Cooper Moves Closer To Death!

Kevin Cooper Convicted twenty some years ago for killing
four people in Chino Hills Ca. is one step closer to being
executed for those murders. He maintains that he's been
framed but the federal appeals court in San Francisco does
not agree with him. Read the article below and your com-
mentary is welcomed.


Calling the evidence of his guilt "overwhelming," a federal appeals court in San Francisco on Tuesday upheld the death sentence of Kevin Cooper, who was convicted of a rampage 25 years ago that left a Chino Hills couple and two children dead.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected arguments from Cooper's appellate lawyers that he was framed and that prosecutors withheld evidence that could have cleared him.

The ruling upheld a decision by U.S. District Judge Marilyn L. Huff in San Diego, who considered new blood and hair evidence tests ordered in the case after the 9th Circuit in 2004 granted a last-minute stay of execution.

Huff wrote that she was convinced that Cooper "is the one responsible for these brutal murders," noting post-conviction DNA testing that linked Cooper to a drop of blood in the hallway outside the bedroom of two of the murder victims, to saliva from cigarette butts found in the hallway and to blood smears on a T-shirt found outside a bar near the murder scene.

The 9th Circuit, in a 3-0 ruling written by Judge Pamela A. Rymer, agreed.

"As the district court, and all state courts, have repeatedly found, evidence of Cooper's guilt was overwhelming," the decision said.

Judges Ronald M. Gould and M. Margaret McKeown concurred in the decision.

But McKeown, in a separate, concurring opinion, expressed her dismay that the court, because of limits on habeas petitions imposed by Congress in 1996, could not examine the "integrity of the evidence".

"Significant evidence bearing on Cooper's culpability has been lost, destroyed or left un-pursued, including, for example, blood-covered overalls belonging to a potential suspect who was a convicted murderer, and a bloody T-shirt, discovered alongside the road near the crime scene," McKeown wrote.

McKeown noted that the criminalist in charge of the evidence was a heroin addict who was fired for stealing drugs seized by police.

The judge said she was "troubled that we cannot, in Kevin Cooper's words, resolve the question of his guilt 'once and for all.' "

According to evidence presented at trial, Cooper had faked a medical condition in 1983 to escape from the Chino state prison, where he was serving a sentence for burglary.

He broke into the home of Douglas and Peggy Ryen and used a hatchet, knife and ice pick to kill the couple, their daughter Jessica, 11, and houseguest Christopher Hughes, also 11.





his Article Continues Here





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