[News] Appeals court grants stay to condemned killer Kevin Coope

[News at freedomarchives.org]

Appeals court grants stay to condemned killer Kevin Cooper
DAVID KRAVETS, AP Legal Affairs Writer
Monday, February 9, 2004
©2004 Associated Press

URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/02/09/state1239EST0062.DTL

(02-09) 09:58 PST SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --

A federal appeals court granted a stay that may block the execution early 
Tuesday morning of condemned killer Kevin Cooper, who has won support from 
celebrities including Denzel Washington and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday morning granted a request 
for an 11-judge rehearing of the case. It would be California's first 
execution in two years. In his first such act as governor, Arnold 
Schwarzenegger denied clemency for Cooper.

It was not immediately clear when the en banc panel would hear the latest 
challenge.

Cooper, who was convicted in the 1983 hacking deaths of four people, was 
scheduled to be executed just after midnight at San Quentin Prison after 19 
years on death row.

Cooper has gained support from such actors who oppose the death penalty as 
Washington, Sean Penn and Mike Farrell, and from 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.

On Sunday, Cooper's legal claims were turned aside by a three-judge panel 
of the 9th Circuit. But Judge James R. Browning's dissenting opinion urged 
a stay of the execution so that attorneys for Cooper, who maintains his 
innocence, could pursue further legal avenues.

"There should be no hurry to execute Cooper," Browning wrote, adding that 
the hair and blood evidence from the scene should be reexamined. Cooper's 
attorneys have maintained that such evidence linking him to the crimes may 
have been planted or left by others who committed the murders.

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.

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 planned 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."

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.

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.

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On the Net:

Death Penalty Information Center: 
<http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org>www.deathpenaltyinfo.org

©2004 Associated Press



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