Not buying it

James Kopp, convicted assassin, has decided that he doesn't want to be in prison after all.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- James Kopp only confessed to shooting an abortion provider to win the release of a woman who helped him evade capture, his attorney said Monday, arguing the government should not be allowed to use the confession at Kopp's upcoming trial.

Attorney John Humann said the confession was the result of a deal between Kopp's former attorney and the government that trampled on Kopp's rights. The former attorney, Bruce Barket, was also representing the woman, Loretta Marra, at the time Kopp made the statements to reporters, Humann said.

Then the deal also trampled on the rights of The People, so Loretta Marra should go back in the clink.

Barket had an obvious conflict of interest, Humann said, and the government knew it.

"They were involved up to their eyeballs," the lawyer said. "We'll give her an out-of-jail free card if he'll confess."

Ditch the "defense counsel's misconduct was the government's fault" crap, John (what is it with lawyers named John?). Did the prosecution really have an obligation to do anything more than notify the defendants that their lawyer's position was ethically challenged? I don't know - but assuming they did that, the rest was just doing their job. Barket's conflict of interest trampled on the rights of his clients, so he should probably have a cell right between them.

"The truth is not that I regret shooting Dr. Slepian. I regret that he died," Kopp, a militant known as "Atomic Dog" in anti-abortion circles, said in the 2002 jailhouse interview with The Buffalo News. "I aimed at his shoulder."

The truth is that you shot and killed the man, you psychotic freakshow. You went to his home, aimed a high-powered rifle through the window of his home, fired and killed him in front of his wife. I don't need to detail what you did to him or why, but what exactly is it that she did to deserve having the sanctity of her home violated by delusional vermin like you?

Kopp became one of the FBI's Most Wanted fugitives during 2 1/2 years on the run after the shooting, spending time in Ireland and elsewhere before being captured in France in March 2001.

Of course he was captured in France; France is like a zoo for depraved sociopaths like Kopp. He's not even a featured attraction amidst the likes of Baby Doc Duvalier and Jean Bedel Bokassa. You scrape the slime off the bottom of the gene pool, and it crawls to France every time.