By Jay Reeves / The Associated Press
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The judge in Eric Rudolph's death penalty case agreed Wednesday to a hearing on whether prosecutors can show jurors a model of the bomb that killed a police officer outside a Birmingham abortion clinic.
U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith said the hearing would begin on March 28 in Huntsville, where he normally hears cases.
The defense has asked the judge to bar prosecutors from using the bomb model, made by a government expert. Smith said he would also hear testimony on defense challenges of the work of forensic experts who examined pieces of the bomb.
After a joint agreement between prosecutors and the defense, the judge said he would issue a ruling without oral arguments on whether jurors can hear evidence about fingerprints, handwriting analysis and the culture of western North Carolina, where Rudolph lived and was arrested two years ago.
The judge said he wouldn't decide until the trial whether the defense can present testimony challenging the accuracy of eyewitness identifications like one man allegedly made of Rudolph near the clinic shortly after the blast.
Separately, a magistrate judge granted a defense request for a subpoena seeking documents about a piece of testing equipment used by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to test explosives evidence.
Rudolph's lawyers hope to prove the device was unreliable, a move that could cast doubt on scientific evidence that prosecutors say links Rudolph to the bombing.
Preliminary jury selection is set to begin next month in the trial of Rudolph, accused of using a remote-control device to detonate a bomb outside the abortion clinic in January 1998, killing the officer and critically injuring a nurse.
Rudolph also is charged with setting off the bomb that went off during Atlanta Olympics in 1996, killing a woman, and with planting more bombs in metro Atlanta in 1997. He was captured in Murphy, N.C., in 2003 after more than five years as a fugitive.
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Posted by Editor at February 16, 2005 07:52 PM
