A CASE FULL OF HOLES
On the night of June 4, 1983, three members of the Ryen family
and a houseguest were murdered in San Bernadino County. Kevin
Cooper, an African-American man, now faces an execution date of
February 10th, 2004. Kevin could be executed despite the fact
that the case against him is full of holes.
The authorities claim that recent DNA tests link four pieces of
evidence to Kevin and the crime. But this evidence has been
mishandled and very susceptible to tampering. Police destruction
of evidence and general misconduct have played a part in the
case from the beginning, but neither no one knew the extent of
the mishandling of evidence prior to signing the DNA testing
agreement. Kevin's defense attorneys are attempting to bring
this information to light. Despite the numerous problems with
the evidence, the state is refusing to do further testing on
blond hair that was found in one of the victims' hands or other
tests that would show if the evidence had indeed been tampered
with.
The Campaign to End the Death Penalty and Kevin's supporters ask
you to review the following facts and decide for yourself
whether Kevin's guilt has been established "beyond a reasonable
doubt", as the state claims.
The Case
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Clumps of long, blonde hair were found in the hands of one of
the victims. Photographs of this hair were never shown to the
jury. The hair could be tested using different DNA
technology, which could identify someone other than Kevin as
being involved in the crime.
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At least three weapons were used in the brutal murders,
indicating multiple perpetrators. A member of the American
Board of Pathology said it would be "virtually impossible"
for one person to have committed this crime. Prosecutors were
unable to account for this, claiming that Kevin Cooper acted
alone.
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Hostile, racist demonstrations were held near the courthouse
after Kevin Cooper was taken into custody. At one
demonstration a toy gorilla was hung in effigy.
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A pair of bloody coveralls was submitted to the police by a
woman claiming that they had been left at her house by her
boyfriend, who she believed was involved in the murders.
Police records show that the coveralls were deliberately
disposed of in a dumpster by the police without any testing.
The woman was never brought in to testify.
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This same woman has said that she bought her boyfriend a
brown T-shirt that matches a T-shirt found at the scene of
the crime. There may be a discrepancy between the number of
bloodstains reported to be on the T-shirt when it was found
and the number of bloodstains reported to be on the T-shirt
when it was tested. This T-shirt is one of the pieces of
evidence linked to Kevin by the DNA results.
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On June 11th, 1983, the victims' stolen car was found in Long
Beach, CA. The person who found the car told police that he
did not remember it being there the previous day. Kevin
Cooper was in Tijuana, Mexico on June 5th, 1983.
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A prison inmate confessed to the crime, providing his
cellmate with accurate information about the crime that was
not in the newspapers. The man who confessed was also a
friend of the woman who provided the bloody coveralls. The
prosecutor's investigator took steps to make sure this
confession would not be investigated.
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9th circuit court of appeals' Justice Browning stated in a
dissenting ruling that Kevin Cooper may very well be executed
without the colorful evidence that someone else confessed to
the murders ever being heard in court on its merit.
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Kevin Cooper had no motive for committing these brutal
murders and none was established at trial. He was in the
wrong place at the wrong time, having just escaped from a
minimum-security institution where he had been serving a
sentence for a nonviolent offense. Police found him an
all-too easy target.
The Evidence:
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In 1983, a single, isolated drop of blood was found in the
Ryens' house at some distance from the murders. During the
original trial, prosecutors said the blood came from an
African-American and suggested that it provided a link to
Kevin Cooper. Criminalist Daniel Gregonis subsequently
altered initial lab test results to fit Kevin's profile. He
also made a number of serious errors and failed to follow
proper procedure while conducting his initial tests.
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In 1999, several pieces of evidence from Kevin Cooper's case
were released to Gregonis without a court order or the
knowledge of Kevin's legal counsel. The reason for checking
out the evidence for 24 hours was never explained. Evidence
tampering would have been very easy during this time. These
events, combined with previous mishandling, raise great
concerns about the integrity of this evidence.
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The Sheriff's deputy who found the lone drop of blood at the
crime scene-as well as a bloody shoeprint that somehow was
not discovered until it landed in the crime lab-recently
admitted he was using narcotics at the time of the trial. He
was fired from the San Bernardino Sheriff's department for
stealing five pounds of heroin-which he both used and sold to
drug dealers-from the evidence locker. The blood drop and the
shoeprint were the only two pieces of evidence that linked
Kevin to the crime in the original trial.
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A deputy working on the case perjured himself: He lied about
not being present in a room where evidence did not originally
appear but was later "found", including the closet where
Kevin hid for two days.
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There are a number of discrepancies between the police
reports, arrest warrant, and evidence claims. An example of
this is a handrolled cigarette butt that appears sporadically
in these reports. Another is a manufactured cigarette that
the state claims was found in the victims' car, yet which is
clearly not there in the original crime scene photographs.
Because Kevin occupied a house in the surrounding area of the
victims' house, and was a smoker at the time, the police had
access to cigarette butts that they could claim were found on
the victims' property.
Unfortunately, the criminal justice system rarely corrects its own problems. We can. Putting a stop to this injustice, and all of the flaws in the death penalty that it represents, will take a movement of concerned community members, students, and activists.