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kevin cooper:
innocent man on death row
Last month I visited Kevin Cooper, an inmate on death row at San Quentin
State Prison in California. I didn’t know exactly what to expect from the
experience. I was prepared for the prison’s repressive physique – the
electrical locking doors and armed guards, which signify home for a rapidly
growing group of over two million men and women in America today. But I
didn’t know much about the man who I was going to meet there, except that he
is currently serving the sixteenth year of a death sentence for a crime that
much of the evidence indicates he didn’t commit.
At the time of his arrest and trial, Cooper was caught in a media frenzy
that depicted him as a vicious killer. Today, as he struggles to appeal his
conviction, the California courts and state officials borrow these same
characterizations as capital in their game of death.
But the man I met through a thick glass barrier at San Quentin didn’t match
the official description at all. His compassion for the oppressed and his
warmth as a human being made him stand out from the cold, brutal environment
that surrounds him. Through his knowledge that he is innocent and his deep
social consciousness, he seemed to rise far above the institution that
confines him. These things are what motivate him in the day-to-day struggle
for his spirit that is life on death row.
I left the prison after meeting Cooper with the kind of wrenching feeling in
my stomach that can only come from witnessing great injustice against
another human being. How could this man have ended up on death row? You
could say that it was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Or, in a broader sense, you could say that it was a case of having the wrong
ethnic and economic background in America. In any case, Cooper was unable to
reap the benefits of "American justice."
He was convicted of murdering Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old
daughter and her 11-year-old friend in their home in the early morning of
June 5, 1983. Eight-year-old Joshua Ryen was attacked but survived. Two days
before the killings occurred, Cooper escaped from the minimum-security
section of the California Institution for Men in Chino, where he was serving
a three-year sentence for a non-violent burglary. He hid out in a vacant
home nearby the Ryens in the affluent town of Chino Hills. His presence
there, in the days leading up to the murders, was discovered several days
after the crime and immediately made him the prime suspect.
The largest manhunt in California history was launched for Cooper,
culminating in his capture on July 31. His trial began in December of 1984
and ended with a guilty verdict and a maximum sentence of death.
Cooper was tried in a revengeful atmosphere, which had less than subtle
racist overtones. In one instance, demonstrators hung a toy guerilla in
effigy of Cooper, who is African-American. Hostile demonstrations and
excessive media coverage forced the relocation of the trial to San Diego.
Cooper has always unequivocally proclaimed his innocence. Recently his claim
has been gaining ground due to the uncovering of new evidence and the
development of DNA technology capable of exonerating him. In October the CBS
television program "48 Hours" did a full show on the struggle of Peggy
Ryen’s mother to get DNA testing for Cooper. Despite its sensationalism and
only partial coverage of the facts, the program was sympathetic to the
defense.
EVIDENCE OF INNOCENCE
Although more inclusive than "48 Hours," this article cannot give coverage
to all of the evidence that points to Cooper’s innocence, for it is far too
extensive. I can only take up some of the most important facts, obtained
mainly from defense court documents.
First of all, the circumstantial evidence opens up significant questions
about whether Cooper is actually responsible for the murders. The
prosecution was never able to establish a motive. Money sitting on the
kitchen table was not stolen – this despite the fact that Cooper’s calls to
a friend from the nearby house were about his need for money.
But more importantly, the evidence suggests that more than one person had to
have committed the crime. There were at least three weapons used: a hatchet,
a knife, and an ice pick. With these weapons five people were overpowered,
including two able-bodied adults (one of whom was a former Marine) who kept
loaded guns within four feet of where they were killed. According to the
prosecution pathologist, the deaths occurred within a minute to a minute and
a half of each other.
Dr. John P. Ryan, of the American Board of Pathology, studied the autopsy
reports and stated that 159 wounds, 28 fractures and two amputations were
inflicted on the four people who died. "More than one person had to have
inflicted these wounds. It would be virtually impossible for one person to
have accomplished this entire trauma," he reported in a March, 2000
statement.
Yet the prosecution’s entire case against Cooper rested upon him acting
alone.
On "48 Hours," lead prosecutor Dennis Kottmeier attempted to explain
Cooper’s remarkable killing powers by stating that Cooper is "ambidextrous."
Ambidextrous or not, it is hard to imagine one man wielding three weapons at
once and killing four people in under two minutes.
Also important are the statements made by the only eyewitness to the
murders, eight-year-old Joshua Ryen, the sole survivor of the attack. During
his recovery in the hospital, Josh repeatedly told investigators that the
killers were three white or Latino men. Furthermore, when Josh saw Cooper’s
picture on TV, he exclaimed to the police officer with him "That wasn’t the
guy who did it…it was three Mexicans."
In addition, 10-year-old Jessica Ryen was found at the scene with a clump of
long blonde hair clutched in her hand, presumably belonging to her killer..
Although obviously this was not Cooper’s hair, it was not tested and the
pictures of it were never presented to the jury.
Today, both Joshua Ryen and his grandmother are not convinced that Cooper is
guilty of the murders and support the defense effort to secure DNA testing.
A POLICE FRAME-UP
The prosecution had only two pieces of "evidence" it used to tie Cooper to
the inside of the Ryens’ home. One was a bloody shoeprint supposedly found
on a bed sheet in the master bedroom, where the killings occurred. The
shoeprint came from a type of shoe that is issued to government institutions
such as prisons, hospitals and the military, and is not available by retail.
Cooper was wearing this type of shoe when he escaped from the Chino prison.
But the origin of the shoeprint is questionable. Despite its importance for
the case and the hundreds of photographs taken at the crime scene, the
shoeprint was discovered in the crime lab over a week after the murders
occurred, when Cooper was already the only suspect. The man in charge of the
crime lab, Deputy William Baird, has acknowledged that he had a pair of
prison shoes in his lab, which were Cooper’s size, when the shoe print was
discovered.
When a new defense team searched for DNA evidence in 1998 at the San
Bernardino Sheriff’s Office, it discovered that the shoe print had been
mysteriously cut out of the bed sheet, and was nowhere to be found.
It is quite possible that Baird planted the shoe print in the crime lab,
especially considering that he has a well-established record of police
corruption. After the trial, he was fired for stealing five pounds of heroin
from the evidence locker both for personal use and to sell to drug dealers.
By Baird’s own admission he was using narcotics at the time of the trial, at
which he delivered important testimony that helped to convict Cooper.
Baird was also responsible for finding the second piece of evidence that
tied Cooper to the Ryen house: a large blood drop on a wall away from where
the murders took place. Although this blood couldn’t be tied definitively to
Cooper, tests showed that it matched a type found almost exclusively in
African Americans and prosecutors used this to implicate Cooper in the
murders. The defense team regards this evidence with suspicion, however. "It
seems that anyone depositing such a large drop of blood would have had to
have been bleeding," says Cooper’s attorney David Bernstein. "Yet, the
police investigation found no trace of any blood leading to or away from the
spot."
Cooper and his attorneys believe that the isolated blood drop may have been
planted by police, if not at the scene then later during testing. A sample
of Cooper’s blood was on file at Chino prison. Some may have been removed,
only to reappear later in the criminalists laboratory.
Another scenario is that the blood drop was not Cooper’s at all. The
criminalist doing the analysis admitted that he changed one test result to
make it match Cooper’s blood. In addition, the procedures used to test the
blood have now been rejected by several courts and credentialed experts.
Brian Wraxall, who designed these procedures, was exposed as a fraud who
falsified his credentials under oath and published false and misleading data
in a federally funded study.
Other possible misconduct involved the likely planting of "evidence" at
Cooper’s hideaway.
When Sheriff’s deputy Stephen Moran initially searched the premises, he
reported that nothing was found of evidentiary value. The next day, a
hatchet sheath – which turned out to be key in Cooper’s conviction since a
bloody hatchet was found near the scene – mysteriously appeared along with a
bloody rope and some other items near the closet in the room where Cooper
slept. Moran testified that he had never been in that room; but his
fingerprints were found on the closet door.
The theory that Cooper was the victim of a frame-up is also suggested by the
conduct of police investigators who showed little interest in pursuing any
other suspects, despite promising leads.
In one instance, they blatantly disregarded important evidence provided by
Diana Roper, a local woman who told them she believed that her boyfriend
participated in the killings. She explained to them that Lee Furrow,
previously convicted of strangling a 17-year-old girl, had come home wearing
coveralls splattered with blood on the morning of the murders. She also told
investigators that when he left the house that night he had been wearing a
brown t-shirt that matched the color and brand of a bloody shirt found at
the crime scene. And his hatchet was missing from her home. Most
importantly, Roper gave the police the bloody coveralls.
Investigators never followed up. The blood on the coveralls was never
tested. In fact, recently discovered police records reveal that the
sheriff’s office deliberately disposed of the coveralls after determining
that this evidence was of "no value." A deputy threw the coveralls into a
dumpster.
In addition, a prison inmate – who had Diana Roper listed in the prison file
as his emergency contact and was not incarcerated at the time of the murders
– confessed to his cellmate that he had a role in the killings. This inmate
had accurate information about the crime, which had not appeared in the
newspapers. A prosecution detective took steps to make sure that the
confession was not investigated.
After fifteen and a half years on death row, Kevin Cooper can thank these
prosecutors and police for removing any obstacles to his conviction.
THE BATTLE FOR DNA TESTING
For years, it appeared that Cooper would be executed without ever having the
possibility of demonstrating his innocence. The development of new DNA
technology has changed that. The method of testing evidence by examining DNA
was developed during the late 1980’s and perfected in the 1990’s. Since
defense attorneys began utilizing it a few years ago, at least 82 inmates
previously convicted of rape and murders, including ten on death row, have
been exonerated. In Illinois, DNA testing revealed that a large number of
death row inmates there were innocent, leading to a state moratorium on all
executions last year.
Despite the effectiveness of DNA testing, California state officials
vehemently opposed granting it to Kevin Cooper for over three years, against
the wishes of the remaining family of the murder victims. "They’re secure
with the way the case is now and they just don’t want anything that would
upset their apple cart," stated attorney David Bernstein in an October
interview on KPFA radio. "It’s a pretty hideous thing to think, especially
in a death penalty case," he said, "but that is the only rational that I can
ascribe to their actions."
The state is obviously less secure with the truth than is Cooper. "I told
these people I would drop my appeals if that DNA proved that that blood came
from by body," he said. "I told them that three years ago because I have
nothing to worry about. I was not in that house. I did not kill those
people."
Those representing the state of California have opposed granting the tests
on the grounds that DNA testing will not exonerate Cooper, regardless of its
outcome. A spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer, whose office
represents the state in all capital cases, said, "The evidence they want
tested would not establish his innocence." Lead prosecuting attorney Dennis
Kochmeier asked "48 Hours" what one could expect to find from the DNA test
results. "That maybe there’s some other individual, the blonde-haired guy?"
he asked. "Does that mean that Kevin Cooper’s not guilty? Not at all." This
seemingly untenable position taken by the state indicates that it may still
seek to kill Cooper even if DNA evidence proves that he is innocent.
However, in December the state conceded to defense demands for DNA testing.
The combination of publicity generated by the "48 Hours" program in October
and new legislation authorizing DNA testing for California inmates forced
the Attorney General’s office to cooperate. Under the new law, California
became the third state, after Illinois and New York, to allow convicted
felons to receive DNA testing, if they can demonstrate that the results
would have made a significant difference in their trial. The state and
Cooper’s attorniess are currently negotiating the specifics of the tests,
which will be performed in Berkeley within the next few months.
The defense will be testing a bloody hatchet found near the Ryen house; the
brown t-shirt found at the scene; the blonde hair found in one of the
victim’s hand; a cigarette butt thought to belong to the killer; and the
remains of the lone blood drop attributed to Cooper – recently found in
storage despite the prosecutions statement that none remained.
It is clear that even if the upcoming test results are conclusive, Kevin
Cooper will still face a fight against an unrelenting system that has
ignored evidence of innocence in previous death penalty cases.
The state is concerned that if Cooper were freed, the criminal justice
system would loose credibility both in California and nationwide. "My plea
that I’m innocent is falling on deaf ears," said Cooper, on KPFA radio.
"Nobody wants to hear that because it is against everything that this
society stands for. They say that they have the best criminal justice system
in the world, that they don’t incarcerate innocent people, that they don’t
execute innocent people. So therefore, if I’m saying that I’m innocent, and
I can prove I’m innocent, something is wrong with their system and they’re
not going to admit that. They would rather kill an innocent person than
admit that they were wrong and that they made a mistake."
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on December 15th to affirm Cooper’s
conviction. The opinion, declared "not for publication," contained numerous
factual errors and cited evidence that simply never existed. It also ignored
the law that requires all juries to be presented with the option of choosing
a second-degree murder verdict, which does not carry the death penalty.
Cooper’s jury was denied this option and the law provides that he is
therefore entitled to a new trial. "I can’t get over how utterly disgraceful
and incompetent this opinion is," says Bernstein, who will file an appeal by
the end of January. "This does not portend well for the future."
The importance of obtaining justice for Kevin Cooper is far greater than
simply saving this one man’s life, as worthwhile as that is. Proof of his
innocence could provide a dramatic boost to activists’ efforts for a state
moratorium on the death penalty. It would deal a blow to the racism and
class oppression that permeates our criminal justice system, a small step
towards the creation of a better society for everyone.
"I know that the death penalty is not only about me, Kevin Cooper," Cooper
says in one of his written statements, "but is much, much bigger. In my mind
and through my eyes this is about a system that has historically and
systematically executed men, women, and children who look just like me,
whether from the standpoint of the color of their skin, or from the
standpoint of their class and background. I am part of the machine that we
are building to put an end to this crime against humanity that this
government uses. I am no more, and no less, than that."
If anyone is interested in helping Kevin Cooper and feels that they can make
a contribution to his struggle for justice, his address is:
Kevin Cooper
C-65304 3-EB-82
San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin, CA 94974
This article was written by Paul McKim. Paul would like to thank Leslie Kean for her important contribution to the research and
writing of this article.
