Defiant Eric Rudolph gets life in prison for bombing

[Ebusitanus]

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/bre...p-281426c.html

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — By the time he was sent off to prison for life Monday, serial bomber Eric Rudolph had been compared with Ku Klux Klan killers, murderous Nazis and the Sept. 11 hijackers.

“Make no mistake: Eric Rudolph is an American terrorist,” prosecutor Mike Whisonant said during the sentencing, invoking the image of planes flying into the World Trade Center.
But Rudolph didn’t budge an inch. He nodded as a victim described him as a remorseless coward for a deadly abortion clinic bombing in Alabama and smirked at a description of him buying bomb components on Christmas Eve.
Blowing up a cop outside the abortion clinic was OK, Rudolph told the court in a deep, defiant voice, since the officer worked at an “abortion mill.”
“The state is no longer the protector of the innocent, promoting values that challenge the darker angels of human nature, but now it is the handmaiden of the new hedonism, supporting the citizen in a lifestyle of selfishness and decadence,” said Rudolph, gesturing with both hands.
Rudolph gave the impassioned defense as a judge sentenced him to two life sentences for setting off a remote-controlled bomb at a Birmingham abortion clinic in 1998, killing the off-duty officer and maiming a nurse. Next month, he will receive two more life terms for the deadly Olympic bombing and two other attacks in Atlanta.
Rudolph, 38, pleaded guilty to all the cases in April in a deal that let him avoid the possibility of a death penalty.
The wife of the policeman and the nurse confronted Rudolph in court for the first time Monday.
“I faced five pounds of dynamite and hundreds of nails yet I survived,” said the nurse, Emily Lyons. “Do I look afraid? You damaged my body, but you did not create the fear you sought.”
“In the name of faith you hate,” said U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith. “For the professed goal of saving human life you killed. Those are riddles I cannot resolve.”
Standing before the judge in a red jail uniform and with shackles around his ankles, Rudolph jabbed at the air as he compared legalized abortion to primitive rituals of killing newborns.
“Abortion on demand is a return to the ancient practice of infanticide,” said Rudolph.
Abortion, he said, must be fought with “deadly force.”
Rudolph nodded and occasionally shook his head as he was confronted by the wife of police officer Robert Sanderson, who was killed in the bombing outside the New Woman All Women Health Care, and Lyons, who survived devastating injuries including the loss of her left eye.
Felicia Sanderson said Rudolph robbed her of years with her husband and devastated the lives of her two sons, who were close to Sanderson. “Eric Rudolph is responsible for every tear my two sons have shed. He caused their pain, and I despise him for it,” said Sanderson.
In sentencing Rudolph to life in the federal government’s so-called “Supermax” prison in Colorado, the judge compared Rudolph to the killers of Nazi Germany and the Ku Klux Klansman who bombed a Birmingham church a few blocks away from the courthouse in 1963, killing four black girls.
He also faces sentencing Aug. 22 in Atlanta for the 1996 Olympics bombing that killed one woman and injured more than 100, as well as 1997 bombings at an abortion clinic and gay bar in Atlanta.
As a key part of the plea agreement, Rudolph directed authorities to about 250 pounds of dynamite hidden in the woods of western North Carolina, where he spent more than five years on the lam before his capture in 2003.
Diane Derzis, the owner of the abortion clinic, sat in the witness box just a few feet from Rudolph and talked about creeks, trees and all the little things in life the outdoorsman would miss while spending the rest of his life in prison. “I think you chose a fate far worse than death,” Derzis said of the plea deal. “So my wish for you is that you live a very long life.”

[Ebusitanus]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/n...icrudolph.html

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Serial bomber Eric Rudolph, who pleaded guilty to avoid a possible death sentence, may have had a better chance than he realized to beat the rap, according to a new book by one of his victims.

The account by Emily Lyons says federal prosecutors staged four mock trials as they prepared for his trial in the bombing of a Birmingham abortion clinic – and Rudolph was acquitted in three of them.




Lyons says in the book she co-authored, "Life's Been a Blast," that the mock juries failed to convict Rudolph because someone felt the victims "got what they deserved because they worked at an abortion clinic."

"I couldn't believe that they would let this guy go," Lyons said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Lyons, a former nurse who nearly died in the 1998 clinic bombing in Birmingham, said prosecutors told her of the mock trials earlier this year as they explained Rudolph's plea deal, in which he admitted bombing Atlanta's Olympic park in 1996, a gay nightclub and a women's clinic in Atlanta in 1997, and the Birmingham clinic. One woman died and more than 100 were injured in the Olympic explosion; a policeman was killed and Lyons critically injured in the Birmingham blast.
U.S. Attorney Alice Martin confirmed Tuesday that at least one mock trial was held but said Lyons "is mistaken in her understanding of the results."
In a statement, Martin said she fully expected Rudolph to be convicted had there been a trial and denied the outcome of a mock proceeding had anything to do with Rudolph's plea.
"The only reason the death penalty was removed was in exchange for pleas in all the Atlanta-area bombings, and disclosure of the location and subsequent rendering safe of over 250 pounds of explosives on public land and rights of way in North Carolina," Martin said.
An acquittal in the Birmingham trial could have had far-reaching implications. Authorities have said the Atlanta cases hinged on evidence gathered after the Birmingham bombing, and Lyons says in her book that prosecutors told them "the Atlanta cases would fall apart if the Birmingham trial did not convict."
Under the plea agreement, Rudolph escaped a possible death sentence in return for accepting four life sentences. Also, he was required to reveal the location of some 250 pounds of stolen dynamite he had buried in the woods of western North Carolina.
A judge in Birmingham sentenced Rudolph to two life terms on Monday; his Atlanta sentencing is set for Aug. 22.
The lead prosecutor in Birmingham, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Whisonant, said he was confident of a guilty verdict but declined comment Monday on any mock trials.
Rudolph, who has portrayed himself as a Christian opponent of abortion, raised the possibility of an acquittal thanks to anti-abortion jurors when he released a statement after he pleaded guilty in April.
"The problem that they had was that a significant minority of the population, especially here in Northern Alabama, regarded what happened there at the abortion facility on that day of Jan. 29, 1998, as morally justified," Rudolph wrote.
He continued: "It is my opinion some of these people were likely to vote not guilty no matter what evidence was presented to them."
But Rudolph also wrote that he likely would have been convicted in at least one of the four bombings, so he pleaded guilty and "deprived the government of its goal of sentencing me to death." Two witnesses saw Rudolph in Birmingham after the clinic explosion, leading to his identification and eventual indictment in the bombings in Alabama and Georgia. Rudolph was captured in Murphy, N.C., in 2003 after spending more than five years as a fugitive.