Rudolph's Defense Attorneys Get Bomb Model Access
Judge: Make replicas to be used in trial available to defense
By Val Walton / The Birmingham News
A magistrate judge ruled Tuesday Eric Robert Rudolph's defense attorneys should have access to, if prosecutors plan to use them at trial, any replica or model of the bomb used in the Southside abortion clinic blast.
U. S. Magistrate Judge T. Michael Putnam was ruling on a defense request that they be given access to 36 items attorneys believe could be favorable to Rudolph. Putnam denied some and approved others.
Rudolph has pleaded not guilty to the January 1998 bombing of the New Woman All Women clinic that killed an off-duty police officer and injured a nurse. His trial is scheduled for May.
Putnam said the defense cannot have access to information maintained by the Birmingham Police Department about arrests or incidents in the area of the clinic from 1988 to January 1998 and all investigations conducted involving abortion protesters from 1985 to 1998.
Putnam said the information was in the control of Birmingham police, not the federal government.
Rudolph's attorney also sought the government's witness list, which Putnam denied.
Putnam is requiring prosecutors to give the defense all information involving the testing of a shovel that supposedly belonged to Rudolph. The judge noted the test was "negative," but said it was unclear what the test was negative for. He said there is a suggestion that the bomb at the Birmingham clinic was placed under a plant or buried.
Prosecutors should provide the defense with the information within 30 days, the judge wrote.
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Posted by Editor at December 22, 2004 06:06 PM
