Legal Travesty or Justice?

I don't know what to make of this.

On Sunday, May 31 of last year, George Tiller was murdered while he was acting as a greeter in the foyer of the church he attended in Wichita, Kansas. Scott Roeder calmly walked up to him, pressed a .22 caliber pistol to his forehead, and pulled the trigger. Roeder was arrested shortly thereafter and charged with first-degree murder and other crimes.

His trial has just begun, and the presiding judge has already made a highly controversial and unexpected ruling. He ruled that Roeder can be allowed to argue to the jury that he committed voluntary manslaughter rather than first-degree murder.

You see, Roeder was an anti-abortion activist and his victim, Dr. George Tiller, was one of the only late-term abortion providers in the country. Roeder has openly maintained that his act was justified because he was defending the unborn's "right to life," and he will now be able to argue before a jury that his killing of Dr. Tiller was motivated by, in the words of Kansas' law defining 'voluntary maslaughter, ' "an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force." Those "circumstances" were, of course, the imminent abortion of late-term fetuses.

Prosecutors had expected this to be an open and shut case in which Roeder would be tried for first degree murder, found guilty, and sentenced appropriately. But the judge's ruling, if not reversed in the wake of the prosecutor's challenge, means that Roeder could be found guilty of a far lesser offense and released from prison within five years for his cold-blooded killing of a physician with legal license to perform late-term abortions.

Like I said, I don't know what to make of this, because I can readily see both sides of the issue. On the one hand, I believe that abortion should be permitted, and that people who kill doctors to prevent them from performing legal abortions should have the book thrown at them. But, on the other hand, I have reservations about late term abortions, and, more importantly in this case, it seems very clear to me that Roeder's actions follow the letter of the Kansas legal definition of "voluntary manslaughter." If we're a "nation of laws," shouldn't we follow the law even in cases like Roeder's?

Actually, I'm inclined to think that the law should be changed and the distinction between first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter eliminated. If you consciously intend to do what Roeder did and you do it, you should be put away for the rest of your life or even executed for it if there's capital punishment in your state. But that's not the way of Kansas' and, I suspect, other states' law. and I'm inclined to believe that the law should be followed.

Yet, what happens if we do follow the law in the Roeder case and he ends up serving five years or less in prison for what he did, as well as being hailed as a hero by anti-abortion activists? Who will be murdered next by one of these misguided souls in the aftermath of Roeder's relative "victory"?

Caring More About Cats Than Humans

Yesterday I blogged about the arrest of two teenage girls for burning a kitten, the public outrage surrounding this, and how society should treat these girls and these kinds of crimes. Today I want to briefly address another issue raised by this unpleasant story. I say "briefly address," not because I think this issue does not merit more lengthy discussion, but because I do not have very much to say about it at present yet, nevertheless, believe that I need to say something.

Last August a 16-year-old boy named Jose Ayala Ramirez was shot to death in the same apartment complex where the kitten was burned and the girls were arrested, and there was scarcely any mention of it in the press and virtually no public outcry over his death. Many residents of the complex resent this. "People are angry and it was wrong, but it bothers me that they're doing so much for the cats and when a person gets killed they just let it pass. It makes me angry that they're doing more for animals than for us," said one of the residents.

I can try to rationalize this disparity by arguing, as many have, that the murder was believed to be "gang-related" and that the boy who was killed may in some manner have caused what happened to him in a way that the completely innocent kitten could not have. I can further argue that even if a human life is worth more than a kitten's, there is something more disturbingly egregious about sadistically torturing a kitten by setting it on fire and laughing about it than there is about coldly shooting a young man in the head.

But when I look beneath these surface arguments into the depths of my soul, I see something that I do not like very much. I see that I actually care more about that kitten than I do about that young man and his grieving family and friends, and, ultimately, more about cats and animals in general than I do about a good many human beings. This is not how it should be, but this is how it is, and I do not quite know what to do about it.

Is God a Mass Murderer?

There's a new blog in town. It's called Biblical Bunk and is authored by someone who goes by the improbable name of Adonis Anacondus. His second post is titled Noah's Flood: Is Bible God a Mass Murderer? Here is the post:

Is Bible God a mass murderer of men, women, children, babies and fetuses?

If Noah's Flood actually took place and you worship or pray to Bible God does this mean that you condone mass baby murder?

Since Satan never killed anyone in the Bible does this mean he is Good and Bible God is Evil?

Why do Christians often declare they detest murder yet go to all lengths to defend what looks like the mass murder of Bible God?

This is how I replied:

The Bible literally says that God killed countless men, women, children, babies, and fetuses. So if we read it as literally true in these accounts, God killed all of these people. But did his killing constitute the "murder" you say it does? One definition of "murder" is: "The unlawful killing of one human by another." I often define murder as "unjustified homicide." Do God's killings meet the first definition? No, since the biblical God is not a human being. What about my second definition? Christians reply that since God is and does only good, he cannot do something that is unjustified; therefore, his homicides are justifiable. I think this is debatable, but I won't elaborate right now. Some Christians also reply that these stories should not necessarily be interpreted literally. Rather, they should be seen as metaphors authored by ancient people to eff ineffable truths about the awesomely incomprehensible nature of God. Thus, if you ask them what these metaphors tell us about the living God, they say that this can't be precisely expressed in literal language but can only be understood to any degree via some complex and prolonged process of faith-based study and contemplation.

I confess that I don't know what to make of all this. It seems to me that there can be no justification for God's literal acts of mass-killing; I can't imagine how even a metaphorical interpretation of them tells us anything valid about a true God who is truly as supremely loving, just, and merciful as Christians believe him to be; and, finally, if we aren't to interpret THESE stories as literal fact, why should we interpret miraculous stories about Jesus' virgin birth, unique divinity, and bodily resurrection as literally true? Yet, can someone who doesn't interpret them in this way be Christian? I understand that such a person cannot.

That is one reason why I do not consider myself Christian.

A Beacon in the Darkness

19-year-old Jennifer Ross died on an operating room table a week after being shot while resisting a robbery attempt on Christmas Eve night last year . On Saturday, her convicted killer, 26-year-old Michael Thorpe, cursed and flipped the bird at the judge who sentenced him to life in prison plus 40 years for the girl's murder. I don't believe in the death penalty, but I do believe that Thorpe deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison for his crime.

I don't know what caused Thorpe to commit his terrible crime or to brag about it afterward. But I'd like to think that his sentence may deter others from following in his footsteps and will, at the very least, prevent Thorpe himself from repeating his crime. Yet, even though I don't believe that Thorpe should ever be released from prison, I hope that he finds a way to redeem himself in prison and to help others do the same. His outburst in court would not seem to bode well for his chances of accomplishing this. But I'd like to believe that at the core of every human being lies the wondrous possibility of a quantum leap in personal transformation. I say "I'd like to believe" because I'm not sure I really do. I've been around too long and witnessed too much human violence and depravity to feel convinced that we all possess the magical capacity to rise above the baser aspects of our nature.

However, I believe without question that at least some of us are in touch with a profound and glorious wisdom and strength that virtually no hardship or injustice can steal from us. Jennifer Ross' mother, Coren, reflected this in her remarkable statement after the sentencing. Rather than lash out in hatred and bitterness against her daughther's killer, she opened her heart to pour out her grief over her and her family's loss: "We are broken, both individually and collectively," she said. "Rusty [Jennifer's father] will not walk Jennifer down the aisle at her wedding ... I will not caress her pregnant tummy." But she proceeded to speak of how her daughter's death has at least occasioned an impending deployment of surveillance cameras in busy areas that may discourage future crimes, and she dispelled the notion that race (her daughter was white while her killer and his accomplices were black) played a role in her daughter's murder or in the conduct and outcome of the trial by sagely observing, "Jennifer's murder galvanized and energized everyone who heard about it because it showcased two mentalities, one which still believes you must work for what you want, and one which believes that you can take what someone else has worked for."

Finally, Coren Ross displayed extraordinary compassion when she said of the mothers of her daugher's killers, "We mothers have a whole lot more in common than some people might expect. My heart just breaks for them." Previously, just before the trial, she had said, "I believe these young men to be victims as much as anything else. There is part of me that would say to them, 'I'm so sorry that your life brought you to this point.'"

I am awed and inspired by the beauty of this woman's unconditional love, wisdom, and compassion in the face of awful tragedy. May we find it in ourselves to follow her resplendent example through whatever "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" may befall us.