Monnat & Spurrier | Monnat & Spurrier Attorneys at Law

Jan 22, 2008
Monnat & Spurrier

Kansas City Star and Wichita Eagle staff reports

The two sides in the nation’s debate on abortion will mark today’s 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade with their usual rallies and speeches.

But this year, there are signs that not all is the same on the national or local level.

The newly configured U.S. Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge in April to the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, allowing the law to go into effect for the first time since it was signed by President Bush in 2003. Some abortion-rights supporters fear the landmark ruling is the first step toward overturning the 1973 law that established a constitutional right to abortion.

In Kansas, grand juries seated through citizen petitions are investigating Planned Parenthood of Overland Park and abortion doctor George Tiller of Wichita.

And a new national study from the Guttmacher Institute shows abortions have dropped to their lowest level since 1974.

Abortion opponents are pleased with what they see.

“It’s been a long fight and a very hard-fought fight on both sides,” said Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life. “So I am encouraged, but I’m always cautious” about predicting what the future holds.

ProKanDo director Julie Burkhart, whose group supports abortion rights, finds the high court ruling and the grand jury investigations disheartening.

“Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land and has been for 35 years,” Burkhart said, “but we have seen a constant chipping away” by abortion opponents.

The partial-birth abortion ban sets the stage for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, she said, or at least stripped of many of its protections. The ban lacks an exception to protect a woman’s health, according to its interpretation by Roe v. Wade supporters.

Status of abortion rights

Burkhart and the Kansas organizer for the National Organization for Women say the chipping away of reproductive rights is obvious in Sedgwick and Johnson counties, where grand juries are in session.

NOW organizer Marla Patrick of Lindsborg said abortion opponents have taken an “antiquated” Kansas law that allows citizens to seat grand juries and used it to harass Tiller and Planned Parenthood.

Abortion opponents have put a lot of roadblocks in Kansas and elsewhere, Patrick said, but she does not think they will ever succeed in criminalizing abortion.

However, Troy Newman, leader of Operation Rescue, believes that the picture of abortion is much different today than it was in the early 1990s.

“Honestly, the pro-life movement has never been sitting in a better position to win this battle,” Newman said.

The grand jury now meeting in Wichita has helped keep pressure on Tiller when prosecutors and lawmakers did not, he said.

“A grand jury, hopefully, would provide an independent investigation, because the prosecutors in this state are not prosecuting the law, on its face,” Newman said.

Dan Monnat, a Wichita lawyer who represents Tiller, said that local and state prosecutors have found little wrong with the doctor’s practices, as has the state Board of Healing Arts.

“Unfortunately, there are a small number of extremely loud people who have organized a no-holds-barred campaign designed to take these rights away from women,” Monnat said.

The abortion controversy remains at center stage in Wichita because Tiller is one of the few in the country who performs late abortions, he said.

A new tactic

Monday, on the eve of the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Operation Rescue announced that it was starting a new tactic.

Newman, and Cheryl Sullinger, also of Operation Rescue, have been taking pictures of some of the women, who they think look like they’re in their late stages of pregnancy, entering Tiller’s clinic.

Monday, Operation Rescue posted pictures of women on its Web site. Their faces were obscured.

Newman said these are patients of Tiller seeking to abort their pregnancies.

“It’s an abortion clinic,” he said. “They perform abortions.”

Not every woman who goes to into the Women’s Health Services clinic goes there for an abortion, Monnat said. And posting their photographs publicly puts them in danger.

“You and I may not be able to recognize the women, but they now have to shoulder the burden of worrying about whether a relative, a pastor, a teacher, an abusive partner or a work colleague may recognize them as they entered doctor Tiller’s clinic on a specified date,” Monnat said.

“These women, if indeed they are even patients, did absolutely nothing wrong and did nothing to justify being subjected to public scrutiny,” Monnat said. “They simply, at most, sought health care, to which they are entitled under the laws of the United States.”

The demonstrations continue today.

A group of Tiller’s supporters plan a public demonstration from 7 to 10 a.m. today in front of Tiller’s clinic, 5107 E. Kellogg.

Operation Rescue will hold a candlelight vigil and prayer service at 6 p.m. today outside the clinic.

Jan 19, 2008
Associated Press
-
by Roxana Hegeman

A citizen-petitioned grand jury investigating Wichita abortion provider George Tiller has heard from abortion opponents who want to close Tiller’s clinic, according to a spokeswoman for an anti-abortion group.

Jurors this week heard from David Gittrich, state development director for Kansas for Life, and Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue. Grand jury testimony is secret, and the two anti-abortion activists have sworn an oath not to discuss their testimonies.

Operation Rescue spokeswoman Cheryl Sullenger said Gittrich testified Monday and Newman testified Wednesday. She showed the Associated Press the contents of binders the group was preparing for each grand juror before Newman’s testimony and said later the grand jury allowed the binders in.

The binders — which included dated, blurred photographs of women purportedly in their late pregnancies — were designed to prompt the grand jury to subpoena their medical records, Sullenger said. The medical records obtained earlier by former Attorney General Phill Kline were of 2003 abortions, and the group wants the grand jury to look at late-term abortions still being performed at the clinic.

“We are not going to have prosecution of late-term abortion without them subpoenaing medical records,” Sullenger said.

Tiller’s defense attorneys, Lee Thompson and Dan Monnat, issued a statement Friday denouncing the grand jury investigation as a “grandstand for anti-choice zealots” when told by the AP of the testimony and binders.

“It’s hard to think of anything more telling of the true nature of this grand jury proceeding than having the self-appointed leader of Operation Rescue testify. What is supposed to be a legal proceeding has now devolved into a bonfire for religious and political zealots by which to preach against women’s right to abortion,” the attorneys said in a joint statement.

Tiller’s attorneys contend the grand jury has been “poisoned” by Newman’s rhetoric and anything it does now lacks credibility and any semblance of a fair and impartial deliberation.

Gittrich declined to discuss his grand jury testimony other than to tell the AP he provided jurors with his own documentation. “All I can say is they seemed a pretty conscientious group of people seeking the truth,” he said.

Among the contents of the binders Newman gave the grand jury were copies of the thwarted criminal complaint filed by Kline against Tiller, as well as information from Paul McHugh, the former director of the psychiatry department at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Kline hired McHugh to review patient records before that case was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.

The binders also included copies of the citizen petition that formed the grand jury, showing a request for an independent prosecutor to lead the investigation. Abortion opponents had demanded a special prosecutor because of what they claim is Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston’s failure to investigate Tiller’s abortion practices.

Also in the binder were photos of women apparently in the late terms of their pregnancies. The photos were taken by telephoto lens as the women went into the clinic. The photos were dated from Sept. 4 to Nov. 13 of last year. The women’s faces were blurred in the photos to protect their identities.

“We can feel sorry for these women because of their situations, but it is not legal,” Sullenger said. The group plans a news conference Monday to publicly release the photographs.

“That Operation Rescue would make public photos of women seeking health care, shows its utter disregard for the privacy rights of women and demonstrates that it will stoop to any level to forward its political agenda,” Tiller’s defense attorneys said.

Kansas law restricts abortions performed after the 21st week of pregnancy, when a fetus can survive outside the womb. In those cases, two doctors must conclude that a woman faces death or “substantial and irreversible” harm to a major bodily function.

Sullenger conceded the photographs given to the grand jury do not prove the late-term abortions performed on those women were illegal.

“What we are doing is drawing a circumstantial-evidence case,” Sullenger said.

By ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press

Jan 09, 2008
by Ron Sylvester

Before a Sedgwick County judge swore in a grand jury Tuesday, both sides of the investigation into a Wichita abortion clinic cried foul.

Retired Judge Paul Buchanan declined to hear attempts by both sides to impede the process of empaneling a 15-member grand jury on a petition from abortion opponents to investigate the Women’s Health Care Services.

Kansans for Life and Operation Rescue are upset that the prosecutor in charge of guiding the grand jury works for Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston, a Democrat.

On Tuesday, they asked Buchanan to dismiss Foulston’s office and appoint special counsel.

Ann Swegle, a deputy district attorney under Foulston, is the prosecutor of record for the grand jury, according to the instructions given to the panel Tuesday.

Although grand jury investigations are closed, some of the filings, such as the instructions, are public.

Meanwhile, the attorneys for abortion provider George Tiller have filed repeated motions — from calling the grand jury “a witch hunt” to trying to prevent it from being empaneled.

Tiller is a doctor who performs late-term abortions. The anti-abortion groups want the grand jury to charge Tiller with violating state abortion laws.

Buchanan declined to hear arguments on the motions by either side, after Swegle pointed out that the law provides for no outside parties to make pleadings during a grand jury hearing.

Buchanan explained to jurors Tuesday that they, not the government, were in charge.

“You are not obliged to investigate any matter you choose not to investigate,” the jury’s instructions read.

The public has been able to petition to seat grand juries in Kansas since 1887. Prosecutors answer legal questions and help produce witnesses and evidence sought by the jurors.

That differs from federal law, under which prosecutors decide which cases to bring to a grand jury.

“State grand juries don’t need the signature of a prosecutor to file charges,” Buchanan told The Eagle.

The leader for Operation Rescue said he hoped for an aggressive prosecutor for this grand jury. That’s why Troy Newman said his group and Kansans for Life sought to disqualify Foulston’s office.

“We have a serious situation of the appearance of impropriety,” Newman said Tuesday.

Anti-abortion groups see Foulston as aligned with abortion rights supporters. Foulston has said the duty of her office is to follow the law.

Anti-abortion groups empaneled a grand jury in the spring of 2006 to look into the death of a woman who had visited Tiller’s clinic. The grand jury brought no charges in the woman’s death, echoing the findings of state medical authorities. The groups publicly blamed Swegle for not pushing the charges.

That fall, then-Attorney General Phill Kline tried to file criminal charges against Tiller in Wichita. Foulston pointed to a state law that said Kline needed her permission to file a case in her district. A district judge sided with Foulston and dismissed the charges.

“It’s all about abortion politics and abortion money,” Newman said. “The public has lost trust in this DA”

Tiller’s lawyers, meanwhile, said there would be no investigation without the push from the two anti-abortion groups.

“Hopefully the grand jurors will very quickly see that this proceeding is a political witch hunt brought by a few people who disagree with a woman’s constitutional right to choose, decide not to squander taxpayer money on it and go home,” said Wichita attorney Dan Monnat, who represents Tiller.

Grand juries may determine their own schedules but have 90 days in which to conduct their investigation. If they need more time, a judge has to approve it.

Tiller still faces 19 misdemeanor charges filed in June, accusing him of having an improper business relationship with another doctor who gave second opinions on late-term abortions at the clinic.

Both sides in that case are awaiting a judge’s ruling on a motion by Tiller to dismiss those charges.

By RON SYLVESTER

Dec 04, 2007
Associated Press
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by Carl Manning

TOPEKA, Kan. – A Sedgwick County grand jury will be convened Jan. 8 to investigate George Tiller, one of the nation’s few physicians who performs late-term abortions, the county announced Monday.

The process begins with selection of 15 people from a pool of more than 70 summoned for duty. It will take 12 members to approve any recommendation the panel might make. The grand jury can meet for up to 90 days, although that can be extended by the district court.

Last week, the Kansas Supreme Court dismissed a petition from the Wichita physician seeking to stop the grand jury.

The grand jury had been scheduled to convene Oct. 30. But the court put it on hold so that it could review Tiller’s petition challenging the legality of the proceedings.

The grand jury was initiated by a citizen petition drive led by abortion foes. Kansas is one of six states that permits citizens to petition to create a grand jury.

“We feel it is a completely politically motivated and completely unnecessary expenditure of taxpayer dollars,” Tiller’s attorneys, Dan Monnat and Lee Thompson, said in a written statement Monday.

Abortion foes contend Tiller has violated a 1998 state law restricting late-term abortions and that potential violations have been ignored for years. Tiller’s attorneys have said repeatedly that he has done nothing wrong.

This will be the second grand jury abortion foes have created through petition drives in 18 months to investigate Tiller. Last year, a grand jury reviewed the deaths of a Texas woman who had an abortion at Tiller’s clinic but issued no indictments.

In June, Attorney General Paul Morrison filed 19 misdemeanor charges against Tiller, alleging he failed to get a second opinion on some late-term abortions from an independent second physician, as required by law.

By CARL MANNING
Associated Press Writer

Nov 30, 2007
Associated Press
-
by Carl Manning

TOPEKA, Kan. – The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that a Sedgwick County grand jury investigation into a doctor who performs late-term abortions can go forward.

The ruling, issued Thursday, dismissed a petition filed last month by Dr. George Tiller, one of the nation’s few physicians who performs late-term abortions. He challenged the legality of the grand jury proceedings.

The grand jury investigation in Wichita, like one started in Johnson County looking into Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, was created by a citizen petition drive led by abortion foes.

Kansas is one of only six states that permits citizens to petition to create a grand jury.

Abortion foes hailed the ruling. Tiller’s attorneys, Lee Thompson and Dan Monnat, said in a statement issued Thursday that the petition drive was politically motivated.

“It’s been repeatedly determined that Dr. Tiller is innocent of any wrongdoing and we just regret that taxpayers’ dollars are now going to have to be spent to enable this grand jury to move forward,” they said.

A Johnson County district judge on Tuesday denied Planned Parenthood’s request to block the start of the panel, and the organization had planned to appeal. But Planned Parenthood attorney Bob Eye said Friday that the clinic would not appeal, saying the ruling issued in the Tiller case would likely apply to its case.

“We respect the court’s decision. We think the similarities would have resulted in the same decision, and we aren’t here to waste the court’s time,” Eye said.

Impaneling a 15-member grand jury in the Planned Parenthood case will begin Dec. 10 and it can meet for up to 90 days, although that can be extended by the district court. It takes 12 grand jurors to issue a recommendation.

Chief Judge Michael Corrigan in Sedgwick County said he didn’t know when the grand jury there will begin its work.

Operation Rescue President Troy Newman called Planned Parenthood’s decision another victory on top of the Supreme Court decision.

“We are celebrating these victories today and are looking forward to seeing justice done, both in Sedgwick and Johnson counties, through the grand jury process. We finally have some hope that the system is beginning to function as it should,” Newman said in a statement.

Abortion opponents want the grand jury to look into whether Planned Parenthood’s Overland Park clinic provided illegal late-term abortions. Eye said no late-term abortions are done at the clinic and Planned Parenthood is innocent of any wrongdoing.

Planned Parenthood already faces a 107-count criminal complaint filed by Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline in October. The complaint includes 29 misdemeanor counts of providing unlawful late-term abortions.

Kline, an anti-abortion Republican, started investigating Planned Parenthood in 2003 when he was attorney general. After a court battle, he eventually gained access to some of the clinic’s patient medical records.

Paul Morrison, an abortion-rights Democrat who defeated Kline last year to become attorney general, reviewed the records Kline obtained and found no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood.

However, Morrison filed 19 misdemeanor charges against Tiller in June, alleging Tiller failed to get a second opinion on some late-term abortions from an independent second physician, as required by law.

By CARL MANNING
Associated Press Writer

Nov 29, 2007
Associated Press
-
by Carl Manning

TOPEKA, Kan. – The state’s highest court says a Sedgwick County grand jury created by a citizen petition drive led by abortion foes can proceed with its investigation of Dr. George Tiller, one of the few physicians in the nation who performs late-term abortions.

The order issued Thursday allowing the grand jury to move forward also dismissed a petition filed last month by the Wichita physician challenging the legality of the grand jury proceedings. At that time, the court put the grand jury on hold until it could review the case.

“The petition should be and is herby denied, and the case is dismissed. Accordingly, the stay of the grand jury proceedings is lifted and the motions to intervene are dismissed as moot,” Chief Justice Kay McFarland wrote for the court.

Anti-abortion groups were part of a drive to collect enough signatures to force a grand jury investigation. Kansas is one of six states where residents can petition for a grand jury.

They used the same tactics to create a grand jury in Johnson County to investigate Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri which operates a clinic in Overland Park.

On Tuesday, a district judge rejected Planned Parenthood’s motion to stop that investigation but agreed to move back the date for convening the panel by a week to Dec. 10. Planned Parenthood said it would appeal.

As expected, Tiller’s attorneys, Lee Thompson and Dan Monnat, were unhappy with the ruling while abortion foes called it a triumph.

“We’re disappointed that today the Supreme Court didn’t put a halt to what is clearly a politically motivated grand jury,” the attorneys said in a statement. “It’s been repeatedly determined that Dr. Tiller is innocent of any wrongdoing and we just regret that taxpayers’ dollars are now going to have to be spent to enable this grand jury to move forward.”

Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansas for Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion organization, called it a “great ruling.”

“Too often in this world, the law changes when the issue is abortion and I’m gratified that didn’t happen in this case and the justices were true to the law and the people of Kansas,” she said.

Operation Rescue president Troy Newman called the ruling “a pleasant surprise,” adding, “Victories in the pro-life movement are precious and few and we will take every one we can get.”

The grand jury Tiller wanted to block is the second one abortion foes have forced the county to create in 18 months to investigate him. Last year, a grand jury reviewed the deaths of a Texas woman who had an abortion at Tiller’s clinic but issued no indictments.

Impaneling the grand jury had been scheduled to start Oct. 30 when the justices halted the proceedings.

Chief District Judge Michael Corrigan in Sedgwick County said he will set another date for impaneling a grand jury but he didn’t know when that would be.

He said some 70 people will be summoned and 15 will be sworn in. The panel can meet for up to 90 days, although that can be extended by the court. It takes 12 grand jurors to issue a recommendation.

Abortion foes say Tiller has violated a 1998 law restricting late-term abortions and that potential violations have been ignored for years. His attorneys have said repeatedly the allegations are unfounded and that he has been cleared in previous state investigations.

In June, Attorney General Paul Morrison filed 19 misdemeanor charges against, alleging he failed to get a second opinion on some late-term abortions from an independent second physician, as required by law.

But many abortion opponents believe Morrison, an abortion-rights Democrat, should have focused on allegations that Tiller violated restrictions designed to limit late-term abortions to medical emergencies.

The case is George R. Tiller, M.D., v. Honorable Michael Corrigan, presiding judge, Paul Buchanan, assigned senior judge, No. 99,434.

By CARL MANNING
Associated Press Writer

Nov 10, 2007
Associated Press

GODDARD, Kan. – A group of Republican legislators says the Kansas Supreme Court overstepped its authority when it put on hold a grand jury investigation into a Wichita doctor who is one of the nation’s few late-term abortion providers.

At a news conference at a Lake Afton lodge on Friday, the 17 legislators said the Supreme Court should allow Sedgwick County to move forward with empaneling a grand jury to investigate Dr. George Tiller.

The grand jury was initiated by anti-abortion groups that circulated citizen petitions. Kansas is one of the few states that allow citizens to petition to empanel a grand jury.

The court last month put the grand jury on hold in response to a petition filed Tiller. In the order, Chief Justice Kay McFarland said that it was issued “by virtue of the unique circumstances of this case and to allow full consideration of the petition.”

Tiller’s lawyer, Dan Monnat, said that politics, not the law, is the driving force against Tiller. He said the lawmakers at Friday’s conference “get re-elected by fomenting opposition to a woman’s right to choose.”

“I seriously doubt the court will be bullied by these politicians into acting more quickly or acting at all,” he said.

The Associated Press

Nov 02, 2007
by Ron Sylvester

A Sedgwick County District Court judge heard arguments, but did not rule, on whether the prosecution of a Wichita abortion provider is constitutional.

A lawyer for Wichita abortion provider George Tiller began presented arguments this afternoon, asking a Judge Clark Owens to dismiss the misdemeanor criminal charges against the doctor.

The state has charged Tiller with using a doctor who wasn’t sufficiently independent to handle referrals for late-term abortions performed in his clinic.

Lee Thompson told Owens that the Kansas law requiring doctors to get another referral before performing late-term abortions puts an “undue burden” on women, violating the U.S. Constitution.

Kansas law requires doctors such as Tiller to get referrals from other doctors within the state in order to perform abortions late in a woman’s pregnancy.

Thompson said Tiller gets referrals from doctors all over the nation, sending patients to get abortions because of dangers to their health .

“You can have a referral from the world’s foremost expert, but when you come to Kansas, it doesn’t count,” if the referring doctor is out of state, Thompson said.

“This law puts a whole Byzantine set of hurdles, which serve no logical purpose except to keep a woman from exercising her constitutional right to seek an abortion,” Thompson said.

Thompson said the doctor who provided the referrals worked out of Tiller’s office only for security reasons brought on by threats from abortion opponents.

Jared Maag, an assistant Kansas attorney general, said that if the law limited a woman’s right to obtain an abortion, then Tiller couldn’t operate.

“The number of abortions done belie his arguments,” Maag said.

“He performs thousands,” Maag added, referring to Tiller.

Maag said the question is simple: Did Tiller have an illegal association with a doctor who gave concurring medical opinions on the health status of women receiving late-term abortions in Wichita?

“We have evidence of that,” Maag said. “And that’s something a jury should decide.”

Through his lawyers, Tiller also asked Judge Owens to allow him to have a panel of 12 jurors. Usually jury trials in misdemeanor cases get a panel of six.

In the second part of the hearing, Dan Monnat argued on Tiller’s behalf that a Kansas law dictating that misdemeanor defendants receive only six jurors defies the state’s constitution.

Monnat said the state’s Supreme Court has said that Kansas adopted its bill of rights from Ohio’s constitution in 1859. But Ohio’s high court had ruled six years earlier that all criminal defense must have a jury of 12.

Arguments by the state that the U.S. Supreme Court had already approved six-member juries for misdemeanors, “isn’t comparing apples and oranges, but rather colonists and cowboys,” Monnat said.

“We don’t care what the framers of the U.S. Constitution meant,” Monnat said. “What we’re concerned with is what the framers of the Kansas constitution meant.

“You can also say we’re comparing Buckeyes and Jayhawks,” Monnat said.

Maag, however, argued that Kansas did pattern its bill of rights after the U.S. Constitution. Maag also pointed out that the Ohio case of 1853 has been overruled by that state’s Supreme Court.

“So Ohio does not have to be bound by that case, but Kansas does?” Maag said.

Maag said that even looking to common law history doesn’t point to any specific numbers for the “right to trial by jury.”

“It’s not set in stone; it never has been,” Maag said. “It’s up to the states to decide, and we have a law that does that.”

Judge Owens said he expected to take several weeks to rule on the constitutionality issue.

By RON SYLVESTER

Oct 27, 2007
by Hurst Laviana

The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday blocked plans to seat a grand jury next week to investigate the activities of Wichita abortion provider George Tiller.

“We will not start a grand jury on Tuesday as scheduled,” Sedgwick County Chief Judge Michael Corrigan said.

Corrigan said the Supreme Court granted an indefinite stay in the proceedings so it can consider a variety of legal issues raised in a legal petition filed by Tiller’s attorneys.

The order by Chief Justice Kay McFarland said it was issued “by virtue of the unique circumstances of this case and to allow full consideration of the petition.”

Anti-abortion groups forced Sedgwick County to call a grand jury to investigate Tiller by collecting nearly 7,900 signatures on a petition accusing him of violating a 1998 law that restricts late-term abortions.

Tiller’s attorneys repeatedly have denied the allegations. In their petition to the Supreme Court, the attorneys argued:

• That the grounds for the grand jury petition were derived from the illegal distribution of women’s health care records.

• That the attempted empanelment of the grand jury constitutes a bad-faith harassment of Tiller by political groups that are opposed to abortions.

• That the seating of the grand jury would interfere with a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

Dan Monnat, one of Tiller’s lawyers, said Friday’s ruling suggests the Supreme Court will take a serious look at those issues. He said he expected it to take a year or longer for the court to rule on the matter.

Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, said abortion opponents sought a grand jury because of Tiller’s influence in state politics and because potential violations of the law have been ignored for years.

“We don’t expect a lot out of this court when it comes to this issue, so I’m not overly surprised,” she said of Friday’s ruling. Culp’s group was heavily involved in the petition drive.

The grand jury Tiller wants to quash would be the second one that abortion foes have forced Sedgwick County to create in 18 months.

Last year, a grand jury returned no indictments after reviewing the case of a Texas woman who died after having an abortion at Tiller’s clinic.

Attorney General Paul Morrison, a Democrat, filed 19 misdemeanor charges against Tiller in June in Sedgwick County. Morrison alleges Tiller failed to get a second opinion on some late-term abortions from an independent physician, as required by state law.

Many abortion opponents believe Morrison should have focused on allegations that Tiller violated restrictions designed to limit late-term abortions to medical emergencies.

Sedgwick County isn’t the only place anti-abortion groups are using the grand jury power. Abortion opponents submitted a petition Friday asking Johnson County officials to form a grand jury to investigate a Planned Parenthood clinic in Overland Park.

Contributing: Associated Press

Reach Hurst Laviana at 316-268-6499 or [email protected].

By HURST LAVIANA

Sep 07, 2007
Associated Press

TOPEKA – It wasn’t the criminal trial abortion opponents had hoped for, but a legislative committee on Thursday allowed them to air a case against Wichita abortion provider George Tiller that was tossed out of court last year.

Anti-abortion groups also staged a small rally during a lunch break. About 40 people marched to the building that houses Attorney General Paul Morrison’s office, chanting for him to enforce a 1998 state law restricting late-term abortions and to resign for not being vigorous enough in prosecuting Tiller.

Morrison has filed 19 misdemeanors against Tiller in Sedgwick County, alleging the Wichita doctor didn’t obtain a second opinion on late-term abortions from an independent physician, as required by the law.

Many abortion foes say Tiller, one of a few U.S. doctors performing late-term abortions, should be prosecuted instead for performing such procedures for “trivial” reasons, not medical emergencies. Morrison’s predecessor, Phill Kline, brought such a case in December, only to see it dismissed for jurisdictional reasons.

The legislative committee reviewed a DVD recording of an interview with abortion opponents’ star witness, who said the mental health problems Tiller saw in patients couldn’t justify aborting viable fetuses.

A Wichita-area psychologist later said that assessment was wrong, though anti-abortion members of the committee were skeptical.

Meanwhile, Morrison’s office said playing the DVD could make it harder to find an impartial jury.

“I don’t know what, if any, repercussions that’s going to have,” Morrison said. “We’ll have to talk about it.”

Morrison didn’t attend the legislative hearing.

Tiller’s attorneys have repeatedly said he is innocent.

“This is just another attempt to dredge up the dismissed case peddled by Phill Kline,” said attorney Dan Monnat. “Dr. Tiller has fought for years to protect the privacy of the women’s medical files. It’s sad that once again, these women have to continue to wonder whether the content of their files is going to be exploited for political gain.”

The legislative committee’s hearing became the arena for reviewing allegations against Tiller because it is reviewing the 1998 late-term abortion law. It may recommend changes.

The law applies after the 21st week of pregnancy and when a fetus can survive outside the womb. For an abortion to be performed, two doctors must conclude that if the pregnancy continues, a woman or girl could die or face “substantial and irreversible” harm to “a major bodily function.” Also, the two physicians cannot be legally or financially affiliated.

Abortion opponents believe the law was meant to prevent doctors from aborting viable fetuses unless there was a medical emergency. More than 2,600 late-term abortions have occurred in Kansas since the law took effect.

Kline alleged that Tiller performed 15 abortions in 2003 when his patients suffered from conditions such as anxiety or single-episode depression.

Before Kline left office, he paid Paul McHugh, the former chairman of the psychiatry department at Johns Hopkins University, to review records from Tiller’s clinic. McHugh would have been an expert witness for the state had Kline’s case gone forward, and he’s still listed as a potential witness in Morrison’s case.

In June, two weeks before Morrison filed his charges, McHugh sat for a 44-minute interview arranged and recorded by abortion opponents.

“There’s no psychological condition for which abortion is the cure,” he said during the interview.

“We’re talking about the loss of a life, the life of a pain-feeling, sensory-feeling, fully organized human being,” he said of the late-term abortions. “These are the very kinds of little babies that are being taken care of in ICUs all around our country.”

After the committee reviewed McHugh’s interview, psychologist Douglas Mould of Benton testified that McHugh trivialized some of the mental problems women with unwanted pregnancies face. Mould said some potential problems, such as postpartum depression, could be serious enough to justify an abortion.

Abortion opponents also want to revive Kline’s case in court. On Wednesday, they presented a petition with more than 7,800 signatures, almost three times the number necessary, to force a grand jury to convene in Sedgwick County to investigate Tiller.

Associated Press

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