In 1985, a jury convicted Kevin Cooper of capital murder, sending him to death row. 25 years later, there is still mounting evidence that points to his innocence, that the jury never knew. At the time of trial, the jury stated that if there had been one less piece of evidence, they would not have convicted. The following is a partial list of the many facts the jury never knew, which call in to question the validity of every piece of evidence.
The jury that convicted Kevin Cooper of capital murder never heard from the then Warden of Chino prison that she, Midge Carroll, told the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department that the so-called “solely prison-issued” tennis shoes used as evidence to convict Cooper were available in retail stores. The prosecution told the jury that the shoes were available only in prisons.
They never saw the retail sales catalogue that proved that those tennis shoes were sold in retail stores, corroborating Warden Carroll’s story. They didn’t see or learn of all of the sales records of those shoes, because the prosecutor withheld all of the above information from them.
They never learned the truth about the destruction of the bloody coveralls by a single deputy sheriff. They were told that he accidentally threw them away. The truth is that those coveralls were destroyed with the permission of a higher-ranking supervisory officer.
They never learned of the circumstances in which those bloody coveralls were turned in to the police. Or who they were belonged to, a man who had previously been convicted of – and served prison time for – murder. They never learned that the day after the murders, which Cooper was convicted of, this man was seen in a car that matched the description of the victims’ stolen car.
They never heard of the confession from another person who implicated the owner and wearer of those destroyed bloody coveralls. They didn’t learn that the third-party confessor knew the woman who turned in the bloody coveralls.
They never heard the testimony of numerous witnesses that have come forth stating that on the night of the murders they saw three white men, one in bloody clothing, at the Canyon Corral Bar, a short distance from the crime scene. They never heard the testimony of numerous witnesses who have said the same thing who have come forward since Cooper’s stay of execution in 2004.
They never heard from a DEA informant who provided information after the stay of execution that the Ryen/Hughes murders were committed by a third party, not Cooper.
They never learned about a blue shirt with blood on it that was found a short distance from the Canyon Corral Bar, found and reported by a citizen and picked up by the Sheriff’s department and entered into evidence. Evidence in connection to the murders. This bloody Blue shirt, even the knowledge of its existence, was not turned over to the defense at the time of Cooper’s trial.
They did not hear from a witness from that bar that one of the three white men seen at the bar the night of the murders was indeed wearing a blue shirt.
They never heard that William Baird, the manager of the San Bernardino County Crime Lab--the person who was in charge of the evidence used to establish Cooper’s guilt at trial, the person who testified that he “found” the bloody tennis shoe imprint that matched the imprint from the so-called prison-issued tennis shoes—found that bloody imprint not at the crime scene but tin his lab where he testified. He did testify, however, that he had an exact pair of those so-called prison-issued tennis shoes in his office, in the same size. The jury did not know at the time that Baird was a heroin addict. Shortly after Cooper’s trial and conviction, William Baird was fired from the San Bernardino county Sheriff’s Department. He was fired for stealing five pounds of heroin from the evidence locker.