Senior Erie County Judge Michael L. D'Amico barred television cameras from Kopp's trial, but allowed The Buffalo News limited photo coverage. Attorney Joseph M. Finnerty, counsel to The News, argued that case. Posted on 02/08/2003 5:42:49 PM PST by Marianne
An anti-abortion activist admitted Friday that she drove James C. Kopp to Mexico in late 1998 when he was wanted for questioning in the murder of Dr. Barnett A. Slepian.
Jennifer Rock, 32, said at a court hearing that she helped Kopp who now admits he shot the Amherst abortion provider because she was sure he was the victim of a U.S. Justice Department setup.
"I believed he was innocent," said Rock, who came to know Kopp through the right-to-life movement.
That trip to Mexico started Kopp on a 52-month trek as a fugitive in England, Scotland, Ireland and France. And it launched an international manhunt that ended in late March 2001, when French police captured Kopp in a medieval village in the French province of Brittany.
Rock's admission ended one of the big remaining mysteries about the Slepian killing: Who helped Kopp slip out of the United States?
The revelation was just one of many developments in the Kopp case Friday. In addition:
Senior Erie County Judge Michael L. D'Amico barred television cameras from Kopp's trial, but allowed The Buffalo News limited photo coverage. Attorney Joseph M. Finnerty, counsel to The News, argued that case.
One of Kopp's attorneys said Kopp planned to take the stand in the case to explain why he shot Slepian.
D'Amico said jury selection in the case will begin March 3, with testimony set to begin March 17.
Prosecutors flew Rock to Buffalo for an evidence-suppression hearing Friday. She identified herself as a business consultant and a pro-life activist, but did not disclose where she is living now.
With Kopp smiling at the defense table as she testified, Rock told the judge that by early November 1998, she knew that Kopp was wanted on a material witness warrant in the Slepian case. But at that time, she did not believe he was involved in the Amherst physician's murder.
And so, when Kopp telephoned her on Nov. 4, 1998, she was willing to help him.
Rock testified that Kopp told her "he was in trouble," but told her not to believe anything she read in the newspapers linking him to the Slepian murder. He then asked her to let him use money they had expected to use to jointly buy a Jersey City apartment building.
She promptly withdrew $7,226 she had been holding for him in a bank and made him a fake West Virginia driver's license.
A day later, on Nov. 5, Rock met Kopp in a White Plains shopping mall.
"I know you're innocent," she told him.
Kopp "may have nodded" but otherwise did not respond, she testified.
Rock told the court she talked Kopp out of fleeing the country from the Newark, N.J., airport - where he abandoned his car - because she felt it was "too risky for him."
She then persuaded Kopp to let her drive him to Mexico instead.
During the three-day drive, which ended at the Nuevo Laredo airport in northern Mexico, Rock said Kopp who usually wore a beard - was clean-shaven. She also said he purchased reddish-blond hair dye and changed his hair color while on the trip.
Kopp and Rock never discussed the Slepian murder during the drive, she testified.
"I thought it would be insulting to question his character," she said.
She never asked why he was fleeing, either.
"I didn't want to know," Rock testified, given that she knew law enforcement might someday want to question her about her links with Kopp.
Rock testified with immunity from prosecution. She previously testified with immunity before federal and Erie County grand juries in the Kopp case.
One of Kopp's lawyers, John V. Elmore, cross-examined Rock and got her to acknowledge that she felt the FBI had "pressured" her to testify against Kopp.
Elmore was upset at D'Amico's key ruling of the day, in which he barred television cameras from the courtroom during Kopp's upcoming trial on state murder charges. However, Elmore said he would not appeal the decision.
Citing the State Legislature's decision six years ago not to renew a decadelong experiment that put cameras in courtrooms, D'Amico upheld the constitutionality of the state's 50-year-old ban on television-camera court coverage.
But D'Amico said trial judges have discretion to allow some cameras in the courtroom, which means he can give Buffalo News photographers limited access.
D'Amico said he will speak with attorneys for The News, Kopp and prosecutors before issuing an order that will allow still photography with some restrictions.
Federal prosecutors - who will try Kopp separately at a later date - opposed television and still-camera coverage of the state trial.
Kopp's attorneys argued for television coverage but against still-camera coverage. Kopp wanted television cameras to be there when he testifies in the trial, said Elmore, his attorney.
Kopp "wants to take the stand to tell the reason" he shot Slepian, Elmore said.
After years of maintaining his innocence, Kopp told two Buffalo News reporters in November that he had shot Slepian, arguing that he meant only to wound the doctor to stop him from performing abortions.
Elmore said Kopp had wanted television cameras to film his jailhouse confession, but sheriff's department officials refused to permit a camera crew to film the session in the county Holding Center.
Before court broke Friday, the judge told Elmore and Deputy District Attorney Joseph J. Marusak that he expects to begin questioning about 100 prospective jurors March 3.
D'Amico told the attorneys to be ready to begin personally questioning prospective jurors March 12.
The same logic expressed by the bad guys in Iraq when the shuttle went down.
Falwell is an idiot.
It crossed my mind earlier that by his lawyer being present at this interview, his lawyer could indeed become a witness. It happens rarely, of course, but it's also rare that a lawyer sits next to his client while the client is confessing to a murder to two newspaper reporters. The lawyer usually--and very wisely--tells his client to shut up to everyone (remember the Robert Blake jail tapes? The prosecutors are going to have a field day).
LOL!
Kopp's confession is admissable as evidence. Period.
I gather that you imagine that the questions of admissibility are addressed before trial, or in some star chamber proceeding.
The only way the confession is INADMISSABLE is if it were gathered in a manner which violated the Fourth Amendment. If you tell me that you committed a felony, and I go to the DA, you're hosed. If you tell a reporter that you committed a felony, and that reporter repeats it in a newspaper article, you're hosed. A statement published in a newspaper with the consent of the accused's legal counsel does not violate the Fourth Amendment.
True.
The alleged confession is one such piece.
True.
He will make a ruling.
True.
It's entirely possible that the judge will toss it out because there is not, so far, anything that makes the confession believable - to wit: Nothing in it that had not been published earlier, and in the very same newspaper you and your fellow reporter worked.
False.
Any statement against interest made by the defendant is admissable unless the statement was obtained by law enforcement officers using a proscribed interrogation method(wiring Mr. Kopp's genitals to a model train transformer, for example). That does not obtain in this case.
It is up to the jury to judge the validity of the confession; they judge the facts, not the judge. Mr. Kopp's attorney, by being present at the interview, makes impeaching the confession extremely difficult.
About the only purpose the confession might serve is if Mr. Kopp gets himself a new attorney after he is convicted, and presents the confession and the attorney's presence at the confession as proof that his defense counsel was incompetent. However, given that Mr. Kopp voluntarily replaced his first attorney with this dingbat, the appellate court is likely to rule in his favor.
BTW, I do not work for any newspaper--as a matter of fact, I don't live in Buffalo, and (Thank God Almighty for His many blessings!) I have never visited the place. If I have any say about where I go on this Earth, I never will visit Buffalo.
"Believability" is not a requirement for a confession to be admitted into evidence. The jury gets to decide if it's believable or not. Admissibility is determined chiefly by the issue of voluntariness.
He aims at the shoulder with a rifle (7.62 x 39?) and doesn't consider the death of his target a strong possibility. Kopp is either lying on this point, or fantastically ignorant about gunshot wounds.
Think these words: lake effect snow.
We get lake effect snow in cities along Lake Michigan and parts of the UP. Unless you like shoveling FEET of snow every winter, stay away from places near the Great Lakes.
Let me dig out that dusty knowledge that I learned at MCRD San Diego...the definition of deadly force...
Got it! "Deadly force is that force which, when applied to a human being, is likely to result in death or serious bodily injury."
Kopp's dead meat on this one.
It seems to me, however, that there are a whole big bunch of Freepers who want to believe Atomic Dog's supposed confession without further consideration.
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