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Prosecution rests in pro-life protester Pouillon murder trial

The prosecution has rested in the case of a Michigan man accused of the shooting death of local pro-life protester Jim Pouillon, reports Kathleen Gilbert, LifeSiteNews.com.

Prosecutors say Harlan Drake, 33, has already confessed to fatally shooting Pouillon and local gravel pit owner Mike Fuoss on September 11, 2009, and that he intended to shoot another man before he was arrested. Pouillon was shot to death while holding a sign with an image of an aborted child outside an Owosso high school.

The defense blamed a 2004 auto accident Drake was involved in, which caused him to lapse into depression, as the reason for his erratic behavior. Defense lawyer Robert Ashley claimed Drake therefore "did not appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct," according to the Associated Press.

Assistant Prosecutor Sara Edwards pointed to another cause of Drake's actions: she said Drake's mother, Kim Staples, had expressed "growing displeasure" with Pouillon's pro-life display the day before the shooting.

"The defendant decided if Mr. Pouillon was in front of that high school on September 11th, he was going to kill him," said Edwards. "He told detectives if Mr. Pouillon was there he was going to

make sure he wasn't going to be there again."

Staples said she felt Pouillon had the right to protest, but that it was "unhealthy" for young girls at the high school to see Pouillon's sign, which showed a living child on one side and a child killed by abortion on the other.

“Just because you have a right to do something doesn't mean that it's right to do,” she said, according to the Flint Journal.

Operation Rescue president Troy Newman said that his group would continue "to pray for the victim’s families and for justice to be done."

"Mr. Drake has confessed that he planned ahead before he murdered two innocent men, and would have killed a third if not stopped by police. He needs to be held accountable for those actions in the interest of justice,” said Newman. “Anything less would diminish the lives of Jim Pouillon and Mike Fouss.”

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TAGS: USA Jim Pouillon prosecution Harlan Drake Owosso high school abortion Operation Rescue

[03/10/2010]

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