Death row inmate Kevin Cooper says that he was framed for a quadruple knife-and-hatchet slaying in 1983.
Outgoing California governor Jerry Brown granted Cooper a final chance to be exonerated, ordering new DNA tests in the 35-year-old Chino Hills murder case. The order came among a flurry of Christmas Eve pardons and commutations.
Brown said that the test will determine whether there is another suspect and that if it’s negative, he’s closing the book.
Gov. Brown grants clemency to infamous murder convict
Brown’s order calls for “limited re-testing of certain physical evidence in the case,” namely, four items: a tan t-shirt and orange towel found near the murder scene, and the hatchet handle and hatchet sheath. Brown appointed a retired judge as special master to supervise the testing.
“I take no position as to Mr. Cooper’s guilt or innocence at this time, but colorable factual questions have been raised about whether advances in DNA technology warrant limited retesting of certain physical evidence in this case,” Brown wrote in his executive order.
Cooper’s case has long attracted public attention, including in 2004 when he was temporarily relieved from execution. The now 60-year old inmate was sentenced to death after being convicted in 1985 of killing Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and 11-year-old neighbor Christopher Hughes. The victims were found in the Ryens’ home with 143 cuts from an ice pick, hatchet, and a knife.
The new test will determine whether additional suspects can be traced from the evidence. If not, then “this case should be closed,” Brown wrote.
Brown, the 34th and 39th governor of California, had recently left office for the first time when the killings of which Cooper was convicted were committed in 1983. Brown’s intervention in the case is one act of clemency among more than 200 Christmas pardons and commutations as his second tenure as governor comes to a close.
DNA test highlights controversial case
Cooper has been seeking another DNA test for years, and a judge in 2011 blocked his appeal for a third. His execution was put on hold in 2004 pending a review of evidence, but Cooper’s appeals for clemency have mostly fallen on deaf ears.
Two previous DNA tests have not altered the verdict, says San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos. Ramos said that traces of Cooper are all over the crime scene, including cigarettes that he smoked in the victims’ stolen car and a bloodied t-shirt left by the road-side near their house.
Cooper had escaped from a nearby prison where he was serving a sentence for burglary just days before the 1983 killings. The hatchet sheath was found at an abandoned house in the victims’ neighborhood where he was hiding out, and the hatchet was found near the house.
Cooper is black and he maintains that investigators tainted, planted, or destroyed evidence to implicate him. His attorney Norman Hile argues that more DNA testing will prove that Cooper’s blood was planted on the t-shirt.
The racially charged case has attracted public attention and sympathy from social justice activists. Some of Cooper’s supporters argue that the DNA could be from a Hispanic or white suspect.
Just saw the press release from Governor Brown regarding Kevin Cooper! Such amazing news! pic.twitter.com/GUVIgcQYDq
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) December 25, 2018
Criminal justice reform
Brown’s order came after calls for another test from a host of public figures sympathetic to criminal justice reform, including Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and reality TV star Kim Kardashian, who successfully lobbied President Trump to commute the life sentence of a convicted drug trafficker.
The president signed a landmark criminal justice reform bill last week, with the support of both Republicans and Democrats. The First Step Act aims to reduce the prison population by giving judges more sentencing discretion in certain cases and improving rehabilitation and transition programs for certain inmates, mostly low-end drug offenders.
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