The work of a state police forensics expert who killed himself amid allegations he lied about having college degrees has withstood its first legal challenge.
A Baltimore City circuit judge rejected an inmate?s attempt to challenge his 1989 murder conviction because Joseph Kopera, the state?s firearms-identification expert, lied about his educational background at trial.
“Mr. Kopera did testify at this trial that he had college degreesthat he apparently didn?t have,” prosecutor Sharon Holback said. “But his testimony did not make or break this prosecution. There was no criticism of his actual testimony.”
Kopera had testified in hundreds of cases in every county in Maryland.
Jerome Johnson was appealing his conviction for the first-degree murder of Aaron Taylor on July 14, 1988 in the Night Owl Bar on Woodland Avenue. He was sentenced to life plus 20 years.
Johnson claimed he could not get a fair trial because Kopera gave false testimony about his academic credentials. His attorneys, Johnson also argued, proved ineffective because they failed to learn Kopera lacked a college education.
Kopera, 61, claimed to have degrees from the Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Maryland, when he did not. He was under investigation at the time of his March 1 death, caused by a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Perry Hall home.
But Judge Audrey Carrion agreed with Holback?s arguments that Kopera?s testimony was not critical to Johnson?s conviction.
Holbeck said Kopera?s suicide shocked the legal community, where the expert was “well-respected.”
“He was a great guy,” she said. “He was a terrific expert. It?s incredibly sad he felt a need to embellish his credentials.”
Meanwhile, a similar challenge to another conviction involving Kopera?s testimony is awaiting a decision in Baltimore County Circuit Court.
In that case, James Kulbicki, 50, of Baltimore, was found guilty of murdering his lover, Gina Neuslein, in 1993.
Judge Kathleen Cox has yet to rule on Kulbicki?s case, being argued by Maryland?s Innocence Project.
