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Unanswered Questions In The Kevin Cooper CaseUnanswered Questions In The Kevin Cooper CaseKevin Cooper is scheduled to die on February 10, 2004, for the 1983 murders of 3 people. According to http://www.savekevincooper.org, the case 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 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.
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. 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.
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.
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. 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.
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. 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.
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:
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.
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