[Pnews] Sirhan Sirhan murdered a Kennedy. He could spend less time in prison than Ruchell Magee.

[Prisoner News]

sfchronicle.com
<https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Sirhan-Sirhan-murdered-a-Kennedy-He-could-spend-16520899.php>
Sirhan
Sirhan murdered a Kennedy. He could spend less time in prison than this
California man
Thandisizwe Chimurenga - October 11, 2021
[image: image.png]

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On June 5, 1968, Sirhan Sirhan approached Democratic presidential candidate
Robert Kennedy, brother of former president John F. Kennedy, just after
midnight at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He then pulled a gun and
shot Kennedy in the head and upper body at close range.

On March 30, 1981, John Hinkley Jr. walked up to then-President Ronald
Reagan outside of a Washington, D.C., hotel with gun in hand. He fired
multiple shots, striking Reagan in the chest, Secret Service agent Timothy
McCarthy in the side, District of Columbia police Officer Thomas Delahanty
in the neck and White House Press Secretary James Brady in the head,
leaving him partially paralyzed.

Hinkley spent 35 years in a mental hospital before being granted
conditional release. On Sept. 27, he was freed from court supervision
entirely
<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/john-hinckley-who-tried-assassinate-reagan-be-freed-oversight-n1280178>
at the age of 66. Sirhan, meanwhile, was deemed eligible for parole on Aug.
27, after 53 years of imprisonment.

In light of the prospect of two would-be presidential assassins walking the
Earth as free men, it’s worth inquiring why similar consideration isn’t
being given to Ruchell Magee, a Black man who has been imprisoned in
California for more than 50 years.

Magee has neither committed nor been convicted of murder. He was first
eligible for parole in 1981, but has been denied release ever since. He is
82 and housed at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville. At his most
recent parole hearing in July, Magee was denied parole for another three
years. He will be 85 at his next scheduled hearing.

Magee is no threat to society. He has housing, financial and emotional
support networks in place to help him readjust to life on the outside, and
yet he remains behind bars.

Why?
------------------------------

Magee came to California in late 1962, a refugee from the Jim Crow justice
system of Louisiana. Within six months he would be sentenced to life in
prison for a $10 robbery where no bodily harm occurred. Magee maintained
his innocence, arguing that he was illegally imprisoned over a disagreement
gone wrong.

Although Magee never went past seventh grade in school, he studied law in
prison and learned to file legal documents in an attempt to have his
conviction reversed. Instead, he was retried and convicted a second time.

Magee spent the next few years attempting to legally free himself from what
he believed to be a corrupt justice system. His knowledge of the law and
his behavior in court (he frequently disrupted proceedings to level charges
of racism) made him a thorn in the side of the court.

Those same qualities, however, endeared him to other prisoners who could
not afford legal counsel.

This is how Magee wound up on the witness stand of a Marin County
courthouse on Aug. 7, 1970. He was testifying in support of a fellow San
Quentin Prison inmate when 17-year-old Jonathan Jackson entered the
courtroom with a satchel full of guns. Jackson took several hostages,
including the judge and prosecutor. His goal was to free his brother George
and two other inmates — collectively known as the “Soledad Brothers” — who
were charged with killing a prison guard.

Magee, meanwhile, after eight years of legally trying to overturn his
unjust conviction, seized on the moment to free himself. He joined with
Jackson in the armed escape and fled the courthouse. Prison guards on the
scene opened fire at Jackson’s getaway vehicle. The sole survivors of this
volley were the prosecutor, who was left paralyzed, and Magee.

Magee was charged along with activist Angela Davis with conspiracy,
kidnapping and murder. Worldwide support aided Davis’ acquittal on all
charges. Murder charges were eventually dropped against Magee, but he was
convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to life in prison.

And he’s still there.
------------------------------

The longer a person lives, the more medical care they need. This is as true
for prisoners as anyone else. In Magee’s case, his care will come from an
overburdened and understaffed prison medical system. According to the
Public Policy Institute, older prisoners may be a contributing reason for
California’s astounding prison health care costs, currently the highest in
the nation, at more than three times the national average.
<https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-prison-population/>

The recidivism rate for prisoners in the U.S. decreases as prisoners get
older. It is estimated to be at 5% for persons 50 to 64 and less than 1% by
the age of 65, according to Prison Legal News.

Sirhan Sirhan isn’t the only older murderer to be recently granted parole
in California. Just weeks ago, David Weidert, who served 40 years for
burying a developmentally disabled man alive, was approved for parole.
<https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/08/10/parole-allowed-for-man-who-buried-california-victim-alive>

If these men are considered safe for release, what threat does Magee’s
continued incarceration protect us from?

Years ago, Magee took the name Cinque, after the captured African leader of
the 1839 rebellion on the slave ship Amistad that killed the ship’s
captain. U.S. courts ruled that Cinque and his fellow captives had a right
to rebel and fight for their freedom — and the group was freed to return to
Africa. Former U.S. President John Quincy Adams supported this result.

Two of Robert Kennedy’s sons, meanwhile, support Sirhan Sirhan’s bid for
freedom.

Magee does not have the support of former presidents or their families. His
only chance at freedom lies with the common sense of California Gov. Gavin
Newsom, who can release Magee whenever he chooses.

Magee poses no threat to the citizens of California. And his freedom should
be given no less consideration than that of the perpetrators of two of
America’s most infamous acts of violence.

*Thandisizwe Chimurenga is a Los Angeles-based freelance journalist and
author.*
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