Md. Legal Briefs: June 7, 2002

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jun 7, 2002 by Staff

Kopp pleads innocent

James Kopp, an anti-abortion activist accused of fatally shooting Dr. Barnett Slepian, a Buffalo abortion provider, four years ago, pleaded innocent yesterday to murder in a New York State court, a day after entering a similar plea in federal court to violating a federal law against using deadly force to interfere with the right to an abortion.

Charities face suit

The parents of David Boim, an American teen-ager who was killed in 1996 by members of a Palestinian militant group in the West Bank, can sue U.S. Islamic charities accused of contributing to the organization, a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

Robber's lucky break

Dozens of police officers were about to catch a bank robber at a Seattle fast-food outlet when shots rang out nearby. After racing to the scene, officers learned that the gunfire came from a military honor guard shooting blanks in a salute at a veteran's funeral. The robber got away.

On the job

An off-duty sheriff's deputy in Elizabethtown, Tenn., in court on bad check charges, saved his job when he chased and captured jail prisoner Jerry Ray Oaks, who was fleeing the courtroom. After the heroics, prosecutor Ken Baldwin dropped all charges against Lt. Rocky Croy, the deputy, preserving his 20-year law enforcement career.