Jim Pouillon of Owosso, Michigan killed while holding pro-life sign outside Owosso High School

Contact: Tom Brejcha, President & Chief Counsel, Thomas More Society, 312-782-1680, 312-590-3408 cell; Tom Ciesielka, TC Public Relations, 312-422-1333, tc@tcpr.net

CHICAGO, Sept. 11 /Christian Newswire/ -- Chicago-based Thomas More Society (TMS) expresses shock and outrage over the cold-blooded killing of pro-life activist Jim Pouillon of Owosso, Michigan as he held a pro-life sign early Friday morning, September 11, 2009, on a public sidewalk outside Owosso's high school. On August 25th, the TMS president and chief counsel, Tom Brejcha, met Pouillon who had come to Oakland County Criminal Court of Michigan to support TMS's defense of pro-life activist, Dan Holman. Pouillon was sitting just outside the courthouse door, holding a large sign bearing the message, "Free Dan Holman," protesting the fact that Holman had been jailed over two months on an unreasonably high $50,000 bond -- bond which was then reduced to $5,000 thanks to sterling advocacy of TMS's co-counsel, Anthony Lubkin, who coincidentally also hails from Owosso, the late Jim Pouillon's home town.

Tom Brejcha recalls Pouillon as a very soft-spoken, kind and articulate pro-life advocate, who told Brejcha after the August 25th court hearing in Holman's case that his (Pouillon) pro-life activism traced back to October, 1988, when he joined a "rescue" protest in Atlanta, Georgia. Since then, Pouillon had engaged in peaceable, non-violent protest and prayer vigils in Michigan and elsewhere in the U.S., carrying an oxygen tank wherever he went owing to a breathing disorder from which he suffered for many years. "The pro-life movement has lost another peaceful warrior against the violence of abortion," said Brejcha, "and I am grateful to have had this recent opportunity to meet this quiet hero, another martyr for the cause of life."

Thomas More Society's defense of Dan Holman continues in Oakland County, Michigan, and the defense team now has been bolstered by addition of Robert Fleming, Esq. of East Lansing, Michigan, a veteran Michigan criminal defense lawyer who teaches criminal law at the Cooley Law School, affiliated with Michigan State University. "Dan Holman is another kind of martyr for the pro-life cause," said Brejcha, "because his acting reasonably in self-defense against a violent pro-abortion antagonist has led to Dan's getting slapped with two felony charges while those who harassed him and his wife, Donna, endangering their 'truth van' by reckless highway maneuvers as they were returning from a friend's wedding, have been treated as victims," said Brejcha. "The killing of Jim Pouillon should drive home to Michigan officials and citizens alike that stereotypes about violent pro-lifers have no place in law enforcement. It's too short a step to go from killing the unborn to killing in cold blood those pro-life advocates like Jim Pouillon whose message often arouses such extreme hostility. Killing doesn't solve society's problems."

About Thomas More Society
The Thomas More Society is a public interest law firm that counsels and defends those who work to protect innocent human life, defends those who proclaim faith-based values in our nation's public square, and strives to protect the institution of marriage as a union of man and woman formed to beget, bear and nurture new human lives. For more information, please visit: www.thomasmoresociety.org.