KOPP IS CONVICTED OF MURDER

The Buffalo News ^ | March 19, 2003 | Michael Beebe, news staff reporter

[Marianne]

Slaying of Amherst doctor intentional, judge rules.

James C. Kopp intentionally murdered Dr. Barnett A. Slepian, a judge ruled Tuesday, ending the debate about whether Kopp was right to use the defense that he shot Slepian but did not mean to kill him.

Erie County Judge Michael L. D'Amico sealed Kopp's future with a single sentence, without explanation, as judges often do in nonjury trials.

D'Amico, by convicting Kopp of intentional murder, never had to consider the second count of depraved indifference to human life. The second murder charge was added after Kopp's November confession to The Buffalo News.

"After very careful consideration," D'Amico said to Kopp in a courtroom full of reporters, national anti-abortion leaders and members of Slepian's family, "I have concluded you are guilty as charged of count No. 1, intentional murder."

The terseness of D'Amico's ruling seemed to catch Kopp by surprise - he stood only after the judge had ruled - but he took the news without visible reaction.

Kopp, 48, who was wearing a bulletproof vest beneath the oversize blue sport jacket he has been wearing to court, shook hands with his attorney, Bruce A. Barket, and then waited for sheriff's deputies to take him back to the Erie County Holding Center.

It is possible that Kopp may never be a free man again. When D'Amico sentences him May 9, the minimum would be 15 to 25 years in prison and the maximum 25 years to life. In addition, he faces charges in federal court that could bring him a life sentence.

"Jim and I are both disappointed by the verdict, but not surprised by it," Barket said outside the courtroom.

Prosecutors were elated by the verdict and took it as proof that a jury would have reached the same conclusion as D'Amico. Kopp had waived not only a jury, but the right to call witnesses Monday in a one-day, stipulated-facts trial.

Deputy District Attorney Joseph J. Marusak, who earlier called Kopp's confession to The News "self-serving admissions," credited the massive amounts of evidence gathered by the Amherst Police Department, the FBI and the State Police for ensuring Kopp's conviction.

"They did a phenomenal job," Marusak said. "They never gave up."

Marusak, a 20-year assistant district attorney who has prosecuted more than 50 homicide cases, said he was not disappointed that he did not have the opportunity to prosecute Kopp before a jury.

"There is no disappointment," Marusak said. "We are gratified with the verdict. Justice has been done."

His boss, District Attorney Frank J. Clark, expressed similar sentiments.

"It is where I hoped to be in late October of 1998," Clark said of when Slepian was shot through a window of his Amherst home by a sniper in the woods outside. "Needless to say, when something culminates the way you hope it would, it makes you very, very satisfied."

Lynne Slepian, the widow, who would have been the first witness called had Kopp not waived a jury trial, showed no reaction after the verdict was read. She and members of her family have attended every court session since Kopp's extradition from France last June.

She declined, through Marusak, to comment on the verdict.

"She's living a nightmare right now," Marusak told reporters outside the courtroom. "She asks you to continue to respect her privacy."

The verdict did not come as a surprise to pro-choice leaders who attended the trial, nor did it shock Kopp's supporters.

"We expected this verdict," said Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation. "And we told our people to be on heightened security alert because of what has happened before."

Elizabeth McDonald, who described herself as a friend of Kopp's for nearly 15 years, said she was not surprised by the verdict.

"The judge made it clear he was against the notion this was justified," she said of the shooting.

She was asked whether she thought that Kopp was justified in shooting Slepian.

"Oh, yes, because Barnett Slepian was going to kill unborn children (the next) morning," she said. "This gives the message that unborn children are not human beings."

"Natural consequences'

Kopp, when he was interviewed by The News in November, said he had hoped to use his coming trial as a forum on abortion, that he was justified in shooting Slepian to prevent abortion, and that he never meant to kill Slepian.

But Marusak, who with Barket's approval had The News article admitted into evidence for Monday's trial, scoffed at Kopp's contentions.

He pointed to the SKS Russian assault rifle that Kopp used - a particularly ugly weapon that Kopp had customized by adding a crude wooden stock, telescopic sight and cartridge catcher attached with adjusting clips used to tighten radiator hoses. And Marusak pointed out the 7.62-millimeter, full-jacketed bullets Kopp used.

The rifle, Marusak said, fires rounds at 2,300 feet per second, and Kopp, an acknowledged self-taught marksman, said he was accurate within 3 inches at 75 yards.

Surely, Marusak argued to the judge, a marksman shooting a military rifle at 30 yards away should be able to hit what he aimed at. And Kopp, Marusak argued, who holds a master's degree in biology and knows where the body's vital organs are, knew he would kill Kopp by shooting him in the upper back.

Kopp meant to kill Slepian, Marusak argued, citing the standard instructions given to juries when asked to weigh whether something was intentional: "You are presumed to intend the natural consequences of your actions."

Police perseverance praised

The prosecutor had high praise for the Amherst police for going back to the Slepian home in the spring after the shooting, and renewing the search for the rifle. Police had already found Kopp's binoculars, ammunition and other items buried behind the Slepian home.

"Joe Scioli was the force behind this investigation," Marusak said of the retired Amherst police captain. "He was the person who went digging through the woods. Under his supervision, they found the rifle."

Scioli, reached at home, said he, too, was elated by the verdict.

"We always knew we would see this day," he said. "The Amherst Police Department, the New York State Police and the FBI all worked together. This is the result when everyone works as a team."

Joel Mercer, the lead agent in the case for the FBI, was on hand for Kopp's verdict, but declined to comment.

"We're gratified, the state prosecutors did a great job," said Stanley J. Borgia, the assistant agent in charge of the FBI's Buffalo office. "But this is just the first step in the judicial system."

Federal prosecutors and William G. Clauss, the attorney defending Kopp on federal charges of obstructing access to an abortion clinic, are expected to meet Thursday for the next step in that case.

Neither side would comment on the federal case, but it is expected that any disposition of those charges would be delayed until he is sentenced in county court.

Barket said after the verdict that Kopp, who had decided that he wanted to be tried without a jury and using stipulated facts, was convinced that he made the right choice.

"Jim wanted this case handled a certain way," Barket said. "He was more emphatic last evening: "This is the way I wanted the trial to go.' "

Barket acknowledged that there was substantial ballistic, DNA, fingerprint, fiber and handwriting analysis that tied Kopp to the Slepian shooting.

In a jury trial, Barket said, Kopp "might have gotten one juror or two (to find reasonable doubt), and that would have put off the conviction."

Barket said the conviction will be appealed.

Maximum sentence is urged

Clark said he will instruct Marusak to ask for the maximum sentence when Kopp returns to court May 9.

"No sentence in this case would be just other than 25 years to life," Clark said. "The facts scream for it."

The district attorney also said he made the right call in agreeing to a stipulated-facts trial, despite criticism by pro-choice groups that Kopp may have exposed others who helped him if cross-examined at trial.

"My first concern was that justice be done, and that was done today," Clark said. "There is no reason to believe that after 4¹/2 years, we would have learned one single thing in the trial that we have not learned to date."

[Marianne]

KOPP STRATEGY HELPS HIM AVOID ANSWERING CONSPIRACY QUESTION
The Buffalo News LINK
Dan Herbeck, News Staff Reporter
March 19, 2003
      By staying off the witness stand in his murder trial on Monday, James C. Kopp was able to avoid answering two key questions about the Oct. 23, 1998, assassination of Dr. Barnett A. Slepian.
      Who drove his getaway car after Kopp gunned down the abortion provider in his Amherst home?
      Did anyone else help Kopp to plan, prepare for or carry out the sniper killing?
     "If he had taken the stand, he could have been asked about anything, including prosecution theories about a wider conspiracy," said John V. Elmore, a Buffalo attorney who resigned from Kopp's defense team last week. "No doubt, he would've been asked about a wider conspiracy."
     And Kopp would not have been allowed to invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer if a prosecutor had asked him if he had help from other people.
     "You can use the Fifth Amendment to protect yourself from self-incrimination, but you can't use it to protect other people," said Edgar C. NeMoyer, a longtime defense attorney from Orchard Park who recently retired as a state judge.
     "If he takes the witness stand, Kopp opens himself up to answering questions about other people. If he refuses, the judge could strike his direct testimony (and) tell the jury to ignore it."
     Some who know Kopp believe his reluctance to answer questions under oath about his associates is what drove him to abandon his right to a jury trial last week.
     "I believe that (Kopp) doesn't want to lie under oath, and he doesn't want to answer questions about who helped him," suggested one man who knows Kopp but asked not to be quoted by name. "He doesn't want to get other people into trouble."
     In a highly unusual bench trial before an Erie County judge that resulted in a guilty verdict on Tuesday, Kopp admitted to killing Slepian, but declined to testify.
     Kopp stated in court Monday that he understands all the ramifications of his decision to forgo a jury trial, but he has not explained publicly why he decided not to testify.
     In November, Kopp insisted he "acted alone" in the slaying during a four-hour jailhouse interview with reporters from The Buffalo News.
     If anyone - even tangentially - helped him plan the crime, carry it out or escape afterward, Kopp made clear that he did not intend to disclose their names.
     "I don't want to get utterly innocent people in trouble," Kopp said. "No one in the pro-life community handed me a dossier on Dr. Slepian. That would have made my job easier."
     Many of the federal agents and police officers who took part in the massive task force that investigated the Slepian shooting remain convinced that Kopp had some assistance. Kopp's surprise decision last week to forgo a jury trial, admit to a stipulated set of facts about the shooting and allow Judge Michael L. D'Amico to decide his fate still has many in the legal community baffled.
     "For months, we heard that he wanted to use his trial as a forum for expressing his views on abortion," said NeMoyer, the retired judge. "Now, he's giving up his opportunity to express those views. I'm not sure there's a lot of logic in what he has done."
     "What Kopp is doing, I believe, is unprecedented in Western New York," said Anne E. Adams, a defense attorney and former prosecutor who heads the trial technique program at the University at Buffalo Law School.
     "It doesn't make sense. He's willing to take a man's life to make a statement about abortion, but he's not willing to sit through a month-long trial to make a statement about abortion. Very, very strange."

News Staff Reporter Lou Michel contributed to this report.

[Marianne]

KOPP GETS WHAT HE DESERVES
The Buffalo News LINK
Donn Esmonde
March 19, 2003
     There was no explanation, no discussion, just one sentence at 2:18 Tuesday afternoon from Judge Michael D'Amico: "I have concluded you are guilty as charged of count No. 1, intentional murder."
     That's how it ended, the jury-less trial of James Kopp, killer of Dr. Barnett Slepian.
     It was a fitting conclusion. It was not just appropriate in its verdict, which rejected Kopp's insulting contention that a metal-jacketed bullet shot from an assault rifle into the web of upper-body arteries and organs was intended only to wound. But D'Amico's terse, no-frills pronouncement was fitting in another way: James Kopp deserved no explanation.
     The notion that one is justified in assassinating a living, breathing human being in the name of protecting the unborn does not merit discourse. The words are not worth the breath. The illogic is astounding. Indeed, by this day of earthly judgment, Kopp and what he represents had been rejected by all but a lonely few.
     His admission to The Buffalo News of his guilt four months ago, after years as a fugitive followed by claims of innocence, cost him the support of any rational pro-lifer. He was left with the lunatic fringe. It was represented during Monday's evidence presentation by the Rev. Robert Bray, commander of the violence-is-justified Army of God (which looks more like F Troop, judging by the sparse contingent rallying here two months ago).
     "I feel he has been abandoned by those who should support him," Bray said during a Monday courtroom recess.
     That's the fate of violent zealots. Followers are hard to find.
     We are done with James Kopp, at least until the May 9 sentencing. Good riddance, goodbye.
     Indeed, we can thank Kopp for only this: By condensing his trial to a two-day, judge-only affair, he spared the community the prospect of an abortion-related circus (although, frankly, odds are that not many would have shown up).
     Kopp in person looks small, boyish in wire-rimmed glasses, his thin body consumed by an oversize navy blue sport jacket. He is squirrelly in his smirks and shrugs. The class nerd turned lethal. Atomic Puppy.
     He seemingly diminished more Monday with every piece of evidence presented. His attorney, Bruce Barket, talked afterward about his client's courage. He said he devoted his life to ending abortion in any way he could.
     "It wasn't about fame, riches or public accolades," Barket said. "You have to admire (him)."
     Spare us.
     Kopp hid in the dark in the woods behind Slepian's back yard and shot him in the back with a high-powered rifle, in front of his wife and kids. The metal-jacketed bullet barely took a scratch as it obliterated Slepian's spinal cord, its ricochet just missing other family members.
     Then Kopp ran and hid, for years. He had fake identification and a phony driver's license. When caught, he declared innocence, until learning of witnesses who placed him at the scene and DNA that connected him to the crime. Only then did he admit guilt and promise to turn the trial into a forum on abortion.
     Courage? More like cowardice.
     He was God's self-proclaimed avenger. Protector of the innocent. Except it was hard to figure what sort of God sent him on this kind of mission. Not my God. Presumably not your God. Not the God of prosecutor Joe Marusak, a devout Catholic - as Kopp claims to be - who regularly takes Communion at St. Joseph's, a few blocks from the courthouse.
     Marusak - 48, the DA's top guy, devoted to the cause and schoolyard-tough - got angry only once during his Monday summation. It was to Kopp's claim he acted on his Catholic principles in killing Slepian.
     "I never heard that papal pronouncement," sneered Marusak. "Say grace and pass the ammunition?"
     Kopp in the end was more pathetic than despicable, a rebel without a cause - at least not one that anyone rational follows.
     He got Tuesday what he deserved. A judge's declaration of guilt. And a return in handcuffs to a cell, where he will stay for perhaps the rest of his life.
     Kopp thought he was dispensing justice. Tuesday, he saw what it really looks like.

[Cicero]

I suppose it takes a nutcase to kill people in defense of life. But I really don't understand this. First he fires his lawyer and pleads guilty because he wants to argue his case against abortion. Then he relinquishes his right to a jury trial, which was the only possible way he might have gotten a conviction on a lesser charge (since he says he didn't mean to kill Slepian). Then he decides not to make any statement about abortion after all. Now he's convicted of murder and never got a chance to make his point--whatever it was.

I suppose we should be glad that this case went out with a whimper, since it could only damage the pro-life cause.