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UPDATE: Read Kevin Cooper's latest piece of writing:

This is Not My Execution (Word Document)
This is Not My Execution (HTML)

WE NEED TO RAISE MONEY TO PRINT THIS AD:

We need to raise $30,000 to place the ad in California papers. Write your tax deductible checks for $1,000, $500, $50 or whatever you can give to: "DPF" and write "KC ad" in the memo line. Send to: Death Penalty Focus, 870 Market Street, Suite 859, San Francisco, CA 94102.

AD CONTENT:

[photo of Cooper]
COULD THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA HAVE THE WRONG MAN?

They had the wrong man when they convicted Rick Walker.
They had the wrong man when they convicted John J. Tennison.
They had the wrong man when they convicted Oscar Lee Morris.

Nationwide, prosecutors have had the wrong man in 112 capital murder cases, forcing innocent men and women to spend years on death row facing execution for crimes they did not commit.

On February 10, the state of California plans to execute Kevin Cooper, a 45-year-old African American man who has been on death row for 20 years and whose case raises numerous questions about California's capital punishment system.

� On the night of June 4, 1983, Peggy, Doug and Jessica Ryen and a houseguest were brutally murdered in San Bernadino County. The youngest member of the family, Josh Ryen, 8, managed to survive. When local police learned that Kevin Cooper had walked off the grounds of a minimum security prison just days before the murders, Cooper became the primary suspect - despite the fact that Josh Ryen told police and his grandmother that three white or Latino men had killed his family.

� The State of California conducted DNA tests on Cooper, but the integrity of this evidence is highly questionable. Blood and saliva samples taken at the time of his arrest were released to a technician involved in the prosecution, and held for twenty-four hours without a court order or the knowledge of Cooper's legal team.

� Clumps of long, blond hair were found in the hands of one of the victims. Photographs of this hair, which clearly does not belong to Cooper, were never shown to the jury. The prosecution has refused to allow testing that could determine just whose hair it is.

� A pair of bloody coveralls submitted to the police by a woman claiming that they had been left at her house by her boyfriend around the time of the murders were tossed in a dumpster without any testing. The woman was never brought in to testify.

A study published by Santa Clara Law Review in December 2003 exposes over 80 deficiencies in California's death penalty system, declaring it "seriously flawed and dangerously unjust." The study calls for numerous reforms - including forensic and DNA testing that is standardized, independent and adequately funded; state-wide standards for lawyers handling capital cases; requirements that police pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry whether they point towards or away from the suspect, and videotaping police interrogations of suspects when practical. None of these reforms are in place. To execute Mr. Cooper in the face of such strong doubts about his case and the entire California death penalty system is irresponsible and potentially tragic. The Committee to Stop the Execution of Kevin Cooper is asking you to review the facts above and decide for yourself whether Kevin's guilt has been established "beyond a reasonable doubt," as the state requires. If you agree that it has not, you must take action.

Declaring a time out on executions, as Gov. Ryan did in Illinois, will spare a potentially innocent man from death, and serve as the first step towards assuring the public that the serious flaws and injustices of California's death penalty system will be addressed.

We, the undersigned, call upon Governor Schwarzenegger to stop the execution of Kevin Cooper, and establish a bipartisan commission to study the fairness, accuracy and effectiveness of California's death penalty system.

Respectfully,

[Signatories]

Thanks to all the hundreds of people who mailed in to sign this ad. It has been printed and published. Now is the time to follow it up with action and donations. Write your tax deductible checks for $1,000, $500, $50 or whatever you can give to: "DPF" and write "KC ad" in the memo line. Send to: Death Penalty Focus, 870 Market Street, Suite 859, San Francisco, CA 94102.