JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
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The state DA can certainly allow for more DNA testing if they wish, but Carmel pretends it is out of her hands.
Is this the kind of person we want running America's legal system?
Is this the kind of person we want running America's legal system?
Sen. Kamala Harris: Calif. should test DNA of inmate condemned amid controversy
Kevin Cooper is awaiting execution for a 1983 quadruple murder, which the lone survivor said was committed by three white men
www.cbsnews.com
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California's governor should allow more sensitive DNA testing that advocates say could exonerate a death row inmate, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris said Friday. "As a firm believer in DNA testing, I hope the governor and the state will allow for such testing in the case of Kevin Cooper," Harris, a former state attorney general and San Francisco prosecutor who opposes the death penalty, said in a statement.
Cooper, 60, is awaiting execution for the 1983 Chino Hills hatchet and knife killings of four people. He escaped from a nearby minimum-security prison east of Los Angeles two days before the slayings of Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and 11-year-old neighbor Christopher Hughes.
Two previous DNA tests concluded Cooper was the killer. A piece by New York Times' columnist Nicholas Kristof suggesting Cooper was framed sparked Harris's comments. Kristof's column labels Harris one of the "flawed political leaders" he blames for blocking the new DNA testing while she was attorney general.
Why Oppose a DNA Test That Could Free an Innocent Man?
Today, California Gov. Gavin Newsom will reportedly issue an executive order for full DNA testing of all evidence connected to the case against Kevin Cooper, a black man convicted of killing four people in 1985 and sentenced to death.
splinternews.com
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff, to his credit, has written about the case extensively. In May of last year, he wrote an interactive multimedia opinion feature that starkly laid out evidence that Cooper may have been framed for the crime. When the column was published online, Kristoff wrote that he got a call from California Sen. Kamala Harris, who for years served as the state attorney general, and whom he said had previously “showed no interest in the case.”
“I feel awful about this,” Harris told Kristoff, referring to her refusal, during her entire time as the state’s top law enforcement officer, to allow advanced DNA testing of the evidence in Cooper’s case.