California to review infamous case of death row inmate

LOS ANGELES: California will launch a new probe into the high-profile case of a death row inmate convicted of the murder of four people who has maintained for decades that he was framed by police, Gov Gavin Newsom said.

Kevin Cooper was found guilty of the 1983 slayings in a suburb outside Los Angeles and was hours away from execution in 2004, when public figures from Reverend Jesse Jackson to Denzel Washington lobbied then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for clemency.

Schwarzenegger denied those calls but Cooper’s execution was called off at the last minute by an appeals court.

Subsequent governors have ordered new DNA testing of evidence using the latest technologies.

In his executive order on Friday, Newsom said he “takes no position” on Cooper’s guilt or innocence or whether to grant him clemency.

Newsom appointed a law firm to review court records and all facts and evidence in the case, including those that don’t appear in trial and appellate records, along with the results of DNA tests previously ordered by the governor.

Cooper had escaped from prison shortly before Douglas and Peggy Ryen, both 41, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and her 11-yearold friend Christopher Hughes were found stabbed and slashed to death at the Ryens’ home in Chino Hills, California.

Multiple witnesses reported seeing three white men in bloodied clothes driving a car stolen from the Ryens’ home on the night of the murders.

A woman who believed her boyfriend was involved came forward to police, having found blood on his clothes and a hatchet similar to one used at the scene missing from his tool rack. But police arrested Cooper, who is black, and he was found guilty by a jury in 1985.

Cooper, now 63, and his defence team allege that police planted evidence linking him to the scene and destroyed or tampered with evidence pointing to other suspects as the case grew in infamy and pressure for a conviction increased.