Sirhan Sirhan up for parole today
RFK’s assassin Sirhan Sirhan is up for parole today. It’s the 14th time this has occurred, and the hearing is likely to go the way of all the rest and end in denial.
When I heard the news, my first thought was, “Why is this man still alive?” After all, he assassinated a presidential candidate in full view of a crowd of people.
The answer is that, although he was sentenced to death in his trial, the California Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972, before his execution had taken place. The way that sort of thing works is that, even though he was sentenced when executions were allowed, the ruling was retroactive. And even though executions were re-instituted in California in the late 70s, his re-sentencing to life in prison (with possibility of parole) during that small window of opportunity stands.
It is a common misconception that, because Sirhan was a Palestinian angry at RFK because of what he considered his pro-Israel stance, the assassin must have been a Muslim. He was not; he was a Palestinian Christian whose parents had left the area and brought him to this country when he was twelve.
Another thing I wondered when I researched this post is why Sirhan was tried under the state criminal system in California. I knew the crime was committed there, but I thought surely this would have been a federal crime as well (one of its results, by the way, is that presidential candidates are now afforded Secret Service protection). It turns out that it was not a federal crime at the time, and another result of Sirhan’s act is that the killing of a presidential candidate is now a federal crime, due to a law Congress passed after RFK’s death in 1971. This sadly extended an earlier law passed by Congress in 1965, in reaction to the shooting of his brother JFK:
When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, it was not a federal crime to kill a U.S. president. Had alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald been tried, the trial would have taken place in a Texas state court. In 1965, Congress passed a law, 18 U.S.C. 1751, making it a federal crime to kill, kidnap, or assault the President or the Vice President.
That’s one extension of the power of the federal government with which I have no quarrel.
[NOTE: What do George Plimpton, Rosey Grier, and Pete Hamill have in common? They, among others, wrestled Sirhan to the ground after the assassination.
Another fact I had completely forgotten—if I ever even knew it in the first place—is that five other people were injured in the shooting, although they all lived. They were “Paul Schrade, an official with the United Automobile Workers union; William Weisel, an ABC TV unit manager; Ira Goldstein, a reporter with the Continental News Service; Elizabeth Evans, a friend of Pierre Salinger, one of Kennedy’s campaign aides; and a teenager, Irwin Stroll, a Kennedy volunteer.”]
Is Bill Ayers going to speak for Sirhan at the parole hearing?
Some reporter should ask Ayers that.
(Btw, what is it with the Middle Eastern types and repeating names? Sirhan Sirhan, I’d like you to meet Mohammed Mohammed. Is it just lack of imagination?)
Let’s face it – the difference between a union and a criminal organization generally isn’t worth arguing about.
Oops. Sorry. Wrong thread.
Occam’s Beard: It’s for emphasis.
“That’s one extension of the power of the federal government with which I have no quarrel.” Well, I do, though I consider it a very minor quarrel. Was the California law somehow inadequate? Why should there be special laws for crimes against federal employees? If a person shoots his milkman, it’s one crime, if he shoots his mailman, it’s another? If done in MA, the mailman shooting is potentially a capital offense but the milkman shooting isn’t.
Steve: Yes, there should be federal laws for crimes against national candidates for president, and yes, there should even be federal laws against shooting federal employees when in the line of duty or by people who know they are federal employees and target them for that reason.
Certainly, a candidate for president (such as RFK was) should come under that rubric. If it is left to the states, the assassin faces the death penalty for killing a president (or VP, or presidential candidate) if the crime is committed in a death penalty state versus if it is committed in a state that bans the death penalty. So, would you have a would-be assassin make sure to kill a presidential candidate while in Maine, Massachusetts, or Wisconsin, for example, in order to make sure the assassin himself lives if caught? Seems really wrong to me; it should be a consistent penalty in either case.
Yes, there should be federal laws for crimes against national candidates for president, and yes, there should even be federal laws against shooting federal employees when in the line of duty or by people who know they are federal employees and target them for that reason.
Biggest reason: it allows Federal law enforcement (e.g., FBI, US Marshals, US Attorneys) to become involved in advance of a showing of interstate issues.
It also allows at least the option of trial in Federal courts, in case the state courts are of dubious reliability.
Pretty good reasons, methinks.
Occam’s beard:
“. . .in case the state courts are of dubious reliability.”
As compared to Obama’s Justice Department? F
F, no. Nothing’s that unreliable, especially with that imbecile Holder nominally running it.
I was speaking to the general proposition, not to our current specific circumstances, which God knows are dolorous.
You woudn’t want to risk executing him, future DNA evidence might exonerate him.
Destroy the DNA evidence the day after the execution.
Problem solved.
At some point a decision has to become final, right, wrong, or indifferent. Even the NFL recognizes that with instant replay.
I was not, as a young man, particularly a fan of RFK; however, I remember yippie-hippie-SDS types (circa 1968-9) sporting “Sirhan Shiran Lives” buttons. That was a profound turning point in my young life. From that point forward I realized ‘progressivism’ was dangerous, ugly, and vile. Turn on, tune in, hate is not a message that resonated with me.
“If you go carrying pictures of Chairmen Mao, you ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow.” (Seems to be a Lennon-McCartney night.)
“and target them for that reason” my understanding (shaky it may be) is that it doesn’t matter what the reason is. If a killer chooses a random target, and the target is a federal employee on the job, that’s enough.
The point about tracking a candidate to a non-death-penalty state is a good one, though the same could be done with a non-candidate.
James Pierson has pointed out that the left dealt with the cognitive dissonance of dealing with the fact that JFK and RFK were killed by a disgruntled communist and a Palestinian by basically ignoring it. So even today you will see statements that “they” killed Jack and Bobby and that the deaths were due to some sort of inchoate right-wing rage.
It’s the 14th time this has occurred, and the hearing is likely to go the way of all the rest and end in denial.
That’s too bad.
I’m guessing it’s the same crowd against Sirhan Sirhan that wanted leniancy for Tookie Williams.
“Sirhan’s act is that the killing of a presidential candidate is now a federal crime”
Absolutely. Our new nobility need single, double, even triple laws against taking their lives. They are, after all, so much more important than ordinary folk. No sense even pretending this stuff about equality before the law: just alter the law to make some number of legs more important than other number of legs, er, offices, or almost-offices, or whatever.
Ever murder I’ve ever known debated before committing murder on the severity of the laws against murder, and more than once mere state laws against murder have failed to deter while federal laws, well, when weighing their planned crimes, a federal law made all the difference.
” it allows Federal law enforcement (e.g., FBI, US Marshals, US Attorneys) to become involved in advance of a showing of interstate issues.”
Absolutely. Those states. Why are they around anyway? When you want incorruptible law enforcement, TSA, Homeland Security and Eric Holder, that’s who I want involved.