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.

He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years when he is sentenced March 9. Prosecutor Nola Foulston said she would pursue a so-called “Hard 50″ sentence, which would require Roeder to serve at least 50 years before he can be considered for parole.

Tiller’s widow, Jeanne, and the rest of the family quickly exited the courtroom after the verdict. In a statement, Jeanne Tiller said “once again, a Sedwick County jury has reached a just verdict.”

The family said it wanted Tiller to be “remembered for his legacy of service to women, the help he provided for those who needed it and the love and happiness he provided us as a husband, father and grandfather.”

Roeder had confessed publicly before the trial and admitted again on the witness stand that he shot Tiller in the head in the foyer of the Wichita church where the doctor was serving as an usher. He testified he felt the lives of unborn children were in “immediate danger” because of Tiller.

Roeder sat straightforward as the verdict was read, showing no visible reaction as he moved his head toward the judge and to the jury as each juror confirmed the verdict. He also was convicted of aggravated assault for pointing a gun at two ushers after the shooting.

Roeder’s attorneys were hoping to get a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter for Roeder, a defense that would have required them to show that Roeder had an unreasonable but honest belief that deadly force was justified.

But after hearing Roeder testify, District Judge Warren Wilbert ruled that his lawyers failed to show that Tiller posed an imminent threat and the jury could not consider such a verdict.

Tiller was one of the nation’s few providers of late-term abortions, and his Wichita clinic was the focus of many protests. It also had been under investigation by a former state district attorney who accused Tiller of skirting Kansas’ abortion laws.

Prosecutors were careful during the first few days of testimony to avoid the subject of abortion and to focus on the specifics of the shooting. Wilbert said he did not want the trial to become a debate on abortion, but he did allow Roeder to discuss his views on the subject because his attorneys said they were integr al to their case.

Roeder, the lone defense witness, testified Thursday that he considered elaborate schemes to stop Tiller, including chopping off his hands, crashing a car into him or sneaking into his home to kill him.

But in the end, Roeder told jurors, the easiest way was to walk into Tiller’s church, put a gun to the man’s forehead and pull the trigger.

“Those children were in immediate danger if someone did not stop George Tiller,” Roeder said. “They were going to continue to die.”

He testified that he wrapped the .22-caliber handgun in a piece of cloth and buried it in a rural area. The weapon has not been recovered.

Renee Bowman, 44, pleaded guilty in September to first-degree child abuse. She has a separate trial scheduled for February in Montgomery County on murder charges.

Bowman’s youngest adopted daughter was found wandering around her Lusby neighborhood in a blood-stained nightshirt after jumping from a window in September 2008. Authorities searched the home and found the frozen remains. Investigators concluded the two older girls had been killed in Montgomery County, where the family lived until the fall of 2007.

At the federal prison in Butner, N.C., spokeswoman Denise Simmons announced that James von Brunn died shortly before 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Simmons said the suspect had “a long history of poor health which included chronic congestive heart failure and sepsis.”

Von Brunn had faced charges that could have earned him the death penalty.

He had been receiving medical care for months at the North Carolina prison complex, which is known for its medical facilities to house aging and sick inmates. Simmons said Von Brunn was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Von Brunn’s lawyer, A.J. Kramer, called the death “a sad end to a tragic situation,” but declined further comment.

The elderly suspect had been awaiting trial for the killing of security guard Stephen T. Johns at the U.S. H-word Memorial Museum on June 10. Von Brunn had been wounded by return fire.

Officials at the prison hospital had previously said chronic medical problems had complicated a psychiatric evaluation for the suspect, who prior to the shooting had written racist and anti-Semitic screeds on the Internet.

One of the two guards who fired back at von Brunn said he had mixed feelings about his death.

“I’m shocked. I’m glad he’s gone. I wish he had his day in court but it’ll never come,” said Harry Weeks of White Plains, Md.

Weeks returned to work in August and said he thinks often about his slain colleague.

Johns “was a good man. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss him… It’s been very hard, there’s not a day that I don’t think about him when I’m on post.”

A seven-count indictment against von Brunn charged him with first-degree murder, killing in a federal building, and bias-motivated crime. The indictment also accused him of seeking to intimidate Jewish people at the museum.

Authorities say von Brunn walked up to the museum carrying a rifle and shot Johns, who was black, as the guard was opening the door for him.

Von Brunn had a racist Web site and wrote a book titled “Kill the Best Gentiles,” alleging a Jewish conspiracy “to destroy the white gene pool.” He also claimed the H-word was a hoax.

What she didn’t do was apologize or explain the actions that led to her downfall — her guilty plea on a perjury charge and her earlier conviction on a misdemeanor embezzlement charge.

Dixon’s resignation Wednesday ended a three-year tenure that began with promise but unraveled amid embarrassing allegations that she stole from the poor.

Her attorney characterized the plea deal as favorable — she will receive probation before judgment at her sentencing Feb. 4, the same day her resignation takes effect.

After she satisfies the terms of her probation — including a $45,000 charitable contribution and 500 hours of community service — the convictions will be wiped off her record and she’ll be free to run for public office again. The probation will last a minimum of two years, meaning she will be barred from running in the next citywide election in 2011.

Dixon, a 56-year-old Democrat, also gets to keep her city pension, which she would have had to forfeit with a conviction on her record.

“This is a result that makes a lot of sense for Miss Dixon and the city of Baltimore,” said Arnold M. Weiner, the mayor’s lead attorney. However, he added, “I think the people of Baltimore would have been better off if she’d been able to remain as mayor.”

Dixon’s plea and resignation caught observers by surprise. It came on a day when her attorneys were expected to argue a motion for a new trial.

Even as she pleaded guilty, Dixon showed signs of the defiant streak that characterized her yearlong battle against allegations that she stole gift cards intended for needy families and lied about thousands of dollars in presents from her former boyfriend, a developer who received tax breaks from the city.

In a brief meeting with reporters at City Hall, Dixon hinted that she still has not given her side of the story.

“I still can’t get into any details of the case because of some things that are very time-sensitive,” she said. “As soon as this is all over, I’d love to sit down.”

Earlier, in court, the mayor interrupted Deputy State Prosecutor Thomas M. McDonough as he read the from the statement of facts that supported her guilty plea to the perjury charge. McDonough was detailing how Dixon’s then-boyfriend, Ronald H. Lipscomb, gave her up to $2,000 in cash to help her pay her American Express bill after a shopping spree in Chicago in 2004.

“Your honor, those things are not true,” Dixon said.

Weiner later clarified that because Dixon was entering an Alford plea, she did not agree with the statement of facts but acknowledged that prosecutors would present such evidence and that she could be convicted.

Dixon had another unusual response in court when she was asked whether she was entering the plea voluntarily.

“Basically,” she said.

The perjury plea relates to her failure to disclose gifts from Lipscomb, who showered her with cash, fur coats and travel during their romance. A jury convicted her in December of embezzling about $500 worth of gift cards donated to the city by another developer, who thought they would be handed out to needy families.

State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh called the resolution of the case “a victory for justice.”

“I would hope it would send a message to politicians, that even if you commit what some would consider a minor offense, you’re going to lose your job,” he said.

Dixon has been mayor since January 2007, when she took over for fellow Democrat Martin O’Malley after he was elected governor. She was the first woman to hold the job, and she easily won election that fall to a full four-year term.

She won praise for her shrewd hires and firm, no-nonsense leadership. Violent crime declined during her tenure, with homicides hitting a 20-year low. She revamped the city’s trash collection service, resulting in a big increase in recycling, and she partnered with other big-city mayors to call for tougher penalties for gun offenders.

But she has long been dogged by questions about her ethics, and after her indictment in January 2009, her administration seemed to stall, with several key positions remaining unfilled for months.

City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a Democrat, will replace Dixon.

“This is a difficult and sad time for Baltimore,” Rawlings-Blake said in a statement. “My goal is making sure that the city is protected and that public safety and essential services are maintained.”

___

The next chapter of DeLaughter’s life, as inmate No. 12930-042, marks a long fall from the height of his legal career in 1994 when he was a prosecutor who helped convict a civil rights-era assassin for the 30-year-old murder of NAACP leader Medgar Evers.

The 55-year-old DeLaughter (deh-LAW’-ter) was to report to a federal prison camp in McCreary, Ky., by 2 p.m.

DeLaughter’s lawyer, Thomas Durkin of Chicago, told The Associated Press on Monday that he didn’t know exactly what time DeLaughter would report to prison, but that he wouldn’t be late. A prison official said he was not in custody as of about 10:45 a.m.

DeLaughter was sentenced to 18 months in November after pleading guilty to lying about secret conversations he had with a lawyer while presiding over a dispute between wealthy lawyers over legal fees. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors dropped conspiracy and mail fraud charges.

DeLaughter made a name for himself as an assistant district attorney when he helped put away Byron de la Beckwith for Evers’ 1963 murder.

He was appointed to the bench in 2002 and was later elected to the position.

His storied career ended with the same bribery scandal that toppled Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, chief architect of the multibillion-dollar tobacco litigation of the 1990s — which was depicted in the movie “The Insider,” starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.

DeLaughter was presiding over a lawsuit in which a lawyer sued Scruggs for a bigger cut of millions in legal fees from asbestos litigation. Prosecutors said DeLaughter ruled in Scruggs’ favor in exchange for a promise that he’d be considered for a federal judgeship, with help from Scruggs’ high-powered connections.

DeLaughter ruled in 2006 that Scruggs didn’t owe the former partner anything more than a belated $1.5 million payment. The ruling was contrary to the findings of a special master appointed to weigh the evidence before trial.

DeLaughter pleaded guilty only to lying to the FBI about conversations he had with his old boss, former Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters. Peters was accused of receiving $1 million to influence DeLaughter, but he cooperated in the investigation and was not charged.

Editor’s note: Glad to see this piece of trash race traitor get his due, though it’s a Federal white-collar “camp”. These “lawyers” prosecute easy targets like “evil white supremecists”  to further their careers. Here’s proof. Notice his “attorney” is the same pile human excrement that handled Matt Hale’s case.

A YEAR after the crime, Séamus T’s voice still quivers when he recalls how
he found his daughter Erin, then 15, lying on the roadside on the night of
January 3rd, 2009.

“Daddy, Daddy, get them off me,” she kept moaning. The girl was
semi-conscious, and was soaking wet because her assailants had put her
under a shower to wash vomit and menstrual blood off her after they
gang-raped her.

Séamus T, an Irishman who left Dublin 25 years ago, continues his job as
an executive in a mechanical contracting firm, but he has spent much of
the past year seeking justice for Erin.

The ordeal started as a cosy reunion of three high-school girls after the
holidays. Séamus T dropped his daughter off at an apartment in
Gaithersburg, Maryland, at 8.30pm, and was to have picked her up three
hours later.

Boys showed up at the party. “They gave her ‘jungle juice’, 100 per cent
grain alcohol,” Séamus T explains. Doctors at Shady Grove hospital later
found Erin had almost three times the legal limit in her blood.

Three teenagers, then aged 16 and 17, planned the rape. One waited in the
bathroom while the other two dragged Erin in. When the district attorney
read through the medical report at a seven-hour hearing on September 30th,
Erin’s family heard how the attackers tore flesh on three of the girl’s
body orifices. She banged her head when she fell against the bath tub, and
was covered in bruises.

Had the three young men not boasted of their crime, they would not have
been identified, because Erin cannot remember the rape. They were arrested
in late February, spent a couple of months in jail, and were freed pending
the hearing.

Erin was taunted by other students, who accused her of “snitching”’ on the
rapists. The girl was so traumatised that she slept with her mother or
older sister until she went to live with relatives in Nevada, at her
request.

The case shifted from adult to juvenile court, and Séamus T learned in
September that two of the three rapists were back at Magruder High School.
He filed a complaint with the board of education, and succeeded in having
them transferred.

“My daughter was the only white kid at the party,” Séamus T says.

“I don’t think the attack was racially motivated, but there were racial
and class undertones in the courtroom. On one side you had the three
rapists, an aunt and two single mothers, all African-Americans. On the
other side, everyone was white and middle class.”

Montgomery county circuit court judge Steven Salant so enraged Séamus T
that he filed a complaint with the Maryland Commission on Judicial
Disabilities, the body that disciplines judges, on the grounds his
daughter “was not treated with dignity and respect” as required by the
state constitution.

Salant did not respond to The Irish Times’s request for comment, which was
made through the court’s spokesman.

Séamus T says Salant blamed the victim and made excuses for the rapists,
who he sentenced to probation only. As recounted by the Gaithersburg
Gazette newspaper, the judge described the gang-rape as “horrific”, but
focused on Erin’s behaviour on the night of the party.

The victim was drunk and “engaged in risky and provocative behaviour” such
as sitting on people’s laps and talking about “hooking up”, Salant said in
court. “This was a disaster waiting to happen . . . There was a dynamic at
work here.

“There were things going on here. It doesn’t make the respondents any less
worthy of blame, but what it does mean is I have to determine whether what
we have here is sexual predators or respondents who . . . did not get that
when a girl is intoxicated and presents herself in that manner you do not
take advantage.”

“We were devastated as a family. We were destroyed,” says Séamus T.

“We went to court expecting some compassion. The system is upside down and
backwards. The judge was worried about the rapists staying in school,
getting evaluated, getting counselling and transportation. Everything is
lavished on them. Nobody knocked on my door and said, ‘I’ll show you
through the system’.”

Séamus T’s appeals to first lady Michelle Obama, Maryland governor Martin
O’Malley and state attorney John McCarthy have gone unanswered. He was
treated with kindness by the Irish Embassy, which promised to intervene if
he felt he was not being treated as a US citizen would be.

The state legislature has provided the most hope of redress.

Kathleen Dumais, a Maryland state delegate, and Nancy King, a Maryland
state senator, have taken up the case. Dumais is drafting legislation that
would ban juvenile sex offenders from attending normal public schools and
place their names on a register. If passed, it may be called Erin’s law.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqYhCJKPtaE&feature=player_embedded