Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 21, 1994 TAG: 9402210022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PENSACOLA, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
The 47-year-old Eufaula, Ala., physician was shot three times in the back March 10 as he was parking behind Pensacola Women's Medical Services. An abortion protest was being held in front of the clinic.
The trial of Griffin, 32, a Christian fundamentalist and former chemical plant worker, is being closely watched by activists for the impact it may have the national abortion debate.
Gunn's death has already convinced many state and federal lawmakers that special laws are needed to protect abortion clinics, asserted Eleanor Smeal, president of The Feminist Majority Foundation, which advocates abortion rights.
"It reframed the debate so that this violence was taken more seriously," she said. Smeal also said a first-degree murder conviction would put a chill on anti-abortion violence.
John Burt, a lay minister who was leading the demonstration when Gunn was shot, said he well understands the high interest of abortion rights advocates.
"If Mike got off, gracious, they'd go crazy because that would be a license for everybody else to do something like that, I would guess," Burt said. "I would like to see him get something like second-degree if he has to get anything at all . . . so he'd be able to get out and have some kind of life."
Griffin is charged with first-degree murder, and the prosecution is seeking the death penalty.
Griffin's lawyers plan to call local anti-abortion activists to the stand to try to show that they, and Burt in particular, influenced Griffin through speech and action and by giving him anti-abortion videos and literature.
by CNB