A Death in Wichita

by Stephen Singular

  “In other words, Dr. Neuhaus can refuse to consult with Dr. Tiller’s patients at any time, and Dr. Tiller can stop referring patients to Dr. Neuhaus at any time. Neither is contractually, that is, legally obligated towards one another in any way to accept or give referrals to or from the other. The evidence will also be clear that Dr. Neuhaus and Dr. Tiller are never knowingly and intentionally financially affiliated in any way. Dr. Tiller never pays any money or anything of value to Dr. Neuhaus, whether as salary, stock ownership, investment, profit or expenses. Dr. Neuhaus is always paid directly by the patients themselves and usually in cash, because Dr. Neuhaus doesn’t want to have to worry about whether a check is going to bounce…Dr. Neuhaus meets separately with each patient and conducts her own independent evaluation of the patient. Dr. Neuhaus keeps her own files on the patients…”

  If Neuhaus recommended that Tiller not do an abortion on a patient, he accepted her view and didn’t seek another opinion. She wasn’t paid any differently if an abortion was or was not performed.

  “Dr. Tiller and Dr. Neuhaus,” Monnat said, “have no shared bank accounts, they have no shared equipment leases or purchases. They have no profit sharing. Dr. Neuhaus maintains her own policy of malpractice insurance and is not covered by Dr. Tiller’s. Dr. Neuhaus has a separate Medicare reimbursement number and a separate Canadian health care system number. Dr. Tiller files income taxes completely separate from Dr. Neuhaus’s obligation to do so.

  “The evidence will show that the evaluations are scheduled and done at Women’s Health Care Services, not because Dr. Neuhaus and Dr. Tiller are affiliated but because it is too unsafe, complicated and obnoxious to ask pregnant women who have come to Kansas for an abortion to turn around and then drive two and a half hours to Lawrence for a second evaluation, turn around and drive back, both times having to withstand the ever-present gauntlet of protesters out in front of the clinic who will approach them, heckle them and try to discourage them…Actions taken merely by both doctors for the safety and comfort of their patients do show each doctor’s affiliation with the patient, but they don’t show any affiliation between Dr. Neuhaus and Dr. Tiller.”

  Dr. Neuhaus, Monnat conceded, occasionally used the WHCS printer, but always paid for the paper and the toner she consumed.

  “She used a Tiller car in 2006,” he said. “It was a 1997 Toyota Camry that I think belonged to Jeanne Tiller at one point that had been parked on the lot of Women’s Health Care Services, so that visiting doctors from time to time could use it to get around…Dr. Neuhaus and Dr. Tiller, of course, were worried that somebody might suggest that if she bought the car from Dr. Tiller that would be some kind of financial affiliation. So very conscientiously they had the car appraised by a dealership in Wichita who gave them a $300 figure for what this kind of junker car was worth with its bashed-in side and bashed-in rear end, and that’s what Dr. Neuhaus paid to Dr. Tiller, and I submit that will be insufficient to establish the affiliation in 2003 that the prosecution is required to…

  “The evidence will show Dr. Neuhaus didn’t shut down her women’s clinic in Lawrence because she is making so much money from these consults. Really, she charged $250 to $300 for each consult in part because she saw it as a humanitarian thing to do for other women who were in desperate circumstances. Dr. Neuhaus is…married to Michael Caddell, who is a private investigator in Lawrence, Kansas. Unfortunately, in about August of 2002, as their five-year-old son was starting kindergarten…they learned for the first time that their son suffered from severe juvenile onset diabetes and that he needed to have his blood sugar checked five to six times a day and needed to have insulin injections twice a day. Now, what can a mother who also happens to be a medical doctor do for her only child under those circumstances? Dr. Neuhaus does it. She shuts down her women’s clinic in Lawrence so that she can be with her son and watch over her son during this critical time.

  “The evidence…will fail to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Dr. Tiller was knowingly and intentionally legally or financially affiliated with Dr. Neuhaus at any time…I will ask each of you to return a fair verdict of not guilty and permit Dr. Tiller to return to continuing to serve the women who so need his medical care. Thank you very much.”

  The anti-abortion protesters, both inside and outside the courtroom, were further upset when Barry Disney called only one witness, Dr. Kristin Neuhaus, a close ally of Tiller’s who underscored this when she came in to testify by hugging the doctor in front of the jury. After her earlier dealings with Phill Kline and the attorney general’s office, she was so fearful of the prosecution that she’d sought and obtained immunity from the state before agreeing to testify at the trial. Her hostility to Disney on the witness stand no doubt contributed to his lack of passion for the case.

  She told the jurors that she’d received death threats because of her work with Tiller and could never give out her home address to anyone she didn’t personally know. If WHCS received a call from somebody asking for her cell or home number, it was usually from abortion foes trying to find out where she lived so they could come to her house and demonstrate. Some female “patients” who’d tried to contact her were impostors just looking to harass her. She sounded permanently afraid.

  Once Disney had finished questioning her, Monnat asked her about being subpoenaed by Kline in December of 2006, as he was about to leave office.

  “At the beginning of that Inquisition,” Monnat said, “it was announced to you that also in the room was Special Agent Jared Reed of the Attorney General’s Office, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Special Agent in Charge Tom Williams of the Kansas Attorney General—is that correct?”

  “That’s right…”

  “And you were questioned then by Mr. Steven Maxwell. Did you regard him as Phill Kline’s number one man?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And just share with the ladies and gentlemen of the jury what it felt like being interrogated under those circumstances.”

  “The Inquisition, minus the torture chamber. You know, the Spanish Inquisition. That’s what I felt like.”

  “You told that attorney [Maxwell] sometimes the women were too chemically impaired to make an informed decision on anything at that moment and so you would not refer them to Dr. Tiller for an abortion, correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “You told that attorney sometimes the women’s cognitive processes were too impaired to make a decision and they didn’t have a guardian with them, correct?”

  “Correct…”

  One patient had flown all the way from England to Wichita, but Dr. Neuhaus turned her down for an abortion.

  How did she feel about being called a “rubber stamp” for Dr. Tiller?

  “Well, it’s outrageous,” she testified. “I always put the patient at the center of every interaction. I would not be able to live with doing other than that…I always find that to be my highest and most important duty, to never facilitate harm for anyone. And this is a very, very serious process and a very difficult decision for people…And I don’t want to make a mistake…

  “If someone tells me right off the bat that they have reservations, I would never proceed. I…make sure that every aspect of their health—their physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual health—are all being addressed.”

  On redirect examination, Disney wasn’t as friendly with his witness—not after Neuhaus said that the trial was a political prosecution of Tiller and it was “open season” on doctors who performed abortions. Disney asked if she’d considered that Tiller could have provided patients with a list of physicians willing to give a second opinion, instead of just repeatedly relying on Neuhaus herself.

  “The question is so illogical,” she said, “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Just say yes, ma’am, or no.”

  “It’s an illogical question…”

  “So you didn’t consider it?”

  “It’s impossible. It’s
a ridiculous question.”

  During the trial, Roeder sat a few feet away from George and Jeanne Tiller, watching the couple and listening to the state’s case with deepening dismay.

  XXVIII

  The prosecution rested and the defense called Dr. Tiller. He talked about his background, along with the 1986 bombing of his clinic and being shot in the arms by Shelley Shannon in 1993. Monnat asked about the protests going on today at WHCS.

  “On Wednesday at noon,” Tiller said, “we have one or two or three men who come over and drag a kitchen table onto the sidewalk that’s outside of our elevated fence—a privacy, security fence. These one or two people stand up on a table with a bullhorn yelling…over the fence [and] describing the patients, ‘You, getting out of the red car. Don’t go in there. Don’t kill your baby.’ Intensive, unpleasant intimidation.”

  Why, Monnat asked, don’t you just quit?

  “Quit is not something that I like to do. Why have we continued? First, the strong support of…my wife, the strong support of my daughters, the strong support of my son. I remember one time during one of the protests, we were under a lot of pressure and…two of my daughters came into my study…and they said to me, ‘Daddy, if not now, when? If not you, who?’ And that means who is going to stand up for women with unexpected or badly damaged babies? Who was going to be their protector—if you won’t—and when was that going to happen?”

  Tiller’s reference to his daughters and his wife, Jeanne, who was watching the proceedings, was part of a conscious strategy. With her short, stylish frosted hair, her understated but tasteful clothes, and a face that conveyed strength and suffering, compassion and endurance, Jeanne looked like someone who’d walked every step of his treacherous medical journey with her husband throughout the past three-plus decades. If she and her daughters felt that he had the best interests of women at heart, how could others, and especially other women serving on the jury, dispute that?

  “Doctor,” Monnat said, “as you sit here today, do you feel the extreme pressure that you’re always under as a provider in this dangerous situation?”

  He nodded and said, “Yes.”

  On the trial’s final day, another defense lawyer, Laura Shaneyfelt, asked the Tiller attorney Rachel Pirner if the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts had ever found any wrongdoing by the physician.

  “No,” Priner said.

  “Were there any follow-up inquiries or any subpoenas issued by the Board of Healing Arts regarding any issue regarding any financial or legal affiliation between Dr. Neuhaus and Dr. Tiller?”

  “No.”

  “Did anyone from the board ever raise any concern to you…about any improper or unlawful affiliation with those two doctors?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Early spring in Kansas can bring a rare blizzard, and one was brewing throughout Friday, March 27, as the lawyers made their closing arguments. By afternoon the storm had begun rolling in from the west, ice and snow covering downtown Wichita, emptying the streets and making everyone in the courthouse eager to get home for the weekend. Once the arguments were finished, the jury went into its deliberations, contacting the judge less than thirty minutes later to announce they’d reached a decision. As they walked back into the courtroom and prepared to deliver their verdict, security personnel in the courthouse was increased and put on high alert. Tiller’s enemies, as well as his supporters, had gathered in court to hear the outcome. But by then Roeder was back in Kansas City.

  Members of the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Department formed a wall between the doctor and his defense team, and the gallery of spectators sitting behind them; rumors had been circulating that if Tiller was acquitted, somebody planned to throw battery acid in his face. The moment both sides had been praying for had arrived. The anti-abortionists had waited nearly thirty-five years for Tiller to be found guilty of a crime and go on to lose his career. The defense hoped that if he were found not guilty, he could finally move away from his legal troubles and focus solely on practicing medicine.

  With everyone in place, Judge Owens asked the jury for their verdict, which was followed by several moments of silence.

  “Not guilty,” came the reply, again and again. Not guilty on count one and on all eighteen subsequent counts.

  Relief seeped out from around the defense table, with smiles and quiet congratulations and a few tears. Tiller and his lawyers embraced with hugs and backslaps, certain that the Kline-Morrison saga was at an end and the doctor could relax this weekend and go back to work afresh on Monday morning. He might even be able to stop paying some of these attorneys’ fees and focus more resources on his clinic and staff.

  The gallery disbanded without incident and rode the elevators down to the lobby, a few of them bitterly discussing the outcome. The jurors had finished their courtroom obligations, but for security reasons they’d have to be led to their cars by armed guards because protesters were lingering outside. Prior to putting on their coats, and despite their eagerness to leave before the snow got any deeper, they wanted to perform one more civic duty inside the courthouse—something beyond the normal boundaries of due process. The jury foreman asked the judge if they could write a note and have him pass it along to Tiller and his lawyers. Judge Owens agreed to this and the note was quickly composed and delivered. It pleased Dan Monnat about as much as the verdict had.

  “Dr. Tiller,” he says, “was confident throughout the process that led up to the trial and throughout the trial itself. He liked to say ‘Attitude Is Everything’ and his confidence never wavered. He believed in the goodness of the people of Wichita and in their awareness and decency. He felt that if he took the witness stand, he could explain to them the integrity and legality of what he did. In the middle of all these fractured personalities who were involved in Kansas politics, he followed a moral compass and remained confident of his own innocence.

  “The six jurors who heard the evidence in this trial showed us a lot about the greatness of our jury system and its continuing viability. That system still does what it was designed to do five hundred years ago, when it was used to protect people against monarchs. It gives defendants the right to counsel, to trial by jury, and the chance to confront your accuser through cross-examination. In this case, it showed that the jury felt that the charges were absolutely without basis.

  “A twenty-five-minute verdict in Kansas of not guilty on nineteen counts of performing illegal abortions is very clear evidence of a jury’s belief in the rightness of what Dr. Tiller was doing. In the note they gave him after the verdict, they wanted him to know they were happy to do this for him, and they were proud that a safe, secure, and sanitary clinic existed for these operations, as opposed to the back alleys and motel rooms women had once used to get abortions.”

  Not everyone, of course, felt this way about the verdict. The Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of Washington’s Christian Defense Coalition, told The New York Times that it was “a setback.” Both Phill Kline and Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, publicly expressed disappointment in how the state had presented its case, but showed restraint. One prominent figure did not and spoke out against the jurors’ decision with the loudest voice of all, as he’d been doing for the past several years on the most-watched cable talk show on evening television. On the day of the verdict, Bill O’Reilly said on the air, “Now, we have bad news to report, that Tiller the baby killer out in Kansas—acquitted. Acquitted today of murdering babies. I wasn’t in the courtroom. I didn’t sit on the jury. But there’s got to be a special place in hell for this guy.”

  Seven days later, O’Reilly reiterated on Fox, “Tiller got acquitted in Kansas, Tiller the baby killer.”

  Then a few weeks after that O’Reilly said that Governor Sebelius “recently vetoed a bill that placed restrictions on late-term abortions in Kansas. The bill was introduced because of the notorious Tiller the baby killer case, where Dr. George Tiller destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth
date for five thousand dollars.”

  The afternoon of the verdict, as the wind picked up and the sky turned grayer and the blizzard descended on Wichita, George and Jeanne Tiller prepared to leave the courthouse and go home. One attorney who’d been practicing law in the city for twenty-five years saw them standing off by themselves, smiling and quietly celebrating their victory. Like so many others in Wichita, he was aware of the Tiller family and their legal ordeals, and this image stayed with him.

  “They looked so relieved and happy that day, with the trial behind them,” he said months later. “As I watched them in that moment, I tried to imagine what their lives had been like for the past several decades and what they’d lived through as a couple. I thought about the threats and their fears. The truth is that I really couldn’t imagine it.”

  XXIX

  With the case over and Dr. Tiller acquitted, Kamran Tehrani once again heard his roommate talking angrily on the phone in their Westport apartment. Speaking with the woman from Operation Rescue, Roeder was more upset than ever. Why hadn’t Disney called more witnesses? Why hadn’t he been more aggressive with Neuhaus? If this was the best the state of Kansas could do…

  “Scott just felt that Tiller’s lawyer,” says Kamran, “had just shredded the Operation Rescue argument.”

  For the anti-abortionists, only one more hope existed. Immediately after the verdict, the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts, no longer headed by Larry Buening, announced that it disagreed with the Wichita jurors, so the board itself might take steps to revoke Tiller’s license. Some in the anti-abortion movement took solace in this possibility, but Roeder wasn’t one of them. He’d been hearing such things for the past two or three years and nothing had changed. How long would it take for this process to unfold, and what if Tiller’s legal team crushed the KSBHA as easily as they had the attorney general’s office?