by Jon Wells
He issued a final rejoinder to Barket, who had said in his remarks earlier in the day that John Brown had been hung for fighting slavery but today was considered a hero, while the judge who sentenced him was nothing more than an historical footnote. “With regard to the comparison to the John Brown case, Mr. Barket, I will take my chances.”
He looked at Kopp. “It is the judgment of this court, Mr. Kopp, that you be sentenced to an indeterminate sentence having a maximum of life imprisonment. The court hereby imposes a minimum period of 25 years.” Kopp turned to Barket and smiled. D’Amico rose, the crowded courtroom followed suit. And James Charles Kopp was taken away.
“Shame on America! Shame on America!”
The voice of protest outside court belonged to a small black woman named Hettie Pasco. She had picketed for years at the clinic where Slepian had worked. “How about legalizing mass murder in America?” she shouted. “Abortion is a weapon of mass destruction!”
Joe Marusak left Courtroom Number One and strode down the corridor and out of the old building. He did about a halfdozen homicide trials a year. Nothing shocked him anymore, but this one had been the most bizarre trial he had ever worked. He had spent a lot of time analyzing Kopp’s actions and building what in essence was a behavioral profile of the sniper to present in court. But in hindsight, Marusak still didn’t quite know what to make of the man. He had been handed evidence to work with to prove that Kopp had intended to kill. But that was it. It wasn’t his job to understand Kopp. He just needed to prove a fact, and he had done so.
Later, Judge Michael D’Amico relaxed in his office, the adjoining courtroom empty and quiet. He reflected on the case. Kopp was clearly a bright guy, educated. Who knows what forces someone like that into activism—and what throws the switch inside that turns him into Atomic Dog or whatever the hell his name was, he mused. There was something at some point that caused Kopp to surrender his life, essentially, to this cause, and ultimately it led to a martyrdom complex. D’Amico shook his head. Would that complex persist in Kopp’s thinking for the rest of his life? He imagined the convicted man in jail. One day, down the road, it hits him: I’m the one sitting in prison and everyone else is out there, free—my lawyers, allies in America and abroad. They’re all back to normal, and I’m sitting here in prison. And maybe, thought D’Amico, at that point he says, Holy cow—what the hell have I done? Maybe then he realizes he wasn’t so smart.
On the other hand, concluded D’Amico, Kopp might carry his belief in the cause to his grave.
* * *
Buffalo Federal Detention Facility
Batavia, N.Y.
Spring 2003
Pitcher stands tall. Count is full. Checks the sign. Into his motion now, leg kick, the follow through, ball popping in the catcher’s mitt. Strike! Jim Kopp sets again. Winds up. Zips his hand through the air, the imaginary ball whizzing over the imaginary plate.
Jim wore his red prisoner’s jumpsuit, shoes with no laces, his face peppered with a sparse rust-colored beard, square metalrimmed bifocal glasses. He worked on his pitching motion in a common room at the federal prison in Batavia, a town of 16,000. Pitching? Kopp’s chronically bad back continued to bother him. He had discovered that going through the baseball pitcher’s motions loosened him up. He did it for long periods while other inmates in the common room looked on.
Set. Pitch. Set.
Back in his cell, he stretched some more. And prayed. And worked on his book, the novel he was writing. Last night he crossed a barrier in plot development. It pleased him. He was also working on an essay about his father. He sang to himself. Joni Mitchell, of course. Time was something Kopp had plenty of. The next step in his legal journey was the federal trial, but that was still a long way off. Would they throw away the key on him? Or perhaps put the death penalty back on the table, in violation of the extradition agreement with France? As far as he was concerned, the executioner’s needle would always be on the table for him, agreement or not. Frequently he had more time to write than paper to write on. On occasion he ran out, took to scribbling his letters in pencil on toilet paper. It’s OK, he advised a correspondent. Just place the paper on a light table to make out the writing.
Some days were better than others. The jail was primarily used for immigration matters. He had been originally held there because his case involved extradition. He felt like a bug under a microscope in prison. The FBI was listening to his phone calls. Reading his mail. He wrote Latin acronyms on the envelopes of his outgoing mail so God might look over them, keep them safe from the Edgars. He had time to think about his life, his future. And his success, to the extent that it might be called success, he thought. Success? His campaign of terror had made an impact. There were doctors less willing to offer abortion services for fear of violence. The doctors Kopp had shot, and allegedly shot, no longer practiced medicine.
There was one notable exception, and it held a considerable irony that even Jim Kopp could appreciate on a certain level. In Vancouver, Dr. Romalis, allegedly one of Kopp’s victims, continued to practice medicine, but had to alter his practice somewhat. He had always delivered babies as part of his practice. A major part, in fact. But delivering babies, like other surgeries, is a physically demanding job. After he was shot in the thigh, he no longer had the physical stamina to deliver babies—it can involve being on your feet a long time. Romalis couldn’t stand long enough. The wound, the hole punched in his leg by the assault rifle, had put a stop to that. So Dr. Garson Romalis could only do procedures that required little time standing. He could perform what are called, in obstetrics phraseology, terminations. Abortions.
* * *
Starke, Florida
Summer 2003
Paul Hill awaited his appointment with the end. He had been on death row ever since admitting to murdering Dr. John Britton and a security guard in broad daylight outside a clinic in Pensacola in 1994. He had shown no remorse for his act. He was in good spirits. Radical pro-lifers who supported Hill’s actions continued to keep in touch with him. He even corresponded on occasion with journalists. He returned a letter from a Canadian reporter:
I appreciate your interest in the principles for which I stand. I would be glad to meet you and answer any questions you have… I hope it all works out for you. I am currently in the final stages of writing a book. The working title is Mix My Blood With The Blood Of The Unborn. It presents the best case I can muster, I think it is rather convincing and compelling, for upholding the duty to defend the unborn with the means necessary (as required by the moral law, and as we would defend ourselves). At any rate, I look forward to meeting you.
In Christ,
Paul Hill
The date was set for September 3. He was scheduled to be the third inmate executed in Florida that year, and the 57th since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1979. Jim Kopp heard the news that a group of pro-lifers planned to gather at the site of the execution in Starke, to protest the death sentence and show their love and support for Hill, and the unborn. Kopp was excited. He wrote a long letter and had a friend post it on a website, urging pro-lifers to “join him” in Florida. It was titled, “I’m Going Back To Florida.” In part the letter read:
Sometime between now and when we die, we will have a different feeling about how we look at the whole, tragic pro-life capitulation which is taking place right now. And, grudgingly or not, just like Schindler, you will realize that there was something more you could have done, in between rescue and sidewalk work, and what Paul Hill did, and you will realize that you could have and should have done it. Be it forceful or not, “legal” or not, practical or not, efficacious or not. I assure you, the reasons we use to excuse ourselves will pale at the moment of our deaths… Come to Starke because you’re a brand new pro-lifer and clueless. Come to Starke because you’re a burnt-out, old curmudgeon (although I certainly have no direct experience in this matter). Come to Starke to look at blue herons. Just come to Starke. The Lord will take care of the rest… I’m
looking forward to seeing you there. I’ll be there in spirit. The rest of me will be very, very sad at a remote location, but my spirit will be with you and Paul and his beautiful and God-chosen family.
Five people had shot and either killed or wounded abortion providers or clinic workers in the United States: Michael Griffin, John Salvi—who committed suicide—Shelley Shannon, Hill and Kopp. Hill would be the first put to death. Five known shooters—shooters: a terribly crude word, really, Kopp mused in his letter, “but let’s use it. Five known shooters. And now two of them, sadly, will be dead. And another [Griffin], sadly, and due to perhaps some unprecipitated—though not thereby necessarily unholy—action, essentially repented of his action. He took the ‘aw shucks, I’m sorry, wish I hadn’t done it’ route.”
On Tuesday, September 2, Paul Hill met with several reporters selected by the state. He smiled for the cameras and said he expected a great reward in heaven upon his passing. The next day he ate his last meal, alone: steak, baked potato, broccoli with hollandaise sauce, salad, orange sherbet, a glass of iced tea. He sat in the solitary-confinement cell. Outside, the sky turned black as a storm blew in. Hill had a final visit with his wife and son, his mother and father, and two sisters. His two daughters had visited earlier in the week. None of his family came to the observation room. The family of Hill’s victims also stayed away. About 50 pro-lifers stood outside the prison gates, holding signs. There was a roll of thunder. IV tubes were inserted into both of his arms. He made his final statement: “If you believe abortion is a lethal force, you should oppose the force and do what you have to do to stop it,” he said calmly as he lay strapped to a gurney, staring at the ceiling and speaking into the microphone that hung from it. “May God help you to protect the unborn as you would want to be protected.”
Moments later, the chemicals pumped through his veins: first the sedative, then a paralytic agent and, finally, potassium chloride to stop his heart. Witnesses watched him gasp for air, swallow, lick his lips. His eyes fluttered, closed, and he went still. Hill was declared dead at 6:08 p.m. When the news reached Jim Kopp, his heart pounded, his mind trying to process it all, sort through his feelings. “I never knew of anyone dying on a predictable day and hour,” he wrote. “I don’t know how to deal with it. I can’t deal with sudden death, either, though.”
* * *
Miami Beach, Florida
November 11, 2003
A former soldier reading verse from the Army of God Manual. He wasn’t going to be another Paul Hill. Stephen Jordi admired Paul, he had flown north to Starke to protest at Hill’s execution. Hill had sent Jordi a letter, thanking him for his moral and financial support. Tactically, perhaps he would be more like Jim Kopp. Details of the story appeared later in news reports, quoting an affidavit filed in court. Stephen Jordi bought gasoline cans, flares, starter fluid, propane tanks. He wanted to blow up an abortion clinic. C-4 plastic explosives might be his best bet. But there were other ways to do it, too. A propane tank bomb. Pipe bomb.
He met again with his new friend. The friend shared Jordi’s views on the need to use force in the abortion war. Was the time ripe to strike? Jim Kopp had been sentenced to life in prison, Paul Hill executed, and Eric Rudolph, who bombed a clinic in Alabama, arrested—all within the space of five months. If Jordi decided to hit a clinic, he would be a marked man. On the other hand, George W. Bush, a pro-life Republican, was in the White House, and the FBI’s focus was now on al-Qaeda. He had no intention of ending up strapped to a gurney like Hill, or getting caught like Rudolph or Kopp. “As long as I keep hitting places, they’ll keep after me,” he told his friend. “But it’s like trying to catch a cockroach in a house. They won’t get me.”
Jordi ‘s friend sold him a .45-caliber pistol with an attached silencer and two empty magazines. Jordi tried to liaise with others on the fringe of the pro-life movement. One warned Jordi to be careful. In the current climate, he was playing a risky game. And one more thing: always assume that anyone you might be talking to could be a cop. On Tuesday night, Jordi met again with his friend, who lived on a houseboat at a Miami Beach marina. Perhaps Jordi felt especially safe talking with him, under cover of darkness, water lapping gently against the sides of the boat. Safe, until FBI agents emerged from the shadows to arrest him. Jordi’s friend had been an informant. He had told the feds everything. Jordi plunged into the water to escape, managed to pull away from the boat. Half an hour later he was pulled from the water by the U.S. Coast Guard. He was charged with solicitation to commit a crime of violence, distribution of information relating to making and using explosives for arson, and possession of an unregistered firearm or destructive device. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force had been investigating Jordi for four months, after getting a tip from his own brother.
One of Jordi’s relatives told reporters that he was a loner, had a strained relationship with his family. Jordi was “overzealous about the Lord, but not a violent person.” Four days prior to the arrest, the pastor at the Baptist church Jordi attended had faxed a letter to police, warning that the parishioner had violent views on stopping abortion. Clearly, in contrast to Kopp, Stephen Jordi stood out, with a shaved head and religious tattoos on both forearms. He was described in the press as a devout evangelical Christian who had four kids named Noah, Elijah, Charity and Trinity.
And Jim Kopp? A chameleon. Had seemed to one and all gentle, spoke like a devout Christian—and carried inside him a capacity for violence like a concealed shiv. Kopp knew the media would, “in its infinite wisdom,” try to answer the puzzle of his life by finding some old lady somewhere who had known him, “and she would stand there for the camera, rub rosary beads in her hands, and say: ‘Oh, dear, yes, Jim was such a nice boy. Can’t believe he’d ever do anything wrong to anyone.’” Oh, Kopp mused, they’d trot out the old Jekyll-and-Hyde explanation for his behavior.
It was a bit more complicated than that, he reflected. Wasn’t the FBI still trying to construct a psychological profile of him for the federal case? Why else would they, in the spring of 2004, with the federal trial still pending, fly him all the way to San Diego for a psychiatric evaluation? Federal prosecutors had asked for the evaluation to determine Kopp’s fitness to stand trial. Was that the only reason? Why move him all the way from Buffalo to San Diego, near his boyhood home in Southern California? Perhaps they were trying to jog some old memories, shake him up a little bit? But of course. They wouldn’t get inside him, though. He was sure the Edgars still hadn’t figured out the code he had used in his letters to Loretta when he was on the run.
Stephen Jordi’s lawyer accused the FBI of entrapment. His big mistake had been talking and trusting too much. The lesson of Jordi’s capture, said a commentary on the Army of God website, is that “your family, pro-lifers and your church ‘friends’ will rat you out in a heartbeat, thinking they are doing God’s will. Do not tell anyone, before, during, or after you are planning on taking action.”
Jordi had military training, but he lacked Jim Kopp’s guile. Kopp would have never been fooled by an informer, would never have talked like that. His advantage was that no one could see him coming. He used deception in every facet of his life, the Romanita. Yet in the end, the reason Kopp was caught and convicted was that he, too, had trusted, had talked too much—to the woman he loved. Loved? He never married, never had serious relationships. It had to be that way. His connections with adults were weak at best. Perhaps he eventually became so desensitized to grown humans that it created in him the soul of a killer, enabling him to shoot doctors, play Russian roulette with lives, shatter whole families for his cause. And yet he chose to shoot from a distance, ran after he pulled the trigger. He gave himself a buffer zone from the carnage, did not have the certainty of the up-close killer. In the end he was not completely desensitized, not quite enough. His connection with the fetus, his mission to save the unborn, wasn’t enough, not when he was tired and vulnerable, “sleeping” on the run. It was then that Kopp reached for perhaps the only pe
rson he could connect with, and that was Loretta Marra.
Loretta was his blind spot, the chink in his psychological armor. His contact with her led directly to his capture. And, while few knew it at the time, she also led to his conviction. When he shocked everyone by confessing to shooting Bart Slepian, Jim Kopp was trying to sacrifice himself for Loretta’s freedom. That fact all became clear one day in a Brooklyn court.
Chapter 27 ~ Free Conscience
Marra-Malvasi Sentencing Hearing
Brooklyn Federal Courthouse
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Loretta Marra had labored over the speech in her cell. She had spent much of her adult life proselytizing, debating philosophy and morality, and now she was preparing the argument of her life. She was to make her case before federal judge Carol Amon. Marra’s mission was nothing less than freeing herself and her husband, Dennis Malvasi, returning to their two young sons. They had been in custody for 29 months, since March 29, 2001, repeatedly denied bail. And now, having pled guilty to conspiracy to harbor a fugitive, Amon would decide their punishment. The maximum sentence was five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
