Abortion doctor may face second trial

Press, 8 May 1978, Page 9

Abortion doctor may face second trial

NZPA-Reuter Santa Ana, California

A mistrial has been declared in the murder trial of Doctor William Waddill, charged with murdering a baby who survived an abortion.

He was accused of strangling a baby girl allegedly bom alive 12 hours after he tried to abort it by injecting a solution of salt water into the mother’s womb at Westminister Community Hospital, Santa Ana.

The jurors said they were confused by multiple definitions of what constituted legal death. Dr Waddill, whose trial attracted national attention f*om pro-abortion and antiabortion groups, was infuriated by the decision, which exposed him to the possibility of another trial.

’That was a stupid, asinine thing to do,” fumed the physician. “I’d like to do an electro-encephalogram (indie- i

ating the presence or ab-l sence of brain life) on the, jury.”

■Put a doctor in a court

ot law and he doesn’t stand a dog’s chance.” be The doctor lashed out at ni anti-abortion protesters who th filled the court during the ac trial. th

“They were determined to get to the press, and they got to them. If they could have hung me outside the courthouse, they would have done that too,” he said. He called for doctors to pay more attention to judicial rulings because “They are legislating laws into effect from ivory towers.” Judge James Turner dismissed the jury of nine men and three women after it reported it was deadlocked in its 11th day of deliberations.

Three jurors told reporters they were confused by the judge’s instructions on the definition of death. The jury was first told to i consider “the permanent disappearance of all life func-

Itions” as the legal definition of death. But after a week of deliberations the judge sent instructions also to consider the “total, and irreversible cessation of brain function.”

“It that instruction had ieen given at the beginning" said Dr Waddill. "I hink I would have had an icquittal. But to drop it on hem while they were delib-

erating, that didn’t help me one bit.” The Orange County District Attorney’s Office will decide whether to bring charges again against Dr Waddill, who is 42. The doctor’s defence was that the baby had no brain function and was already effectively dead when bom. But nurses and another doctor testified during the 14-week trial that the infant was bora alive, breathing, crying, and with a heart beat.

The other physician testified that Dr Waddill had strangled the infant while tsaying This child can’t live” because he feared a multi-million-dollar malpractice suit.

The jury foreman, Mr John Thomas, reported that the panel’s last vote was 7-5 in favour of acquittal, after voting 9-3 in favour of guilty earlier. The jury took seven votes.