THE ACTUAL INNOCENCE
OF SIRHAN B. SIRHAN
IN
THE ASSASSINATION OF SENATOR ROBERT F.
KENNEDY
by William Pepper
For forty four years, Sirhan
Sirhan has been in prison for the assassination of Robert Kennedy. During all of that time, he has never had a
hearing in which all of the evidence of his actual innocence could be heard. At
his original Trial he was represented by Grant Cooper, a Los Angeles criminal
attorney, who, himself, was under a Federal indictment throughout the Trial.
When Cooper successfully obtained a guilty verdict against his client that
indictment went away. That verdict was the result of no challenge being made to
fabricated ballistics evidence, the suppression of eye-witness testimony, which
clearly indicated that Sirhan was always in front of the Senator who was shot
from the rear at powder-burn range, and Cooper convincing Sirhan –who had no
memory of the actual event- that he was guilty and should confess in order to
avoid the death penalty. In fact, he received the death penalty, which Statue
was later declared to be unconstitutional.
From 1969, to the present, the
case has been enmired in procedural issues used to prevent any evidentiary
hearing where the miscarriage of Justice would emerge.
The current Habeas Corpus
proceeding is before Magistrate Judge Wistrich and he proposes to issue a
recommendation to the Federal Judge, Snyder, that the Petition be denied. His
arguments have a double focus: once again, procedural defects, resulting from
prior Counsel’s failure to file in a timely fashion; and a rejection of the new
evidence as not being adequately convincing of Sirhan’s actual innocence. The
problem faced by the State and the Magistrate is that the Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals (the case jurisdiction) ruled in the case of Lee v. Lampert, that credible evidence of actual innocence must
override any procedural defects. The strength of the evidence is, of course,
determinative.
So, what is some of this evidence,
that was either not available or not introduced at Trial forty four years ago?
Twelve eye witnesses have given
statements that Sirhan was always in front of the Senator at the time of the
shooting. They differ with respect to the distance with estimates varying from
1.5 feet to 5, or more feet, but uniformly they (all) confirm that he was in front of
the Senator at all relevant times. The Senator was shot at four times (being
hit by three of the bullets) at powder burn range in an upward angle indicating
that the shooter was likely kneeling just behind the Senator.
Six eye witnesses gave statements
that Sirhan’s hand was pinned to the steam table after he fired twice, and
though he continued in robot-like fashion to pull the trigger with his hand
pinned down he had no control over the direction of the firing and certainly
could not have gotten off four shots at the rear of the Senator.
A high technology analysis of a tape recording
of the sounds of the shots in the pantry - the technology has only recently
become available- indicated that thirteen shots were fired. Sirhan’s gun only
had eight bullets. Clearly there was a second shooter.
There was no ballistics match,
with Sirhan’s gun, of the only recovered bullet from the Senator –one which
lodged in the Senator’s neck. There is a strong indication that
the bullets introduced at the Trial (taken from other victims and the Senator’s
neck) were not the actual bullets recovered. This emerged from the work of an
investigating commission in 1973.
The reason for Sirhan’s previous
inability to remember the immediate events of the shooting and the fact that he
was hypno-programmed over a two week period, when he was strangely missing,
emerged from the seventy-plus hours of interviews conducted by Dr. Daniel Brown,
a Harvard University psychologist and mind control specialist. Even the
facility used appears to have been identified during the interviews which were
conducted using both free recall and hypnosis.
Aside from the conflict of
interest of Sirhan’s defense counsel, resulting in the denial of his Sixth
Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel, this is only some of the
evidence which deserves to be tested in open Court. It is our intention to push
the envelope all the way across the table to the Justices of the Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals if we are denied an evidentiary hearing at the District Court
level.
I did not take on this case lightly. As a
young man, I was Bob Kennedy’s Citizen Chairman when he ran for the Senate in
New York. When approached, after the death of the previous defense counsel,
Larry Teeter, I had to be convinced of Sirhan’s actual innocence. On the basis
of what was then available, I went forward. In light of what we have been able
to develop since then, my opinion is even more firm. The problem we face,
however, is that we struggle financially against the gatekeeping State which
has unlimited resources and we are basically tapped out in terms of being able
to fund this case from fees derived from other work.
Anyone wishing to help, would be
gratefully received and any person with interest in this regard may make
contact at wpintlawus@aol.com
For Justice, and the realization
that following the political assassinations of the 1960’s, our Republic has
never been the same.
Bill Pepper
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