Posted on 12/03/2002 6:03:50 PM PST by Marianne
The Long Island attorney picked by James C. Kopp to represent him in both his federal and state court trials said he will ask a federal magistrate judge to reconsider his refusal to let him serve in the federal case.
Bruce A. Barket insisted Monday he will be Kopp's principal attorney in both cases stemming from Kopp's admitted fatal shooting of Amherst physician Barnett A. Slepian. His vow came moments after he unsuccessfully urged an Erie County Court judge to hold District Attorney Frank J. Clark in contempt of court for allegedly violating a gag order in the cases.
Last Wednesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Hugh B. Scott ruled that Barket cannot represent Kopp in the federal case because he already represents Kopp's friend and fellow abortion protester, Lorretta C. Marra. Barket said Monday that if he cannot get Scott to reverse that ruling, he is prepared to ask a federal appeals court in New York City to overrule it.
Monday, Erie County Judge Michael L. D'Amico refused to hold Clark in contempt of court or delay new grand jury proceedings in the Slepian case because of Barket's complaint that the district attorney "willfully violated" a week-old gag order.
"Neither side should be making statements about the status of the case, and if we do have continuing problems I'll deal with it," the judge said as he formally signed his gag order shortly after 5 p.m.
The judge said the Nov. 27 newspaper article Barket cited, which appeared the same day he issued the gag order, was unclear about exactly when Clark made the comments attributed to him.
"I'm not going to fish for you," the judge told Barket.
Barket also complained that prosecutors want to know by Friday if Kopp will testify before a new grand jury that will be sworn in to consider a new indictment charging Kopp with depraved murder, following his Nov. 20 published confession. The judge refused to order any delays in that continuing probe.
"I'm not going to prohibit the people (prosecutors) from proceeding any way they want to proceed," the judge said.
The hearing on prosecution evidence linking Kopp to the Oct. 23, 1998, slaying of Slepian continues today. A possible jury trial is expected to begin sometime in February.
Monday afternoon, Barket and co-counsel John V. Elmore told the judge that it wasn't until the news media ran government-provided photographs of Kopp several days after the homicide that the defendant was linked to the case by alleged eyewitnesses.
They said the first person to link Kopp to the killing didn't call Amherst police until after news organizations started running Kopp's photo Nov. 4, 13 days after the shooting.
Kopp's lawyers got retired Amherst Police Detective Raymond A. Nitsche to confirm that the first witness picked Kopp's photo out of a six-photo array on Nov. 10, as the jogger he said he saw near Slepian's home five days before the killing.
That man said the jogger he identified as Kopp was "hunched over and moving very slowly" as he came out of a side street near the Slepian home. Nitsche said the witness said Kopp was wearing a "black hooded sweat shirt and black biker's shorts."
The witness told police the jogger had a "ruddy complexion" and a small red beard and was running in a very unjoggerlike manner, Nitsche testified.
Also Monday, Maureen Stevens, a local theatrical makeup artist, testified that she was paid $240 by the Erie County district attorney's office in August to prepare Kopp and five stand-ins for a lineup for witnesses.
Stevens testified that she adorned all six men in the lineup with a beard and mustache similar to the types allegedly worn by Kopp around the time Slepian was killed.
Ya do it for the money, just like he did.
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