Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 3, 1994 TAG: 9412060019
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: PENSACOLA, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
Next week, a judge will decide whether Hill should get the electric chair on state murder charges in the slayings.
Hill, 40, of Pensacola was the first person in the nation prosecuted under the federal law against using violence or otherwise interfering with those entering abortion clinics.
Hill, a former Presbyterian minister, killed Dr. John Bayard Britton, 69, and his volunteer bodyguard, retired Air Force Lt. Col. James Barrett, 74. Barrett's wife, 69-year-old June Barrett, was wounded in the attack July 29.
``The rationale, your honor, is simply I was trying to prevent Dr. Britton from killing the 30 people he was going to kill that day,'' Hill told U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson.
Vinson said he did not doubt Hill's sincerity about believing he had a higher motive, but added, ``God does not look with favor on the taking of any human life.''
The sentence ``shows that extreme anti-abortion zealots are not above the law and will be punished to the full measure of the law,'' Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, said in a statement.
Hill also received 10 years under the new law for shooting June Barrett and five years for a weapons violation. He was ordered to pay June Barrett $480 for medical expenses and counseling and $1,815 for her husband's funeral expenses.
The sentences will run concurrently.
Hill acted as his own lawyer at both trials but offered no defense after the two judges refused to let him argue that the slayings were a justifiable attempt to save lives.
by CNB