David Leach (activist) Scott Roeder, the convicted killer in the assassination of George Tiller, a doctor in Wichita, Kansas who performed late term abortions. Leach, who described Roeder as "anti-government," said he stopped to see Roeder in Kansas prior to 2009, after visiting Shelley Shannon in prison. (Shannon was convicted in 1993 of shooting Tiller in both arms outside his clinic.) Leach also conducted a telephone interview with Roeder in April, 2013. During this interview, Roeder issued further threats of violence, for which he was held in solitary confinement for 45 days. In an interview with the "Iowa Independent", Leach said that to
Assassination of George Tiller Roeder's attorneys appealed the conviction, arguing that the jury should have been given the voluntary manslaughter option. The Kansas Supreme Court heard the appeal on January 29, 2014, and rejected it, upholding Roeder's conviction, on October 24, 2014. On April 1, 2010, in Wichita, Kansas, Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert sentenced Roeder to a "Hard 50", meaning life in prison with no possibility of parole for 50 years, for the murder of Tiller, the maximum sentence available in Kansas, plus an additional two years for the two counts of aggravated assault. Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has altered