Abortion Practitioner George Tiller’s Hearing Only Delaying His Eventual Downfall
by Mary Kay Culp
November 20, 2008
LifeNews.com Note: Mary Kay Culp is the executive director of Kansans for Life, a statewide pro-life organization. She has closely followed the exploits of Kansas abrotion practitioner George Tiller for years.
George Tiller has been charged with 19 misdemeanors for performing late-term abortions without the requisite referral from an unaffiliated second physician. These criminal charges were filed in June 2007 by former Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison — instead of reinstating the more substantive, and serious, charges filed by former AG Phill Kline in December 2006, but dropped for jurisdictional reasons.
In September, after more than a year of consideration, Judge Clark Owens rejected Tiller’s initial motions and ruled the Kansas 1998 late-term law constitutional, setting Tiller’s trial to begin March 16, 2009.
Tiller’s attorneys then quickly moved to dismiss all charges and were granted a special hearing, beginning Monday Nov.17. Their claim is that Tiller was selectively targeted by a biased Kline and that evidence was obtained wrongfully, aided by a biased judge.
While Tiller’s trashing of Phill Kline is just more of the same (Tiller was responsible for 6 “Snoop Dog Kline” postcard mailings prior to the 2006 Kline/Morrison election), Tiller’s dilemma now is in trying to discredit a man (Paul Morrison) whose election he spent 1.2 million dollars (and those postcards) to secure!
To that end, Tiller’s legal team has decided on a strategy of claiming Morrison only charged Tiller at the urging of his mistress Linda Carter, at the time employed by Kline.
Tiller’s solution to the ironic dilemma of having to discredit Morrison, a man he spent $1.2 million to elect, by claiming his mistress made him do it, is not only ridiculous, it’s irrelevant: either the facts of the two abortionists’ illegal financial affiliation will hold up at the trial Tiller is so desperately trying to avoid through these hearings, or they will fail.
If the state, under new AG Steve Six, had discovered any fraud in the evidence they intend to present, he would have had the case dismissed.
While these hearings are ostensibly about substantive prosecutorial misconduct, the truth is that it is nothing more than a last-ditch effort by Tiller to escape charges backed now by, count them, three Kansas Attorney Generals, plus a District Court judge who found probable cause to believe crimes have been committed.
The added bonus for Tiller, however, is a forum in which to once again demonstrate what’s in store for elected officials who dare to take him on.
The state’s case against the motion to dismiss the charges and suppress the evidence:
The state’s case is being prosecuted by Assistant Attorney General Barry Disney. Although not yet cited in the media, his written rebuttal to Tiller’s complaints of prosecutorial misconduct, selective investigation and bias on the part of Judge Richard Anderson concludes that the March trial against Tiller certainly should go forward. Here are a few points showing why the Attorney General stands behind this case.
· Unlike ordinary defense strategies, the evidence needed to support Tiller’s allegation of improper prosecutorial targeting must meet demanding criteria because it is so serious; it is, in effect, asking the judicial branch to interfere with the operation of the executive branch (a prosecutor). Disney argues Tiller sorely lacks such evidence.
· Disney says Tiller’s brief "failed to establish that he was singled out" or "that the investigation was initiated with a discriminatory purpose. Instead, the evidence will show that [Kline’s] investigation was undertaken for the legitimate purpose of insuring that abortions were being performed in a legal manner as required by law."
· Disney cites many legitimate factors shaping the investigation of Tiller including that Tiller had continuous access to many underage pregnant girls and that he regularly filed written KDHE abortion reports that could be used as evidence.
· Tiller’s legal brief fails to persuade there were other entities similarly situate d to Tiller left uninvestigated. Kline investigated the only two late-term abortion providers in Kansas (Planned Parenthood and Tiller) as well as registered births to minors.
· Tiller also complains of outrageous conduct by Kline and misrepresentations or factual omission used to secure subpoenas for abortion records. But, Disney argues that the AG’s office was well within its duty, and “it would be surprising for any investigator to reveal to the target of a subpoena exactly why the records were requested.”
· Disney’s brief states that "none of the conduct that the defendant [Tiller] complains of, even if true, is illegal criminal conduct." This contradicts the precedents cited by Tiller in his defense brief, since they were based on illegal government activity.
· Disney argues that even if there had been outrageous conduct, it does not carry over to the current prosecution because Morrison did his own investigation. This included verifying the status of the financial arrangement between Drs. Tiller and Neuhaus, the two consulting abortionists who were statutorily bound to be legally and financially unaffiliated. And, once again, Tiller’s briefs cited “comparable” cases that are not on point.
· Disney wonders that if Tiller’s claim that Morrison only filed criminal charges to please his mistress –according to a single newspaper story—were true, why then were the lesser misdemeanor charges filed, instead of Kline’s preferable more substantive criminal charges?
· Tiller’s brief spends many pages challenging the way evidence was obtained from SRS, KDHE and Dr. Neuhaus prior to the subpoena of his own records. However, Disney points out that those actions are irrelevant to Tiller. No rights to privacy exist for Tiller as regards the regulations of his medical field or property that belongs to a public agency, much less Dr. Neuhaus’ business records.
· Regardless of the manner that Kline developed his case about child abuse and abortion reporting, Disney points out, "Whether KDHE records can be subpoenaed for reasonable suspicion of any crime is irrelevant…[those records] are not essential to this prosecution as long as defendant [Tiller] and Dr. Neuhaus’ records remain available as evidence…The state should not be punished for using a less intrusive means of investigation before subpoenaing defendant’s records directly."
As shown above, the Kansas Attorney General’s office disagrees with Tiller’s assertion that the original Inquisition action by Kline was based on false facts. Six’s office also disputes that an Attorney General needs to have reasonable suspicion to start an inquisition investigation. Reasonable suspicion is needed to issue subpoenas, not to start an inquisition, and Judge Richard Anderson, who approved the subpoenas, said the evidence far exceeded that.
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