California governor overrules parole board that needed clemency for Sirhan Sirhan
Governor Gavin Newsom has rejected the recommendation of a California parole board to launch Sirhan Sirhan, the person convicted of killing US senator and presidential candidate Robert Francis Kennedy in 1968.
“Mr. Sirhan’s assassination of Senator Kennedy is among the many most infamous crimes in American historical past,” Newsom wrote in his determination on Thursday. “After a long time in jail, he has failed to deal with the deficiencies that led him to assassinate Senator Kennedy. Mr. Sirhan lacks the perception that might forestall him from making the identical kinds of harmful choices he made previously.”
Sirhan was convicted of fatally capturing Kennedy on June 5, 1968. On the time, the senator was in search of the Democratic presidential nomination, hoping to observe his late brother JFK into the White Home.
Prosecutors stated the murderer was motivated by revenge for US help for Israel through the June 1967 battle. Sirhan has maintained he doesn’t recall capturing RFK.
Now 77, Sirhan has spent over 50 years behind bars. He was initially sentenced to dying, however the penalty was commuted to life imprisonment in 1972, after California outlawed capital punishment.
A state parole board voted in August 2021 to advocate his launch. No prosecutors attended the listening to, consistent with Los Angeles County District Legal professional George Gascon’s new coverage of non-interference with the parole course of.
Although each Newsom and Gascon are Democrats dedicated to “felony justice reform,” the governor argued Sirhan’s refusal to just accept accountability and failure to disavow violence dedicated in his title weighed in opposition to releasing him from jail.
Newsom has additionally repeatedly referred to RFK as his “political hero” and retains a photograph of his father with the late senator in his workplace.
Final month, Kennedy’s son RFK Jr. urged Newsom to let the murderer go, saying his launch “greatest displays my father’s legacy.” He argued that Sirhan didn’t pose a menace to society, sought forgiveness for the killing, and appeared “light, humble, kind-hearted, frail, and innocent.” Six of his 9 siblings, nonetheless, disagreed.
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