A condemned murderer whose bid for clemency was denied by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
won a stay of execution on Monday, hours before he was to be executed.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a request for an 11-judge panel
to rehear the case of Kevin Cooper, convicted in 1983 of hacking four people
to death. His execution would have been the first in California in two years
and is the first death penalty case Schwarzenegger had to deal with.
It was not clear when the panel would hear the latest challenge, which Cooper's
attorneys filed Sunday.
Cooper was scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday at San Quentin
Prison after spending 19 years on death row.
He won support from actors who oppose the death penalty including Denzel
Washington, Sean Penn and Mike Farrell, and from the Rev. Jesse Jackson and
Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. In addition, three of the jurors who convicted
Cooper called for a stay of execution so hair and blood evidence can be tested.
Cooper, 46, was sentenced to death for the murders of Douglas and Peggy Ryen,
both 41, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and Christopher Hughes, her
11-year-old friend.
On Sunday, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit rejected Cooper's legal
claims by 2-1. Out of deference to the dissenting judge, the majority of
the judges agreed to allow an 11-judge panel to review the case.
Also Sunday, Cooper's attorneys filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court
seeking to block the execution.
Cooper claims DNA evidence found at the scene, which matches his, was planted
by authorities. He has repeatedly asked for renewed tests, but the courts
have balked, saying there is no evidence of tampering and there is overwhelming
evidence of Cooper's guilt.
Cooper maintains a trio of murderers committed the savage attacks, according
to his attorney, David Alexander.
Cooper's attorneys also insisted they have new evidence in the case, producing
a woman who said that on the night of the 1983 murders, she saw two men covered
in blood at a bar near the scene of the killings.
About 100 death penalty opponents gathered Sunday near Schwarzenegger's home
in Southern California, and hundreds are planning a candlelight vigil outside
the prison gates.
"This could be one of our biggest protests ever," said Lance Lindsay, executive
director of Death Penalty Focus, a group that lobbies against the death penalty.
On Saturday, three of Cooper's jurors called for a stay of execution. They
said blond hair found in the hands of one of the victims should be tested.
The hair had not undergone DNA testing before the 1985 trial. Prosecutors
believe the hair was that of the victim, sheared off as she was being hacked
to death.
The mother of one of Cooper's victims, Mary Ann Hughes, dismissed the jurors'
request.
"This is nothing new," she said. "It's stuff that has been looked at millions
of times. This is just an example of the defense playing on the jurors emotions
at the last minute."
The San Bernardino County victims were stabbed and hacked repeatedly with
a hatchet and buck knife. The Ryens' 8-year-old son, Joshua, had his throat
slit, but survived.
Joshua Ryen, now a construction worker, was awakened the night of the murder
by screaming and was left unconscious with a slashed throat, two hatchet
wounds and two stab wounds, his lawyer, Milt Silverman, told the Los Angeles
Times for a story in Monday editions.
"Josh wakes up from the attack in the deathly still bedroom, where the stench
of blood was nauseating," Silverman told the newspaper. "He put all four
fingers in his neck to stop his bleeding while he was staring closely at
his mother -- dead, and covered in blood. Josh laid there 11 hours."
Ryen hired Silverman after he and his grandmother expressed doubts that Cooper
acted alone, but Silverman said his investigation left the survivor convinced
that Cooper was the lone killer.
When the murders were committed, Cooper was on the run after escaping from
prison, where he had been serving a four-year sentence for burglary. Authorities
speculated his motive was to steal the family's station wagon.
The last execution in California was that of Stephen Anderson in 2002, when
Schwarzenegger's predecessor, Gray Davis, refused to grant clemency.
The last California governor to grant clemency to a condemned murderer was
Ronald Reagan, who in 1967 spared the life of a severely brain-damaged killer.
Death-row
killer says DNA test was tainted, incomplete
Kevin Cooper, scheduled to die by lethal injection next month for the
savage slayings of 4 after he escaped a Chino Hills prison in 1983,
petitioned Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday for new DNA testing that
he says will demonstrate his innocence.
While forensic tests have already proved that Cooper was the killer, his
lawyers say the tests were tainted and incomplete. Prosecutors say the
petition is a sham to delay his execution.
Frivolous or not, the condemned man's latest bid to avoid the ultimate
penalty begs the question of when the capital appeals process should
expire.
One of Cooper's attorneys, Robert Amidon, said the answer is only when
it's known for sure that those proved guilty in court are actually guilty.
"You can't bring back the dead," he said. "They would rather have Kevin
Cooper go to his grave than know for sure."
Dane Gillette, California's top death penalty prosecutor for Attorney
General Bill Lockyer, said Cooper's execution is long overdue. His
appeals, 18 years and counting, have pingponged through the state and
federal courts. The final answer to all those appeals: Cooper is guilty
and should die, Gillette said.
"We have absolutely no doubt or questions about him being the perpetrator
of these crimes," Gillette said. He called Cooper's request a "sham"
effort to continue delaying his execution.
Alison Renteln, who teaches law and public policy at the University of
Southern California, said the legal system cannot afford to make a mistake
with the death penalty.
"Death is different," she said. "If you think the system will endlessly
be
manipulated with constant appeals, maybe we should just have life in
prison instead of the death penalty."
Cooper, 45, was convicted in 1985 and sentenced to death for the murders
of Douglas and Peggy Ryen, both 41, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica,
and her 11-year-old friend, Christopher Hughes.
The victims were stabbed and hacked repeatedly with a hatchet and buck
knife. The Ryens' 8-year-old son, Joshua, had his throat slit but
survived.
Cooper had escaped from prison, where he was serving a four-year sentence
for robbery when the murders were committed. Authorities speculated that
his motive was to steal the family's station wagon.
Cooper eluded authorities for two months after the murders. He was
arrested in Santa Barbara, living on a boat as a deckhand.
John Kochis, the San Bernardino prosecutor who tried Cooper, said a jury
and the federal and state courts have already concluded there was
overwhelming evidence of Cooper's guilt, including his footprints and a
button from his jacket found at the scene.
"Additional testing would not change that," Kochis said.
Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to reinstate the
death penalty, at least 111 people have been cleared through DNA evidence
and released after spending years on death row for crimes they did not
commit.
In the Cooper case, forensic testing on blood found at the crime scene
demonstrated Cooper committed the murders. The likelihood that the blood
was another black man's was 310 billion to one.
But in interviews and a clemency petition filed with the governor's office
Friday, Cooper's attorneys said they want to retest the blood spots to
determine whether they were tainted with a preservative.
If a preservative is found, Cooper's team believe that means authorities
planted an old preserved sample of his blood at the crime scene to frame
him.
Authorities have denied allegations that evidence was fabricated.
Cooper's team also wants hair samples analyzed that were discovered in
some of the victims' clutched hands.
"If it's tested, and if it's not the victims' hair, then it belongs to the
assailants," Amidon said. He said he didn't believe the hair, which has
never been analyzed, was Cooper's.
"However you test that, it's not going to be relevant one way or the
other," Gillette responded. "It does not appear that any of it is
African-American hair. The fact that it may belong to somebody else isn't
relevant unless there is a reasonable basis for identifying somebody else
as the perpetrator."
The governor's office did not return calls seeking comment, or a date for
the clemency hearing.
The last California execution was in January 2002. There are 640 men and
women on California's death row, more than any other state.
(source: Associated Press)Death
Row clemency bid is Schwarzenegger's 1st
Lawyers for Kevin Cooper, who faces execution Feb. 10 for murdering 2
adults and two children after escaping from prison in 1983, asked Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger for clemency Friday, saying his guilt remains in
doubt and his life is worth saving.
"Having been repeatedly let down by the criminal justice system, Mr.
Cooper, with great hope, respect and humility, now asks you to exercise
your authority to grant him clemency and spare his life," attorneys from
a
San Francisco law firm wrote in a 55-page petition.
Cooper, 45, is the 1st death row inmate to seek clemency from
Schwarzenegger. The new governor supports the death penalty, like his
immediate predecessors, Gray Davis and Pete Wilson, who rejected all
requests to commute death sentences. Cooper has no court appeals pending
and would be the 1st Californian executed since January 2002.
Cooper escaped on June 2, 1983, from a minimum-security state prison in
Chino (San Bernardino County), where he was serving time for burglary. Two
days later, Douglas and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica,
and an 11-year-old neighbor, Christopher Hughes, were hacked to death in
the Ryens' home in nearby Chino Hills. The Ryens' 8-year-old son, Joshua,
was seriously wounded but survived.
Prosecutors said Cooper, who had hidden out in a home near the Ryens'
house, killed them to steal their car and escape the area. State and
federal courts have described evidence of his guilt as overwhelming.
Cooper has maintained his innocence, and his supporters have noted that
Joshua Ryen told an officer he believed 3 Latino men who came to the home
that day were the killers. Cooper's supporters also say the use of 3
weapons in the murders points to multiple attackers but that police
ignored other leads, including a reported confession by a prisoner who
allegedly implicated 2 others.
Defense lawyers' hopes to prove Cooper's innocence were dashed, however,
when DNA tests long sought by Cooper were conducted in 2002 after a new
state law allowed convicted felons to request such tests. The state
reported that Cooper's DNA was found in a blood spot in the Ryens' house,
cigarettes in their car and a bloodstained T-shirt found nearby.
Cooper's lawyers contended the evidence could have been mishandled or
planted, but their requests for further tests were rejected. In
Wednesday's petition, they said reviews of "the many discrepancies
surrounding the tested evidence strongly suggest that the blood evidence
was put there by law enforcement."
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Contact us for more information.
"The Eyes Of The World Are Watching Now" This page was
last updated February 9, 2004
Canadian Coalition Against
the Death Penalty This page is maintained
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