Gov. Newsom Says NO To Parole For Sirhan Sirhan

 

Sirhan Bishara Sirhan murdered Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968. He has now spent more than 50 years in a California prison. Recently, California's state parole board recommended Sirhan be paroled. Governor Newsom has rejected that recommendation. Sirhan will stay in prison, and likely die there.

Here is the op-ed Governor Newsom wrote for the Los Angeles Times explaining his decision:

In 1968, Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Sen. Robert F. Kennedy just moments after Kennedy won the California presidential primary. Sirhan also shot and injured five bystanders. Decades later, Sirhan refuses to accept responsibility for the crimes.

California’s Board of Parole Hearings recently found that Sirhan is suitable for parole. I disagree. After carefully reviewing the case, including records in the California State Archives, I have determined that Sirhan has not developed the accountability and insight required to support his safe release into the community. I must reverse Sirhan’s parole grant.

Kennedy’s assassination not only changed the course of this nation and robbed the world of a promising young leader, it also left his 11 children without a father and his wife without a husband. Kennedy’s family bears his loss every day. Millions of Americans lost a unifier in a time of national turmoil and grief, just nine weeks after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and four-and-a-half years after the murder of Kennedy’s brother, President John F. Kennedy.

Yet, after decades in prison, Sirhan still lacks the insight that would prevent him from making the kind of dangerous and destructive decisions he made in the past. The most glaring proof of Sirhan’s deficient insight is his shifting narrative about his assassination of Kennedy, and his current refusal to accept responsibility for it.

The evidence that Sirhan assassinated Kennedy is overwhelming and irrefutable. Before the assassination, Sirhan recorded his plans to kill Kennedy, writing, “RFK must die. RFK must be killed. Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated.” At the time of the assassination, Sirhan accepted sole responsibility. In a televised interview, Sirhan confirmed that he assassinated Kennedy and acted alone.

Incredibly, in the 1990s, Sirhan began dodging responsibility. He claimed he could not remember the crime, then stated he was innocent. In 2016, Sirhan said he believed he did not kill Kennedy based on what he had read in his attorney’s legal briefs. As recently as last year, Sirhan portrayed himself as the victim, claiming he “was in the wrong spot at the wrong time.”

It is abundantly clear that, because of Sirhan’s lack of insight, his release on parole would pose a threat to public safety.

Sirhan is now 77 years old, but he remains a potent symbol of political violence. In the past, terrorists took hostages — and ultimately killed some of them — in Sirhan’s name. Despite inciting violence in the past, recently Sirhan laughingly dismissed the current relevance of his status as an ideological lightning rod. He does not understand, let alone have the skills to manage, the complex risks of his self-created notoriety. He cannot be safely released from prison because he has not mitigated his risk of fomenting further political violence.

Over the years, Sirhan and his advocates have churned false claims about Kennedy’s assassination. Each claim of Sirhan’s innocence has been investigated and disproved. These falsehoods fuel Sirhan’s denial of accountability. Their repetition also perpetrates an additional and ongoing harm by keeping open and unhealed the wound that the assassination inflicted on the Kennedy family and the American public.

Perhaps it is easier for some to accept debunked false claims than confront the difficult truth: Sirhan, one man with a gun, acting alone, inflicted grievous harm to our country.

I will not flinch from this truth. The parole cases I review each week reveal the depths of human violence and its destruction. But these cases also give me hope. They show the resilience of crime victims and survivors, as well as the transformation of incarcerated people who choose to do the difficult work to make amends for the harm they caused. They model what Robert F. Kennedy encouraged all of us to undertake when he said, “Surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.”

Sirhan has much work to do. I encourage him to start by taking Kennedy’s words to heart.

Mississippi Has Set A Horrible Precedent

Mississippi governor, Haley Barbour, has received a lot of good press recently for commuting the life sentences of two sisters, Jamie and Gladys Scott (who had been convicted in 1994 of setting up a victim for an armed robbery that netted $11).   One of the sisters needed a kidney transplant, and the other had offered her kidney for the transplant.   Barbour said,   "The Mississippi Department of Corrections believes the sisters no longer pose a threat to society.   Their incarceration is no longer necessary for public safety or rehabilitation, and Jamie Scott's medical condition creates a substantial cost to the State of Mississippi."

Let me be clear here -- I do not oppose the commutation of the women's prison sentences.   There were many who believed the sentence had been too harsh to begin with, and the women had already served 16 years of that sentence.   If the sisters did not pose a threat to society, and there was no need of further "rehabilitation", then the governor did the right thing by commuting their sentences and freeing them.

And it is also within the powers of the governor to release them to save the state substantial medical bills, even if that seems a rather hard-hearted reason.   It is even within the governor's right to commute the sentences for political reasons -- to repair some political damage he caused himself by downplaying the role of the White Citizen's Councils in fighting against Civil Rights in the 1960s.

But there is something about the governor's action in commuting these sentences that I find very troubling.   He made a it requirement that one of the sisters give up her kidney -- the commutation would not have happened without it (and they could be re-incarcerated if the donation failed to take place).

Now I don't doubt that the sister was happy and very willing to donate a kidney to her sister.   It is her right to do so (or not to do it).   But she should not have been forced to do so with the threat of a continuing incarceration.   By making it a requirement, in effect, the governor sold a commutation -- and the price was one kidney.   This sets a very bad precedent.

Is it now a policy of the State of Mississippi that a prisoner can purchase his release by selling (donating) a kidney, or some other body part?   It is not outside the realm of possibility that a future ethically-challenged governor (not uncommon for politicians of both parties) could repeat this action to get a kidney (or other body part) from a prisoner for a friend, family member or high-profile person.   After all, the precedent has now been set.

The governor had reasons to commute these sentences if that's what he wanted to do, but it was just wrong for him to demand the payment of a kidney for the release.   And I'm shocked that few people have noticed the ethical and moral problems of the governor's decision.

Prison is for punishment and rehabilitation.   It is not, and should never be, a source of organ donations.

Another Parole Hearing For Atkins

I thought this had been settled last year, but Susan Atkins is back again asking for another parole hearing, and it has been granted. Atkins is the follower of Charles Manson who slaughtered the 8 1/2 month pregnant actress Sharon Tate in 1969. She was sentenced to death for the crime, but the death sentence was commuted to a life sentence. After being denied a parole last year, she is once again asking. According to the Los Angeles Times:

"In early 2008 Atkins was diagnosed with brain cancer. With one leg amputated and the other paralyzed, Atkins has only six months to live, doctors say. Atkins petitioned for so-called compassionate release, igniting a debate about when mercy is appropriate."

The prosecutor in the Manson case, Vincent Bugliosi, thinks Atkins should be granted parole. He says it is wrong to say "just because Susan Atkins showed no mercy to her victims, we therefore are duty-bound to follow her inhumanity and show no mercy to her." I like to think I'm a pretty humane person, but I just can't agree with Bugliosi on this one.

According to Atkins, Tate " asked me to let her baby live. I told her I didn't have mercy for her." But she didn't just show no mercy, Atkins had no feelings of remorse for her crimes. She laughed as she told her jailmates about stabbing Sharon Tate in the belly and watching the knife quiver like jello. She was proud of her vicious crime.

Frankly, I don't really care how sick she is now. She was supposed to die in prison many years ago, and I don't have any problem with her dying in prison now, or six months from now. She does not deserve to be free even for 10 minutes before her death. I can't feel sorry for this vicious killer.

There are some who think she should be released to save the state of California some money. That is not only a terrible reason to grant parole to someone, but it probably isn't even true. She has no money, and the state will have to take care of her living and medical expenses whether she's free or in prison. In fact, it would probably be cheaper to leave her in prison.

Does this killer deserve sympathy and freedom because she has a terminal illness? Should she be released in her September 2nd parole hearing? I say no. What do you say?

California Releases Olson To Parole

In January 2002, Sara Jane Olson (born Kathleen Soliah) pled guilty to two counts of attempting to ignite a destructive device or explosive. A year later she pled guilty to second-degree murder. She received a sentence of twenty years to life. The crimes sprang from the time she spent as a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army in the 1970's -- a home-grown terrorist group.

After being indicted in 1976, the Justice Department said "she evaded capture for 23 years, and in the meantime, became a doctor's wife, mother of three, community volunteer, veteran of charity work in Africa and practicing Methodist living in an upscale neighborhood in St. Paul." She was caught in 2001.

I can understand the victims and police being upset at Olson's release after only seven years. In many other states (including Texas), she would have to serve many more years before even being eligible for parole. But she was convicted in California, and they do things a little differently there. Because of good time and her work inside the prison, the California Parole Board reduced her sentence to only seven years plus one year on parole.

But one thing I don't understand is the hullabaloo over what state she does her parole in -- California or Minnesota. Police unions in both states want her to have to do her parole in California. This makes no real sense. With the overcrowding in California, she'll probably be supervised more closely in Minnesota. I hope this is not just a desire to punish her further by keeping her away from her friends and family.

Minnesota's governor Tim Pawlenty has also jumped into the fray and asked California not to send Olson back. This one's easy to understand. Just another Republican politician trying to make political hay out of a situation he thinks might upset the public. He should really stay out of it.

The real fact is that there's not a lot either parole department could do about the transfer. Olson has a right to be treated like any other parolee. There are currently thousands of parolees serving their parole in a different state than the one their crime was committed in. The receiving state must have a valid reason to deny the transfer and I don't see one here.

Olson has a twenty-year history in Minnesota. That's where her family and friends are, while she has no support system in California. If it was any other parolee, the transfer would be almost automatic since a parolee does much better where he has a support system (family and friends willing to help). Olson cannot and should not be treated differently.

If you think she should have served more time, I agree with you. But if she's being released to parole, it makes sense she do that parole in Minnesota.