Jury in Philadelphia abortion doctor case deliberates for fourth day

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury began a fourth day of deliberations on Friday in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic serving low-income women.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the now-shuttered Women's Medical Society Clinic, could face the death penalty if convicted by the jury, in Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia.

The case focuses on whether the infants were born alive and then killed.

The seven-woman, five-man jury heard five weeks of testimony before starting the deliberation process on Tuesday.

Gosnell is charged with four counts of first-degree murder for delivering live babies during late-term abortions and then deliberately severing their spinal cords, prosecutors said.

The charges have fueled the debate in the United States about late-term abortions.

It is legal in Pennsylvania to abort a fetus up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy. Gosnell also faces charges that he performed 24 abortions beyond 24 weeks.

Nine states ban abortions after 20 weeks, according to the abortion rights group NARAL. Other states recently put new restrictions on abortions, with Arkansas banning them at 12 weeks and North Dakota at six weeks.

Most abortions, 92 percent, are performed before 14 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 1.3 percent are performed beyond 20 weeks.

Judge Jeffrey Minehart told the jury that state law defines a live baby as one that is fully expelled from the mother and showing signs of life such as breathing, heart beat or movement.

If a baby shows those signs, he said, "That baby is a human being."

Gosnell's defense contends there is no evidence the babies were alive after they were aborted. In his closing argument, defense lawyer Jack McMahon cited the medical examiner's testimony that none of the 47 fetuses tested randomly from the clinic had been born alive.

Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron said in his closing argument that witnesses testified that one of the aborted babies was breathing before its neck was cut, another made a whining sound and another moved its arms and legs.

Testimony depicted a filthy clinic serving mostly low-income women in a largely black community. McMahon said Gosnell wanted to help the under-privileged community.

Gosnell is also charged with murdering Karnamaya Mongar, 41, of Virginia, who died from a drug overdose after going to him for an abortion, prosecutors said.

Gosnell, who has been in jail since his January 2011 arrest, is on trial with Eileen O'Neill, a medical school graduate accused of billing patients and insurance companies for clinic services as if she were a licensed doctor.

Eight other defendants have pleaded guilty to a variety of charges and are awaiting sentencing. They include Gosnell's wife, Pearl, a cosmetologist who helped perform abortions.

By Dave Warner Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst

Via Yahoo News!

Jury deliberates Barry Bonds' fate, while reluctant witness is freed

Barry Bonds is charged with lying under oath when he testified about his steroids use in 2003. STORY HIGHLIGHTSBonds' trainer is ordered freed two weeks after he refused to testifyThe jury was given the Bonds perjury case to decide Thursday afternoonThe baseball legend faces three perjury counts and an obstruction of justice chargeThe charges stem from a federal probe of athletes' steroid useRELATED TOPICSBarry BondsDrugs in SportsPerjury San Francisco (CNN) -- Barry Bonds' former trainer was freed Friday from the prison where he's been held since he refused to testify in the baseball legend's perjury trial two weeks ago.

With the jury now deliberating the perjury and obstruction of justice case against Bonds, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered Gary Anderson to be released.

Illston found Anderson in contempt of court on the first day of trial testimony when his lawyer informed her that he would not take the stand to answer questions about Bonds' steroid use.

It was the third time Anderson chose jail time over testimony. He was sent to prison for several weeks twice before when he refused to appear before a federal grand jury investigating Bonds.

The absence of the trainer's testimony hampered the government's case against Bonds, who is charged with lying under oath when he testified about his steroids use in 2003 before the grand jury that was investigating an alleged sports doping scandal involving Anderson of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative.

Bonds, 46, allegedly lied about knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs and about being injected by anyone but his doctors.

The jury of eight women and four men are deciding Bonds' fate in a San Francisco federal courthouse less than two miles from the ballpark where Bonds broke Hank Aaron's major league home run record in August 2007.

The three perjury counts and one count of obstruction of justice could each carry a 10-year prison sentence upon conviction. A fourth perjury charge was dropped by prosecutors Wednesday.

A prosecutor argued Thursday that Bonds lied because he knew the truth about his steroids use would "tinge his accomplishments" and hurt his career.

"His secret was so powerful that he couldn't admit it, wouldn't admit it," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Nedrow said in his closing arguments.

Bonds' defense lawyer, during his closing arguments Thursday, asked jurors to acquit him because of a technical oversight by prosecutors -- an argument the government quickly rebutted.

The judge's instructions to the jury say Bonds can found be found guilty only if his lies could have affected the grand jury's decisions and that Bonds knew it, defense lawyer Allen Ruby said.

But none of the 25 prosecution witnesses presented evidence about what decisions the grand jury made or what they might have made, Ruby said. "Who told us about the grand jury at all?"

The Internal Revenue Service agent who started the federal investigation into the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs testified that Bonds' false testimony affected his work, but Agent Jeff Novitzky was not part of the grand jury, Ruby said.

"I know that this is a little technical," Ruby said. "I don't apologize for that. Every word of the law matters."

The judge also instructed jurors to rely only what they heard from witnesses in the trial and not use their prior knowledge of the grand jury process, he said. "The government is trusting you to do what you are forbidden to do, and fill in the gaps," Ruby said.

Prosecutor Matthew Parrella, in his rebuttal, said Novitzky's investigation and the grand jury probe were "one and the same."

The jury can also read the indictments the grand jury issued in 2004 and the grand jury transcript in which "the issues are fleshed out," Parrella said.

Ruby told jurors that Bonds acknowledged to the grand jury that he used the substances known as "the clear and the cream," but at the time of his testimony, even investigators didn't know what was in them.

Bonds told the grand jury he thought Anderson was giving him flaxseed oil, Ruby said.

Nedrow, in his closing, said it was "implausible" that Bonds would take drugs "and really not know what they were."

A urine sample given by Bonds in the summer of 2003, just months before his grand jury testimony, tested positive for anabolic steroids, he said. The defense argued there was another sample taken weeks earlier that tested negative for the drugs.

Defense lawyer Cristina Arguedas, in her part of closing arguments, accused prosecutors of ignoring crimes by witnesses in exchange for their testimony against Bonds. "They will forgive it if that person will say something bad about Barry Bonds," Arguedas said.

Bonds' former girlfriend, Kimberly Bell, testified for the prosecution that she witnessed physical and emotional changes in Bonds that the government argued were indications of steroids use.

Bell testified during the trial that she had committed perjury when she told the same grand jury in 2003 that she had not noticed Bonds' shrunken testicles.

Bell also admitted she had committed mortgage fraud by lying on a home loan application, Arguedas said.

During court testimony last month, Bonds' childhood friend Steve Hoskins, who worked for a decade as his assistant, said he tried to persuade Bonds to stop using anabolic steroids in 2000 and 2003.

Bonds' defense lawyer argued that Hoskins' cooperation with the government was motivated by bitterness over Bonds firing him and by a desire for protection from prosecution for allegedly stealing money from Bonds.

Prosecutors played an audio recording that Hoskins secretly made in the San Francisco Giants locker room of a conversation with Anderson about the hazards of steroid usage.

Bonds' defense attorney suggested that Hoskins made the recording only after Bonds dismissed him in March 2003. Hoskins acknowledged that he leaked the details of the recording to investigative reporter Lance Williams, who included it in his book about the scandal, "Game of Shadows."

While he never witnessed Bonds being injected with anabolic steroids, Hoskins said he saw Bonds and Anderson emerge from a bedroom with a syringe during spring training in 2000.

Bonds complained to him that year that steroid injections "were making his butt sore," Hoskins said.

In his 21-year major league career, Bonds also set the record for most home runs in a single season in 2001, when he hit 73. He did not officially retire after he was indicted, but he never played another game.

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