Scott Roeder, the man who murdered the 67-year-old ‘abortion doctor’ George Tiller in May last year, has been convicted. He faces a minimum sentence of life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 25 years in prison when he is sentenced March 9.

The conviction came on the sixth day of a trial in Wichita county, Kansas. The trial had attracted national attention and drew activists from both sides of the abortion issue. The seven-man, five-woman jury also convicted Roeder of two counts of aggravated assault for threatening two men who chased him as he fled Tiller’s church after the shooting.

During the trial, Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert allowed Roeder to present evidence that he sincerely believed his actions were justified to save unborn children — a defense that could have led to a conviction on the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter.

But he would not give jurors the option of considering a voluntary manslaughter conviction. Such a defense requires that a person must be stopping the imminent use of unlawful force, he said, but Tiller was shot in church.

The prosecutors will ask the judge to require the 51-year-old Kansas City man to serve at least 50 years behind bars before he is eligible for parole. His attorneys plan to appeal, arguing jurors should have been allowed to consider the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, requiring proof that Roeder had an unreasonable but honest belief that deadly force was justified.