Maryland?s Innocence Project on Thursday brought the first challenge to the work of a state police forensics expert who took his own life amid allegations he lied in court testimony.
“We intend to present evidence that Mr. [Joseph] Kopera?s work was deficient,” attorney Suzanne Drouet of the Maryland Public Defender?s Innocence Project told Baltimore County Circuit Judge Kathleen Cox.
The project?s lawyers say lies Kopera told caused a jury to wrongfully convict James Kulbicki, 50, of Baltimore, of murdering his lover, Gina Neuslein, in 1993.
They are asking Cox to grant the former police officer a new trial.
“Jim Kulbicki did not kill Gina Neuslein,” said Kulbicki?s attorney, Garrick Greenblatt. “In November of 1995, Mr. Kulbicki was wrongly convicted of murder. He was denied a fair trial because the state used false, misleading and unreliable scientific evidence.”
But Baltimore County State?s Attorney Scott Shellenberger said the case against Kulbicki remains strong, despite Kopera?s dubious testimony and credentials.
“Somebody?s going to have to prove that what he said concerning the substantive part of his evidence is incorrect,” Shellenberger said. “We don?t think that?s true in any case.”
Shellenberger said two different juries ? one in 1993 and another in 1995 ? convicted Kulbicki.
Kopera died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home March 1. He was 61.
Kopera was under investigation at the time of his death regarding his credentials given in trial testimony. Kopera claimed to have bachelor?s degrees from the Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Maryland when he did not.
Kopera, whohad worked with the state police since 1991 as a firearms and toolmarks examiner, was previously employed for 21 years in the Baltimore Police Department?s crime laboratory.
Kopera testified about crime scene evidence in state courts in all 24 Maryland jurisdictions.
He also testified in federal courts, and in Delaware, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
State police have requested that the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives conduct a review of all the violent crime cases Kopera examined.
