Unlike most murder trials, the trial of anti-abortion extremist James Kopp may not be about whether he committed the crime.

Kopp, 48, admits firing the high-powered rifle that killed Dr. Barnett Slepian, an upstate New York obstetrician whose services included abortions. Kopp willingly admitted to the 1998 shooting while being interviewed by two Buffalo newspaper reporters in November.

So why have a trial? Why not fast-forward to the punishment phase?

The short answer is that Erie County prosecutors never offered a plea deal and Kopp refuses to plead guilty to second-degree murder charges. Despite his confession, Kopp has a legal right to force prosecutors to prove he killed Slepian. They must show that he either intended to end the physician's life or acted with such reckless disregard that death was a likely consequence.  

The long answer is that, through legal strategies such as jury nullification and a necessity defense, Kopp hopes he can turn a Buffalo courtroom into a platform for his anti-abortion views. 

As a member of an extreme fringe of the right-to-life movement, Kopp believes that people who value human life have a moral right, if not a duty, to use physical force to block medical professionals from ending pregnancies.  

Kopp insists that was all he was trying to do when he slipped unnoticed into the woods behind Slepian's Amherst, N.Y., home and peered inside the house. After spotting Slepian in his kitchen, where the physician was chatting with family members as he heated soup in a microwave oven, Kopp raised his rifle, aimed at the doctor through the window and squeezed the trigger.  

The bullet entered Slepian's body through the back of his left shoulder. The projectile encountered bone, and took what Kopp referred to as a "crazy ricochet." As doctors were pronouncing Slepian dead of internal injuries a short time later, Kopp was already on the first leg of a three-and-a-half-year flight from justice that took him to Mexico, Ireland and ultimately France.  

Kopp was extradited from France after French authorities were assured that prosecutors would not seek the death penalty.  

"The truth is not that I regret shooting Dr. Slepian. I regret that he died," Kopp told the Buffalo News in a jailhouse interview in November. "I aimed at his shoulder. The bullet took a crazy ricochet, and that's what killed him. One of my goals was to keep Dr. Slepian alive, and I failed at that goal."

Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot while warming soup in his home.

Because prosecutors have to prove intent to sustain the most serious charge against Kopp, the defense plans to delve deeply into Kopp's convictions that abortions and those who perform them have to be stopped.  

"To a large extent, it will be a political trial," Kopp's attorney, Bruce Barket of Long Island, told Courttv.com.

"There are boundaries in this. I recognize there are boundaries and it's not going to be a free-for-all," Barket said. "But then again every time I say 'abortion' I'm not going to get fined."  

Erie County Judge Michael D'Amico has already permitted attorneys to ask prospective jurors about their stance on abortion in a 16-page questionnaire that poses 68 questions. Being pro-choice or pro-life does not automatically disqualify someone from serving on Kopp's jury, D'Amico told the 607 prospective jurors who passed through his courtroom.  

Starting March 12, the prosecution and defense will use those questionnaires to conduct individual interviews with about 400 prospective panelists who made the cut.

Jury selection is always important, but in Kopp's case it is paramount. The defense, if it hopes to win an acquittal, will have to identify people in the jury pool capable of concluding that New York's second-degree murder statute does not apply to a defendant who insists he was intervening in the systematic murder of unborn babies.  

The rarely used strategy is known as jury nullification — when jurors vote not guilty if they disagree with a law or how it is being applied — and there is a current movement to require judges to instruct jurors about their right to nullification. The centuries-old principle, however, conflicts with the oath jurors take to follow the law.

Barket said the defense will use both a jury nullification strategy and a necessity defense. Legal experts say both strategies pose problems for Kopp, assuming the judge allows the defense to pursue them.  

"The defense of necessity says that you can commit a lesser evil to prevent a greater evil. Here, what the defense is basically saying is that [Kopp] was protecting the unborn fetus," said Richard Klein, a law professor at Tuoro Law School in Huntington, N.Y. "The problem with that is that that cannot go to the jury. For a defense of necessity to apply, the greater evil has to be deemed by society to be evil. Here, the greater evil being claimed — abortion — is legal."  

Although the trial has already sparked anti-abortion protests outside the courthouse in Buffalo, exactly what Judge D'Amico will allow to be argued is still a question mark. Experts like Klein and others agree, however, that D'Amico will not instruct jurors specifically about the jury nullification principle.  

If Barket seeks jury nullification, he will have be circumspect about it.  

"To argue jury nullification is usually a very treacherous thing to attempt. In essence, what you are telling the jury to do is ignore the evidence that was presented and find that your client was justified in what he did and acquit him," said Julian Johnson, a former Erie County prosecutor.  

Johnson, who in private practice has represented murder defendants before D'Amico, said he did not think the defense would get far with its strategy.

"I don't think [the judge] is going to let them use it as a springboard for their position. He's that kind of judge. He controls his courtroom," said Johnson. "I think he's been prepared for this for some time. I don't think he'll let in too much of that and I think the prosecution would be ludicrous to open the door for that sort of thing."  

Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark could not be reached for comment, and prosecutors have cited a gag order issued after Kopp's Buffalo News confession and declined any detailed comment about the case since then.  

Clark has told the Buffalo-area media that his office intends to try a man for murder. Period.

"I consider this a crime of the worst magnitude," the Buffalo News quoted Clark as saying in November. "A man was gunned down in his own home, while his family was there. It was an assassination."  

Kopp faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of second-degree murder under either count of intentional murder or depraved indifference. He has also been linked in press reports to the shootings of three other abortion providers and is awaiting trial in federal court for an alleged violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in connection with Slepian's shooting.  

Testimony is scheduled to begin March 17 and last three weeks to four weeks.