which holds tremendous appeal for me… If you set bail, I will never give you cause to regret it, I will not flee. I swear this to you on my salvation. As a completely convinced Catholic there is no more binding oath I could possibly conceive. I have hesitated for days to write this, so much does the oath terrify me to take it. I will die rather than break it. Thank you and God Bless You.”
The judge denied her bail.
In Buffalo Paul Cambria spoke to the media about his client’s continued fight against extradition from France to the United States for trial. “Ultimately,” Cambria said, “I want him back here, and he wants to come back here to fight these charges. But his French attorney has been telling him to keep fighting extradition.” Early in October, the French court rejected Kopp’s appeal. There was still one other appeal he could make, this time to the Superior Administrative Court in France. He filed that appeal, too. And then, several months later, he decided to abandon the fight.
In May 2002, Herve Rouzaud–Le Boeuf spoke at a news conference in Rennes, saying that his client intended to prove his innocence upon his return to the United States, and viewed the trial as a chance to clear his name. Why did Jim Kopp give up the extradition fight? There may have been reasons only he understood, but he was perhaps motivated by what was happening to Loretta. Could he use his extradition as a bargaining chip to free her? It ate him up thinking of Loretta in jail, denied bail, two young boys at home who needed their mother. At one point in the extradition delay, he floated an idea to U.S. Justice Department officials. Kopp said he would agree to return to the United States while secretly giving his consent to leave the death penalty on the table—putting his own life at risk —if the Americans would in turn let Loretta walk free. Surely the feds would jump at the opportunity. Loretta was small potatoes, he thought, it’s Kopp they wanted on a gurney.
Was the suggestion genuine or was he playing another game?
Loretta, through Bruce Barket, urged Jim not to take such a drastic step. Was he that confident he would be acquitted of Bart Slepian’s murder? Or was he putting on an act to impress Loretta? Friends of Jim’s thought there was something else that may have prompted him to give up his extradition fight. An obituary had appeared in the St. Albans Messenger newspaper in February:
ST. ALBANS/FAIRFAX—Amy Lynn Boissonneault, 35, of St. Albans, formerly of Fairfax, died peacefully of breast cancer on Monday evening, Feb. 18, 2002, at her home in St. Albans in the presence of her family and friends. Amy was an avid traveler and made many trips and pilgrimages across North America and Europe to include Italy, France and Ireland. She also enjoyed art, poetry, writing letters, summer sunsets at the lake, snowstorms, gardening, Jane Austen movies and New York City. Amy will be remembered for the things she treasured most. Her strong faith in Jesus Christ, her love of the church and its saints and her family and friends. She enriched the lives of so many with her inner beauty and contagious smile. Her love of life and dedication to others were an inspiration to all who knew and loved her. Memorial contributions, in lieu of flowers, may be made in Amy’s memory to Good Counsel, Hoboken, N.J., or to the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.
The U.S. Department of Justice jet arrived from Paris and touched down at the Niagara Falls air force base. On board were several U.S. marshals, the Amherst chief of police, and James Charles Kopp. He returned facing two trials. The State of New York had charged him with murder in the second degree, reckless endangerment in the first degree, and criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree. The federal government charged him with using deadly force to interfere with the right to reproductive health services.
First he was taken to the federal courthouse in downtown Buffalo, escorted into the room by federal marshals and police. He was arraigned before magistrate Judge Hugh Scott on the federal charge. If found guilty, he faced a sentence of life in prison without parole. Paul Cambria filed a not-guilty plea on Kopp’s behalf. Jim Kopp wore wire- rimmed glasses, a rumpled dress shirt, green work pants and navy canvas slip-on shoes. He had a rolled-up Magnificat magazine, the Catholic periodical, in his back pocket.
“Are you James Charles Kopp?” asked Scott.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you understand your right at this time to remain silent?”
“Yes, sir.”
Kopp didn’t say anything else, but he had instantly made an
impression with the media. How could this man be the infamous sniper? His was not the fierce face that had glared from the FBI most wanted poster. Reporters described his thick glasses and boyish face. A slight, meek, wisp of a man with a loopy grin. The public had a new picture of James C. Kopp. Perhaps he wanted it that way. Few could see the wiry forearms, large hands, the blue-gray eyes that seemed to grow darker when he was angry, or the six-foot frame that never looked quite that tall because of his hunched gait. And no one could see the intensity that burned within him.
Judge Scott remanded Kopp into custody. As the marshals escorted him out of the court, he noticed a friend in the gallery, a pro-lifer. “Joe! Hi, Joe!” Kopp said, grinning, before being led into an elevator and down to where more armed marshals waited in vans and jeeps and sedans.
Paul Cambria addressed reporters. “He’s very upbeat—very much looking forward to the process.” Cambria added that the trial would not be about abortion.
A reporter asked why Kopp had fled in the first place if he was innocent.
“It wasn’t because he’s guilty. You’ll find that out as we begin to try the case. There is a very plausible and innocent explanation for his actions.”
The next day he was arraigned in state court and pleaded not guilty to the charge of second-degree murder, which carried a maximum sentence of 25 years to life. Cambria promised the media the trial would be a dogfight. One legal analyst said the resourceful Cambria would “have a field day” picking out weaknesses in the prosecution’s case, including why it took police five months to find the murder weapon, and challenge them to prove that Kopp had bought it. In effect, the defense lawyer would put the FBI and police themselves on trial. The analyst added that everyone was anxious to see Paul Cambria take on the top prosecutor in the Buffalo DA’s office.
“Life in prison would be difficult, certainly—it always is,” Joseph Marusak said, his blue eyes staring unblinkingly into those of the jurors. “But he’ll still be able to get up every day. He’ll be able to breathe every day. What about his victim?” It was a Thursday in October 1998. The 20-year-old man charged with murder watched the prosecutor work the jury, trying to convince them that the accused deserved to be strapped to a gurney and have potassium chloride pumped through his veins, stopping his heart—that he, Jonathan Parker, deserved to die. Parker was Joe Marusak’s first death penalty case. He had, weeks before, managed to get Parker convicted for murder. Now he was going for the ultimate sentence.
At that time, three years after Republican governor George Pataki had brought back capital punishment to New York State, only one other person sat on death row. Parker had shot decorated Buffalo police officer Charles (Skip) McDougald, father of four. A controversial case. The selection of an all-white jury for Parker—who was black—had drawn criticism. But then the victim had been black, too. Parker had been arrested a few times prior to the shooting on drug and weapon offenses. Before the jury Parker apologized to McDougald’s family. He was sorry, truly sorry, for the tragedy he had caused. But Marusak argued that Parker had forfeited his right to live when he aimed a loaded semiautomatic pistol at the police officer’s heart.
“If Officer McDougald had been able to steady his aim and kill the defendant, would that action have been justified?” Marusak asked. “If that action was justified, how can the death sentence not be?”
The presiding judge in the case was Michael L. D’Amico. He watched Marusak pour it on, taking the jurors back to the fatal night, putting them in the slain cop’s shoes, recounting the final hours of his life.
“He had no clue as he got out of his car that he had an invisible target on his chest. Then the explosion shreds your heart. You reach for the gun out of instinct, your lungs filling with blood and the life going out of you—
