California board denies parole for Robert Kennedy assassin Sirhan
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California panel on Wednesday denied parole for Sirhan B. Sirhan, the man convicted in the 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, in its first review of the case since Gov. Gavin Newsom decided last year that Sirhan, 78, should not be released.
The parole board’s latest decision, which followed a hearing via videoconference from the state prison in San Diego, where Sirhan has been held, marked the second time in three years that Sirhan’s release was considered, and his 17th parole hearing.
Sirhan, who was 24 when he was convicted, has spent more than a half-century behind bars for shooting Kennedy, then a Democratic presidential candidate, in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
The state board in 2021 found Sirhan suitable for release for the first time, after 15 prior denials of parole. Under California law, Newsom had the power to reject that recommendation. After more than four months of review, the Democratic governor blocked Sirhan’s release in January 2022.
“After decades in prison, he has failed to address the deficiencies that led him to assassinate Sen. Kennedy,” the governor wrote last year. “Mr. Sirhan lacks the insight that would prevent him from making the same types of dangerous decisions he made in the past.”
Sirhan’s lawyer Angela Berry disputed that, saying Sirhan has shown that awareness, and his psychiatrists have said for decades that he is unlikely to reoffend or be a danger to society.
“I do feel the board bent to the political whim of the governor,” Berry said after the hearing at a federal prison in San Diego County.