Abortion

Jury to Hear Case of Anti-choice Activist’s Threat to Dr. Mila Means

Dillard's plea to have a judge decide her case directly has been rejected.

Angel Dillard. Pitch.com.

It will be up to a jury to decide whether anti-choice “activist” Angel Dillard’s letter to Dr. Mila Means, a former abortion provider in Kansas, was in fact a “true threat.”

Via the Associated Press:

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten granted the government’s belated request for a jury trial against Angel Dillard. The Valley Center woman had wanted a judge, rather than a jury, to decide her case, arguing it will be difficult for jurors to set aside strong feelings about her association with Dr. George Tiller‘s murderer.

The judge said that the parties have ample time to prepare for the Feb. 5 trial.

“No strong or compelling reason exists to justify removing from the hands of the jury the resolution of the facts of this case,” Marten wrote in his decision.

Dillard is claiming that she is innocent of threatening Means because her letter telling Means she would need to “check under her car” wasn’t intended to suggest that Dillard would place explosives there, just “someone.”

Dillard has also argued that she cannot be held responsible for her letter because God made her write it.