Assassination of George Tiller Assassination of George Tiller On May 31, 2009, George Tiller, a physician from Wichita, Kansas who was nationally known for being one of the few doctors in the United States to perform late-term abortions, was murdered by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion extremist. Tiller was killed during a Sunday morning service at his church, Reformation Lutheran Church, where he was serving as an usher. Tiller had previously survived an assassination attempt when a woman shot him in the arms. Roeder was arrested within three hours of the shooting and charged with first-degree murder and related crimes two days later. In November
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