WICHITA (AP) The widow of slain abortion provider Dr. George Tiller put her head in her hands as a police officer testified about photographs taken at the scene when Tiller was shot and killed.
Jeanne Tiller sat quietly and showed little emotion during much of the testimony Friday. But when prosecutors questioned Officer Valerie Shirkey about the crime scene photos she had taken, she placed her head into her hands and covered her eyes.
Scott Roeder, 51, of Kansas City, Mo., is charged with premeditated, first-degree murder in Tiller's May 31 shooting death at a Wichita church. Supreme Court decision in the Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion.
Roeder isabel marant sneakers told The Associated Press in a jailhouse interview in November that he killed Tiller to protect unborn children. Roeder also faces two charges of aggravated assault for allegedly threatening two church ushers who tried to stop him from fleeing. He has pleaded not guilty.
Before opening isabel marant boots statements began, District Judge Warren Wilbert denied a defense motion to move the trial out of Wichita and a motion from jordans for sale prosecutors to not allow an involuntary manslaughter defense.
Wilbert has repeatedly said the trial will not turn into a debate over abortion, warning Roeder's lawyers that he intends to keep the case as a "criminal, first-degree murder trial."
But the judge galvanized both sides of the abortion battle when he refused, on the eve of jury selection, to block the defense from cheap air max trying to build a case for a conviction on a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.
The defense wants to argue that Roeder believed Tiller's killing was necessary to save unborn children. In Kansas, voluntary manslaughter is defined as "an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force."
If convicted of first-degree murder, Roeder faces a life sentence. Under state sentencing guidelines, a conviction for nike free running voluntary manslaughter for buy isabel marant online someone with as little criminal history as he has would bring a sentence closer to five years.
Jurors will hear several witness accounts of Tiller's shooting, and other evidence will include Roeder's shoes with Tiller's blood on them and a police video of Roeder's arrest later that day, Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston told the jury isabel marant dicker of eight men and six women in her opening statement.
Prosecutors displayed a graphic photo of Tiller, showing him lying on the ground wearing a green business suit and cowboy boots. Blood covered most of his face and formed a pool under his head.
The first witness, Kathy Wegner, told jurors she was at the Wichita church on the morning of May 31 when she heard a popping sound and saw Tiller fall to the floor. Wegner said the jordan retro for sale assailant ran out of the church and she went to call isabel marant shop online the police emergency dispatcher.
Jury selection in the case occurred for the most part behind closed doors. After six days of secret questioning of potential jurors, the court finally opened jury selection to the media on Thursday while turning away public spectators.
Tiller, whose Wichita clinic closed after his death, championed abortion rights even after being shot in both arms by an activist in 1993. The clinic, heavily fortified after a bombing in 1986, was the target of both peaceful and violent protests. In 1991, a 45-day "Summer of Mercy" campaign organized by Operation Rescue drew thousands of anti-abortion protesters to Wichita for demonstrations and saw mass arrests.
In more recent years, anti-abortion activists had focused their attacks against Tiller within the legal system and political arena. Thousands of abortion opponents signed petitions forcing Sedgwick County to convene grand juries in 2006 and nike air max 95 2008 to investigate him, but both refused to indict him.
Two state attorneys general in Kansas also tried in vain to prosecute him. Just two months before his death, a jury acquitted Tiller of misdemeanor charges accusing him of failing to get an independent second opinion for late-term abortions. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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