November 2006 Issue

Cover Story

The Big Bopper

James Bopp Jr. is driving his six-year-old Lincoln LS past the Vigo County Courthouse in Terre Haute, Ind. The huge limestone neo-Baroque structure looms over much of an otherwise sparse area at the edge of downtown.

Bopp frequented the building when he augmented his fledgling general practice as a part-time prosecutor in the late 1970s. Along with personal injury cases, he handled welfare fraud. He is believed to have gotten the first murder conviction there against a woman; he also put away the youngest murder defendant, age 16. Bopp’s practice has mostly outgrown the old court­house, now only an occasional venue for him in state election law matters.

Feature Section

Asylum Ordeals

If words were spontaneously combustible, a recent immigration opinion issued by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Philadelphia might have incinerated half of the City of Brotherly Love.

The Rites Wrangle

Real estate developer Daniel Hernandez, 49, and environmental studies professor Nevin Cohen, 44, share a five story walk up in Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan. They’ve been together seven years, exchanged rings as a symbol of their commitment in 2001, and wanted that relationship recognized in the eyes of the law.