By MONICA DAVEY
c.2010 New York Times News Service
WICHITA – Jurors in the trial of an abortion opponent accused of murdering Dr. George R. Tiller, one of the nation’s only late-term abortion providers, never heard the word “abortion” on Friday as a prosecutor here laid out her case in an opening statement.
Instead, Nola Foulston, the district attorney, began building a methodical case of times and names and forensic tests that might have been presented at any murder trial – a frantic 911 call, a witness’ swift noting of a getaway car license plate, blood splatters on the defendant’s black sneakers.
Still, though Judge Warren Wilbert of Sedgwick County District Court has said he will not allow the trial to be turned into a debate over abortion, the issue seemed unavoidable – unspoken, but always looming. Those on both sides of the question are watching tensely to see how much it will ultimately play into the jurors’ thoughts.
The defendant, Scott Roeder, of Kansas City, Mo., has pleaded not guilty, but the defense he intends to present to jurors was not revealed on Friday, the first day of testimony in his trial. His public defenders chose not to offer an opening statement until after the prosecution provides its case, which is expected to take a week or more.
Before the trial began, Roeder publicly admitted to shooting Tiller inside the doctor’s church last May, and sought to be allowed to tell jurors that he had done so to save unborn babies. Judge Wilbert ruled that Roeder could not present such a “necessity defense.”
But the judge left open the possibility that Roeder might be allowed to present evidence that could support a conviction short of premeditated murder, like voluntary manslaughter, a notion that has outraged some abortion rights groups.
In her opening statement, Foulston made clear she intended to head off suggestions that Roeder’s acts were anything short of meticulously planned. Among the evidence she promised to show jurors: a brochure from Tiller’s Wichita church, dated nearly a year before the killing, and found at Roeder’s Kansas City home; a receipt for an ammunition purchase 11 days before the shooting; a Wichita motel registration bearing Roeder’s name from one week before the killing, a weekend when Tiller happened to miss church; and Roeder’s calendar – with the day of the shooting, May 31, marked with highlight.
All around were signs this case was anything but ordinary. Security was extremely tight. No one could enter the small courtroom without identification. And lawyers had spent six days questioning potential jurors – behind closed doors for much of that time because of an unusual ruling that their feelings about abortion, religion and Tiller, who had performed abortions here for three decades, should not be made public.
Testimony began the same day that abortion rights groups celebrated, and abortion opponents protested, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal. In a news release about the anniversary, at least one such group, Planned Parenthood, cited the death of Tiller, who had performed abortions as late as the third trimester, as a sign of “the continuous assault” still ahead.
Before the jury, Kathy Wegner, a member of Tiller’s church, Reformation Lutheran, described the Sunday morning when, as services were starting, she heard what sounded to her like a balloon pop. Wagner recalled looking over and seeing Tiller, a longtime church member, fall to the floor.
“I just saw him flat on his back,” she testified, starting to sob. “I felt like time just stopped.”