"There are doubtless worthier inmates. We can think of one off the top of our heads: Kevin Cooper, who remains on death row despite significant doubts raised by a federal judge about the fairness of his murder conviction. Schwarzenegger ignored the considerable evidence in Cooper's favor, meaning that California may soon be guilty of executing an innocent man. Too bad for Cooper that his dad never smoked cigars with the governor."
EDITORIAL: THE LOS ANGELES TIMES;
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BACKGROUND: As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote in a column headed "Framed For Murder?: "California may be about to execute an innocent man. That’s the view of five federal judges in a case involving Kevin Cooper, a black man in California who faces lethal injection next year for supposedly murdering a white family. The judges argue compellingly that he was framed by police. Mr. Cooper’s impending execution is so outrageous that it has produced a mutiny among these federal circuit court judges, distinguished jurists just one notch below the United States Supreme Court." Sadly, the judicial process has ran out for Mr. Cooper - as has the prospect of clemency at the hands of former Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger;
WIKIPEDIA presents a thorough account of the Cooper case at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Cooper_%28inmate%29
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"The clemency power of presidents and governors has been abused for political purposes more times than we can list here, but former President Clinton is among the few whose last-minute pardons were so ethically suspect that they permanently tarnished his legacy," the Los Angeles Times editorial published on January 4, 2011 under the heading, "The Nunez factor: Schwarzenegger's sentence reduction for ex-speaker's son is big mistake," begins.
"By commuting the sentence of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez's son, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may have repeated Clinton's mistake," the editorial continues.
"Nuñez, who is now a business partner with Schwarzenegger's chief political advisor, worked closely with the governor during his term as speaker. His son Esteban, now 21, was sentenced to 16 years in prison after getting into a knife fight on the San Diego State University campus in 2008 in which 22-year-old Luis Santos was stabbed to death.
Was the sentence unduly harsh? The elder Nuñez argues that it was, and on his last night in office Sunday, Schwarzenegger showed that he agreed by cutting the term to seven years. Esteban Nuñez, the argument goes, didn't wield the knife that killed Santos, had no prior criminal record and had been assured by the trial judge that he wouldn't be treated the same as Santos' actual killer — ex-convict Ryan Jett, who got the same 16-year term as Nuñez. The defense attorney argues that Nuñez was treated unfairly because the judge didn't want to be seen as showing leniency to the son of a powerful politician; by commuting the young man's sentence, Schwarzenegger was thus pulling away the thumb of politics that had been tilting the scales of justice.
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We're not quite buying that theory. The younger Nuñez is no prince. He and his friends went looking for a fight after being kicked out of a campus frat party, and according to prosecutors, Nuñez stabbed two other victims, who survived. He also allegedly destroyed evidence by burning clothing worn on the night of the fight and throwing knives into the Sacramento River. Schwarzenegger issued only 10 commutations during his tenure, and it strains credibility to suppose that Esteban Nuñez would have been found worthy of such consideration if his father didn't have a personal relationship with the governor. The commutation was a close judgment call, but given that it benefitted one of his politically connected friends, it leaves a very bad smell.
There are doubtless worthier inmates. We can think of one off the top of our heads: Kevin Cooper, who remains on death row despite significant doubts raised by a federal judge about the fairness of his murder conviction. Schwarzenegger ignored the considerable evidence in Cooper's favor, meaning that California may soon be guilty of executing an innocent man. Too bad for Cooper that his dad never smoked cigars with the governor."
The editorial can be found at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-nunez-20110104,0,5799494.story
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=120008354894645705&postID=8369513443994476774
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
