In a deal with prosecutors, Kermit Gosnell, the 72 year-old abortionist who ran the infamous House-of-Horrors abortion clinic in West Philadelphia, forfeited his right to an appeal in order to avoid the death penalty.

Fox News is reporting that Gosnell, who was found guilty on Monday of first-degree murder in the deaths of three babies born alive and then killed with scissors, agreed to accept two consecutive life terms without parole in exchange for his life.

The death penalty was sought in the case because Gosnell killed more than one person and his victims were particularly vulnerable. However, his advanced age made it very unlikely that he would ever be executed before his appeals ran out.

Gosnell’s attorney, Jack McMahon, said before the sentencing deal that his client’s bid for acquittal was a battle.

“The media has been overwhelmingly against him,” McMahon said. “But I think the jury listened to the evidence … and they found what they found.”

The statement struck many as peculiar because the lack of media attention to the trial became a scandal in itself.

Gosnell was said to have looked bewildered when the verdict was read, as if it took him by surprise, but quickly covered that expression with his more typical smile.

In a 2010 interview with The Philadelphia Daily News, he said he wanted to be “an effective, positive force in the minority community.” In the long term, he said, “I will be vindicated.”

He was not vindicated and in fact was charged with more than 200 other crimes ranging from violating Pennsylvania’s abortion laws to failing to counsel women 24 hours in advance of abortions.

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