Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Judge drops 3 of 8 murder charges against Gosnell

The judge in the Kermit Gosnell dropped three of the eight murder charges against him today.  While Judge Jeffrey Minehart providing no reasoning for his decision, it seems the reason for the dismal is a lack of evidence that the babies were alive when Gosnell severed their spinal cords with scissors. One witness earlier in the trial said Gosnell killed around 100 babies in this manner, but finding physical evidence that he did not kill them first during the abortion was difficult for the prosecutors to find.

Gosnell’s defense attorney asked the judge to drop three of the charges for killing the babies and the judge agreed with the contention there was not enough evidence to convict Gosnell on those charges. Another charge of infanticide was also dropped. He still faces the other charges the prosecution has brought and the murder trial will continue on them.

One of the dropped charges involves a 28-week-old baby Gosnell killed and whose remains were kept in an abortion clinic freezer.

Common pleas court Judge Jeffrey Minehart also dropped five counts of corpse abuse at the request of his defense attorney Jack McMahon and did not explain his ruling dropping any of the charges.