From the Washington Post news section:
Attorneys say that 53 years behind bars is sufficient punishment for the 77-year-old; Kennedy family declines to weigh in
By Tom Jackman
Yesterday at 12:52 p.m. EDTSirhan B. Sirhan, convicted of the 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, will face a California parole board for the 16th time Friday in a prison outside San Diego. But unlike the first 15 times, no prosecutor will stand to oppose the release of Sirhan, who is now 77.
… Newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón told The Washington Post shortly before his inauguration in December that he was creating a sentencing review unit to revisit the cases of about 20,000 prisoners for possible resentencing, analyzing both the fairness of long sentences and the cost savings for releasing low-risk or older inmates. Gascón issued a directive that his office’s “default policy” would be not to attend parole hearings and to submit letters supporting the release of some inmates who had served their mandatory minimums, while also assisting victims and victim advocates at parole hearings if requested.
After all, Sirhan Sirhan merely single-handedly deprived American voters of a major choice in the making of the President 1968. What’s that compared to George Soros’s war on the New Jim Crow?
In Sirhan’s case, Gascón’s office is remaining neutral. The office said it will not attend the parole hearing, as Los Angeles prosecutors have done historically, but it also will not send a letter in support of Sirhan’s parole.
“The role of a prosecutor and their access to information ends at sentencing,” said Alex Bastian, special adviser to Gascón. “The parole board’s sole purpose is to objectively determine whether someone is suitable for release. If someone is the same person that committed an atrocious crime, that person will correctly not be found suitable for release. However, if someone is no longer a threat to public safety after having served more than 50 years in prison, then the parole board may recommend release based on an objective determination.”
OK, but Sirhan Sirhan still is the same person who committed an atrocious crime. Maybe not in the metaphorical sense that he’s less likely than in 1968 to assassinate a major political leader, but he is in the actual sense that he’s still the murderer who deprived the American public of a choice in the 1968 Presidential election. (Robert F. Kennedy had just won the key California Democratic primary over Eugene McCarthy moments before the Palestinian immigrant murdered him.)
The Washington Post then indulges in a lot of conspiracy theorizing about a Second Gunman. Liberal talk radio in L.A. in the 1970s featured endless RFK conspiracy theorizing (assassination conspiracy theorizing was a left-wing phenomenon a half century ago, although the curious MLK murder for some reason never got much traction). But I always found RFK conspiracy theorizing boring compared to JFK, the gold standard of conspiracy theories.
After all, there’s no question that Sirhan opened fire on Kennedy from up close and personal in front of a large crowd at his Ambassador Hotel victory party. Sirhan was quickly jumped on by Rams defensive lineman and minister Rosey Grier, Olympic decathlon champion Rafer Johnson, and wit George Plimpton, three quality individuals. Were they in on the conspiracy to kill RFK too? (I can recall the next morning the news radio announcing that the name of the suspect was “Rafer Johnson,” and 9-year-old me thinking, “No, Rafer Johnson helped get the gun away from the assassin.”)
Sure you can make up complicated theories about how, sure, Sirhan shot at the candidate but he missed Kennedy from arm’s length and the mysterious Second Gunman actually killed him—for instance, the Post quotes at length a 96-year-old labor leader and victim that night who now thinks that while Sirhan shot him, somebody else shot Kennedy—which is all very interesting. And highly reminiscent of the main alternative theory about the only other assassination of a sitting U.S. senator, Huey Long in 1935, who some believe was fatally wounded by his bodyguards unloading on the doctor who attacked him.
But for the purposes of Sirhan’s parole, so what?
One reason there was so much conspiracy theorizing back in the 1970s about Sirhan was that his motives seemed inscrutable. But that was because at the time Sirhan shot the candidate who promised 50 American jet fighters for Israel on the one-year anniversary of Israel starting the Six-Days-War, practically nobody in America had a category in their heads labeled “Palestinian terrorist.” The concept didn’t really emerge until George Habash started pulling off spectacular stunts like hijacking and blowing up three jetliners simultaneously and culminating in the Munich Olympic atrocity in 1972. So, back then Sirhan was just some implausible-sounding Lone Wolf.
In California, two parole commissioners conduct the hearing, corrections department spokesman Luis Patino said. The two-person panel typically issues its decision and explains its rationale on the day of the hearing. Following that, the parole board staff has 90 days to review the case, followed by a 30-day period in which the governor can uphold, reverse or modify the decision, take no action, or send the decision to the full 17-person parole board, Patino said.
If I was into conspiracy theorizing, I’d say this was all a setup to give embattled Gov. Gavin Newsom a political win by having him announce that he would reverse any granting of parole to Sirhan.
But I think people like Gascon do stupid stuff less because they are super smart than that they get stupid ideas in their head—like too many Murderers of Color are in prison—and feel compelled to follow out the logic of their bad ideas even to reductio ad absurdum like freeing Sirhan Sirhan.
For example, George Soros actually is pretty smart, judging by his net worth, but even he feels compelled to stick with the catastrophic course he got himself on, even though he’s managing to ruin his reputation in his old age.
