roeder can't argue justification, "insamuch as the imperfect use of force codified" in state law "requires that any act be in defense of a 'person,'" and a fetus is not defined as a person under that same state law.
Mark Rudy, Scott Roeder's public defender, has been trying to gain access to this information months, and has told a blogger for the Wichita Eagle that “what we’re going to do now is turn our efforts to getting the records from the medical trust."
Stay tuned...
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Comments
Stellaa - when I think my outrage is completely exhausted, I get a new burst. Thank God for blogging....my poor family doesn't have to hear my rants anymore, just read them when they get the chance.
Otherwise, what Stellaa said. Holy crap.
Bleechhh!
I feel the same Stellaa- the defense motions are just unreal. I hope the judges see them that way too.
http://www.kansas.com/news/breaking/story/1132757.html
Roeder had no means of knowing whether or not Tiller would ever perform another abortion. Perhaps he went to church that day to repent his sins and swear an oath never to perform another abortion. That, of course, wasn't the case, but Roeder had no way of knowing that it wasn't the case.
This is an unmistakable case of first degree murder with complicating circumstances such as stalking. In Calilfornia, he would get the needle, and he deserves it.
What I don't understand is how someone can commit murder under the pretext of preserving a fetus while killing an actual, valuable human being. A fetus is a potential human being. Only time tells whether it grows up into one, or becomes a machine like the lunatic who killed this good doctor.
I agree with Stellaa. I feel like I have fallen into some rabbit hole and emerged in an alternative universe where nothing is what it seems and everything is somehow wrong.
We should all watch this case very closely. It's not just abortion rights (I hate the term pro-choice), or patient confidentiality that is on trial here. Our whole justice system is on trial. If this defendant is allowed to plead to lesser charges, then we all better arm ourselves because the rule of law will have been abridged to the point of dissolution.
(PS: Truth in Blogging: I once served as abortion advocate Bill Baird's press agent.)
FI Everyone's Y: Ron Sylvester, reporter for the Wichita Eagle, is live-tweeting from the hearing right now, and it doesn't sound like it's going all that well for the prosecution. But it is very early; actual arguments are just starting now.
Abortion was legal the last time I checked.
The fact that, as far as I know, the prosecution has not demanded that the judge recuse himself for allowing the jury to consider a voluntary manslaughter charge suggests that the prosecutor is either incompetent or in sympathy with the defendant.
Either way, in either case, the chances for a good outcome are decreasing.
I lack the patience to follow the court proceedings. Perhaps someone who is can alert us to a summary of what has transpired. I have a pot of chili on the stove that bears watching, and I would much rather watch chili cook than watch a corrupt judicial process let a fiendish killer slip through its fingers, encouraging others to similarly fiendish acts.
The main problem is that our system of justice is in the process of collapsing under its own weight. One hundred years ago, trying a murder case was relatively simple and probably took only a few days. Today, procedural maneuvering and such have stretched that out to months.
"well, you felt you were doing the work of God, so we'll let it go... this time"
I can't speak to what Rudy's motives are here, but I'm fairly certain the he has no great love of Roeder or his cause, since most attorneys have nothing but contempt for fanatics and terrorists since they usually refuse to listen to counsel.
That leaves ambition, an attempt on his part to leave Legal Aid behind. Nothing wrong with that, I just wish the legal hiring system did not reward attorneys for this kind of crap, but unfortunately they do.
As for the voluntary manslaughter that everyone is talking about, Judge Wilbert has not yet ruled on that. In previous comments, sagemerlin has said Judge Wilbert is incompetent for allowing the jury to decide on the lesser charge, but that is not actually what has happened. The media has not been reporting this clearly. The judge cannot yet make that ruling. It has also been said the prosecution is in league with the defense. Nola Foulston, the local DA, had previously been accused by Operation Rescue and others as being in league with Dr. Tiller and, thus, not allowing charges to be brought against him for performing illegal abortions. The terrorist wannabes and Scott Roeder groupies were surprised the public defenders and prosecutors are on friendly terms here in Wichita (they are also attack Foulston who, in 1993 while trying Shelley Shannon, protested Foulston at her home; Paul Hill was among the protestors). This is not terribly uncommon here. We are, after all, a community of 400,000; people know each other. But that does not mean a) the prosecution is in league with the defense to allow Roeder to get away with murder, b) the judge has acted improperly and should be recused, and c) the public defenders are trying to make a name for themselves. It is Roeder, not his defense team, that has taken them down this route of necessity defense. In addition to the statements made to the media, including a confession, Roeder has filed pro se legal briefs on his behalf, at least one of which was written by Dave Leach. There is only so much the defense can do. And I'm sure they want not to repeat this process as much as anyone. So they are doing their job.
Everyone is doing their job as they have been doing for years. There have been problems and errors, of course, but the only reason so many people are suddenly interjecting their criticism into what would otherwise be a typical murder trial is because the victim was Dr. George Tiller.
We at Roeder Watch have been following this trial since July (well, we've been following abortion rights issues in this state for years; we set up the blog in July after the prelim hearing when we saw the media was missing much of the story). My latest post gives information concerning one of the cases Judge Wilbert cited in Tuesday's final pre-trial hearing. http://roederwatch.blogspot.com/
http://www.slate.com/id/2241426/