Sirhan Sirhan Denied Parole Again
Politics and justice are in tension.
NYT (“Board Denies Parole for Sirhan Sirhan, the Assassin of Robert F. Kennedy“):
A California panel on Wednesday denied parole for Sirhan B. Sirhan, the man convicted in the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, in its first review of the case since Gov. Gavin Newsom decided last year that Mr. Sirhan, 78, should not be released.
The parole board’s latest decision, which followed a hearing via videoconference from the state prison in San Diego, where Mr. Sirhan has been held, was the second time in three years that Mr. Sirhan’s release had been considered. He has spent more than a half-century behind bars for shooting Mr. Kennedy, then a candidate for president, inside the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles at the end of a campaign appearance in 1968. At the time, Mr. Sirhan was 24.
His lawyers have argued that he is not a danger to the public and should be released. In 2021, a panel of the parole board agreed. But after an extraordinary chain of events, the governor overruled the panel last year, charging that Mr. Sirhan had not yet been rehabilitated.
On Wednesday, after Mr. Sirhan’s 17th parole hearing, the new recommendation was made by a commissioner and a deputy commissioner who were not part of the review panel in 2021. Governor Newsom had no comment.
I have no dog in this fight. Sirhan murdered Kennedy when I was two years old. I’ve read a lot about that tumultuous time in American history but it has no personal meaning to me.
But, as I’ve written before, if we’re going to have a system of parole, very old men who have shown clear signs of rehabilitation—and who have served half a century in jail for their crimes—would seem to be the ideal candidates. The only reason he’s still in jail is because the Kennedy family is famous.
Further, it would seem that California law agrees:
By 2021, California law required the parole board, when making a determination on releasing an inmate, to consider the inmate’s advanced age and his relative youth at the time a crime was committed. After 15 prior denials, a panel of commissioners granted him parole that year.
They noted then that Mr. Sirhan had improved himself by taking classes in prison. Two of Mr. Kennedy’s sons had also urged leniency.
But most of the family was adamant that Mr. Sirhan remain behind bars and pleaded with Mr. Newsom to exercise his power under California law to reject the panel’s recommendation. In January 2022, after more than four months of review, the Democratic governor — who has long spoken of Mr. Kennedy as a role model — granted that plea.
“After decades in prison, he has failed to address the deficiencies that led him to assassinate Senator Kennedy,” the governor wrote last year. “Mr. Sirhan lacks the insight that would prevent him from making the same types of dangerous decisions he made in the past.”
That’s simply absurd. That Kennedy is a personal hero of the governor, who was 8 months old when he was assassinated, should not enter into this. If anything, it should call for a recusal. There is simply zero evidence that Sirhan is still dangerous.
Mr. Sirhan’s lawyer, Angela Berry, has since asked a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to reverse Mr. Newsom’s 2022 parole denial. With that petition pending, she said on Wednesday that she believed the panel’s latest decision had been influenced by the governor’s rejection last year.
“I don’t know how you come to an opposite conclusion,” Ms. Berry said, noting that since 2021, Mr. Sirhan had undergone even more counseling and had added to his long record of good behavior.
“He’ll be 79 this month,” she said. “He’s trying to do the right thing. He wants to help his younger brother, who is almost blind. They want to live together for their remaining years.”
But she said that the Kennedy family and its lawyers had argued strenuously at Wednesday’s hearing that Mr. Sirhan still posed a risk to society and that the panel had “a different dynamic.”
“With the governor’s power to reverse the board,” she said, “I think it makes it difficult for any politically sensitive person to be released.”
Why the Kennedys are even allowed to testify in these hearings is beyond me. The criminal justice system is supposed to be about society, not the personal grievances of individuals. It’s weird enough that we have families testify in sentencing hearings. But the Kennedys provide zero useful expertise in how Sirhan has progressed during his half-century incarceration.
Now, maybe there’s an argument to be made that some crimes shouldn’t be eligible for parole. Political assassination may well be in that category, given its wider impact on society than the murder of an ordinary citizen. Indeed, Sirhan was originally sentenced to be executed and only had his sentence commuted to death because of a bizarre and short-lived Supreme Court decision that ruled capital punishment violated the 8th Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and inhuman punishment, despite its being listed as a possible punishment for crime in the 5th and 14th Amendments.
That said, California law doesn’t in fact distinguish this crime from other murders. Sirhan meets all of the requirements for parole and was in fact deemed parole-worthy by the appropriate authorities. He remains in jail only because the state governor has a personal stake in the matter. That’s not how a justice system is supposed to function.
Would it really be compassionate to let him out into a world which he left almost 50 years ago, where he would be unable to get a job or perform a function in society? I don’t know the answer but I think the issue needs to be addressed before we automatically assume it would be good for the rehabilitated themselves.
He remains in jail because he decided that he as one individual had the right to commit murder to alter the course of US history by eliminating a strong contender for the presidency. I see no reason to ever let him out.
The Kennedy family is royalty.
@wr:
He remains in jail because CA parole boards grant a heckler’s veto to revenge seekers.
@wr:
On the one hand. . . nah, fuck him.
On the very long list of injustices we need to concern ourselves with, Sirhan is quite near the bottom.
@wr:
Do you really think we have no more strong contenders for the presidency who need a-killin’? Release the Sirhan Sirhan!
It would also be a fine test for whether we live in the stupidest timeline possible.
Had not Sirhan murdered Kennedy in cold blood, Richard Nixon may well have never become president. When you think about the disastrous consequences of the Nixon Presidency and the lost opportunities of what might have been – a Kennedy administration that would actually give a crap about the well-being of average Americans & bring the tragic war in Vietnam to a much earlier conclusion… Well, I have no problem with him rotting in prison. I’m good with this decision.
I believe CA Proposition 8 gave the family members of victims the right to speak at parole hearings. Hence the Kennedys have the right to speak under California’s constitution.
@anjin-san:
Giving the victim’s family input into sentencing was a big issue among law and order types in the 90’s. Many states implemented it and it hasn’t made much of a difference.
“The only reason he’s still in jail is because the Kennedy family is famous.” So, James, if hypothetically Eichmann were still alive and posed no threat to society, why not let him go too?
I guess the “only reason he would still be in Jail is because he tortured and killed some Jews who were dead before you were even born and somehow these dead Jews are somehow famous.”
nd the opinions of the survivors of the Shoah? What do they know about the criminal justice system? Let the old Nazi out, he poses no threat to Jews today, right?
As for Eichmann, would you write, “He remains in jail only because some old Jews have a personal stake in the matter.”
And if you don’t think what Sirhan did was not a crime against humanity, well Mister……..
I have no dog in this fight. Sirhan murdered Kennedy when I was two years old. I’ve read a lot about that tumultuous time in American history but it has no personal meaning to me…
You are welcome to have whatever dogs you want. And the feelings of random Kennedys should have no more bearing than those of you or me. But I have strong feelings about Sirhan Sirhan being paroled.
I am younger than you are and my life does not overlap this event. But Sirhan Sirhan stole a better world from me. By assassinating Kennedy he robbed us all of a history where RFK stomped Nixon into the ground and led us into a watergate-free, Agnew-free, maybe even Reagan-free decade. Was this bound to happen? Who knows, but SS took the possibility from us.
He has not yet paid for his crimes against *me*. He was sentenced to life and life he should spend.
@anjin-san: I wasn’t suggesting that it was illegal or improper under California law for the Kennedys to speak. I’m suggesting that it’s bad public policy to base parole decisions on emotionalism.
@The Q: @Jay: @anjin-san: The grossness of the crime should absolutely be a factor in sentencing, including whether the person should ever be eligible for parole. But Sirhan has been eligible for parole for quite some time now and clearly meets the requirements.
@Michael Reynolds: As noted in the OP, I don’t care much one way or the other about Sirhan. Cases involving famous people often shed light on situations we otherwise wouldn’t pay much attention to. If we’re going to have a system of parole, it should operate on firm principles, not political whim.
@James Joyner:
Your exact words on the topic were “Why the Kennedys are even allowed to testify in these hearings is beyond me.”
At the very least, you were casting testimony by Kennedy family members in a negative light. Nobody “allowed” them to do anything, they were simply asserting their rights. Were you unaware of the rights of victims families in CA under Prop 8?
@James Joyner:
As a lifelong resident of California, and someone who is old enough to remember RFKs assassination (and how utterly devastating it was), I take exception to the “whim” characterization. Newsom is doing what he was elected to do, reversal of parole decisions is within his purview.
That is not a complete quote – this is from Newsom’s office:
From Sirhan’s attorney:
Not good enough by half. Jay put it perfectly:
This is not about “revenge”. The man deserves to die behind bars.