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This image dated August 25, 2021 and provided by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shows Sirhan Sirhan. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office does not oppose the release of Sirhan Sirhan, who is now 77 years old and faces his 16th parole hearing on Friday, August 27, 2021, for having murdered Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. His defense attorney says he should. let him go for his age and pose no danger to society. (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation through AP)
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This image dated August 25, 2021 and provided by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shows Sirhan Sirhan. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office does not oppose the release of Sirhan Sirhan, who is now 77 years old and faces his 16th parole hearing on Friday, August 27, 2021, for having fatally murdered Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. His defense attorney says he should let him go because of his age and does not pose a danger to society. (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation through AP)
SAN DIEGO (AP) – Sirhan Sirhan faces his 16th parole hearing on Friday for the deadly shooting of U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and for the first time, there will be no prosecutor to argue that should keep behind bars.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, a former police officer who took office last year after participating in a reform platform, says he idolized the Kennedys and lamented the murder of RFK, but adheres to its policy that prosecutors have no role in deciding whether prisoners should be released.
Gascon told The Associated Press earlier this year that it is best to leave that decision to members of the California Parole Board who can assess whether Sirhan has been rehabilitated and can be released safely. Relaying a case decades after a crime should not be the job of prosecutors, even in notorious cases, he said.
“The role of a prosecutor and his access to information ends in the sentence,” Alex Bastian, Gascon’s special adviser, said Thursday.
Sirhan, 77, has turned 53 for the first-degree assassination of New York Senator and brother of President John F. Kennedy. RFK was a Democratic presidential candidate when he was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after delivering a victory speech in the California primaries.
Gascon said he admired Kennedy while Sirhan is “the kind of individual we all like to hate.”
“I can wrap myself emotionally around my personal feelings (about) someone who killed someone who I thought might have been an amazing president for this country,” Gascón said. “But this has no place in this process. Just like he doesn’t do it for someone he doesn’t know. “
Sirhan’s new defense attorney, Angela Berry, said she couldn’t agree more.
He plans to argue that the council’s decision should be based on who Sirhan is today and not on past events, which is what the council has previously based its denials on parole. He said he plans to focus on his exemplary history in prison and prove that he poses no danger.
“We can’t change the past, but he wasn’t sentenced to life without the possibility of parole,” Berry told the AP Thursday. “Justifying his denial based on the seriousness of the crime and the fact that he has disenfranchised millions of Americans is ignoring the rehabilitation that has taken place and that rehabilitation is a more relevant indicator of whether a person remains a risk for society or not “.
Sirhan’s hearing will be presided over by a two-person court that normally announces its decision on the same day. After that, the staff of the Conditional Board has 90 days to review the decision and then hand it over to the governor for consideration.
The Parole Board would not say whether the Kennedy family or anyone else made statements contrary to Sirhan’s freedom. Attempts to reach out to the Kennedy family for comment were unsuccessful.
Sirhan was sentenced to death after his conviction, but that sentence was commuted to life when the California Supreme Court briefly outlawed the death penalty in 1972. At its last parole hearing in 2016, the commissioners concluded after more than three hours of intense testimony that Sirhan did not. show proper remorse or understand the enormity of your crime.
Berry said California laws passed since 2018 support his case. One he plans to point out to the board favors the release of certain older inmates who committed crimes at an early age when the brain is prone to impulsivity. Sirhan was 24 at the time of the murder.
Sirhan, in the past, has stayed with his story that does not remember the murder. However, he recalled in detail the facts prior to the crime: going to a shooting range that day, visiting the hotel in search of a party, and returning after realizing he was too drunk to drive after. having thrown Tom Collins cocktails.
Just before the murder, he had a coffee in a hotel pantry with a woman he was attracted to. The next thing he remembered was that he drowned and could not breathe as he was stopped. At his 2016 hearing, he said he felt remorse for any victim of a crime, but that he could not take responsibility for the shooting.
Sirhan told the court that if released, he hoped to be deported to Jordan or live with his brother in Pasadena, California.
After 15 denials for his release, Berry said it is difficult to predict what impact the outcome of the prosecution’s absence will have.
“I like to think it will make a difference. But I don’t think everyone is impervious to this being political, ”he said.
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Melley reported from Los Angeles.