Gavin Newsom's Sister Souljah moment

California Governor denies parole for Sirhan Sirhan

California Gov. Gavin Newsom overrode his Board of Pardons Hearings and denied parole to Sirhan Sirhan, the convicted killer of Robert F. Kennedy. Apparently New York Mayor Eric Adams is not the only Democrat who realizes there’s a reason states have prisons and cities jails.

Op-Ed: Newsom: Why I will not release Sirhan Sirhan on parole

Sirhan Sirhan appears at a parole hearing in 2016 at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.

(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)

BY GAVIN NEWSOM

JAN. 13, 2022 2:12 PM PT

In 1968, Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Sen. Robert F. Kennedy just moments after Kennedy won the California presidential primary. Sirhan also shot and injured five bystanders. Decades later, Sirhan refuses to accept responsibility for the crimes.

Newsom wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times about the decision in which he explained his reasoning.

1. Sirhan Sirhan “refuses to take accountability for his crimes.”

2. His 1968 assassination of RFK may well have changed the course of history.

3. The convicted killer has shifted his narrative, including a claim not to remember the shooting.

4. At age 77, Sirhan is “a potent symbol of political violence” who inspired terrorism.

I agree. Bravo, Governor. I had feared Newsom might grant Sirhan parole and am happy to salute his clear thinking on this issue.

In this instance, Newsom decided to ignore the noise around two of RFKs’ sons who supported the assassin’s parole. Instead, Newsom listened to six of the former New York Senator’s nine surviving children.

Newsom’s actions bring to mind former President Bill Clinton’s Sister Souljah moment, described by Wikipeida as a “politician’s calculated public repudiation of an extremist person, statement, group or position that is perceived to have some association with the politician's own party.”

One thing Newsom left out in his op-ed is that he is the former San Francisco Mayor who first installed George Gascón, now the Los Angeles District Attorney, in a position of power in California.

Indeed, Newsom did so twice. In 2009, then Mayor Newsom appointed Gascón, then chief of Mesa, Arizona police, to be San Francisco Police Chief.

In 2011, after San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, now Vice President, was elected Attorney General, Newsom appointed Gascón, who had never tried a case in court, to be San Francisco District Attorney. Later, Gascón, who now is facing a recall, ran for and won his current job in Los Angeles.

Gascón, as AP reported, has refused to send prosecutors to the parole board hearings — even for a political assassin.

“The role of a prosecutor and their access to information ends at sentencing,” Alex Bastian, special advisor to Gascón, said in a statement Thursday.

If you’re wondering why Sirhan is eligible for parole after a jury sentenced him to death, you can thank the California Supreme Court which struck down the state’s capital punishment law in 1972. Voters later re-instated the death penalty through the initiative process.

Newsom, for his part, never made a secret of his opposition to the death penalty, but when he ran for governor in 2018, his spokesman Dan Newman told the San Francisco Chronicle that Newsom “recognizes that California voters have spoken on the issue and, if elected governor, he’d respect the will of the electorate by following and implementing the law.”

Surprise - not. After Newsom won, he ordered a halt to executions for all 737 inmates on California’s death row. He told reporters, “I don’t think this comes as a huge surprise to anybody.” Apparently he believes no one should have believed he’s respect the voters’ will on capital punishment.

So I’ll enjoy Newsom’s enlightenment on tough sentences for political assassins while it lasts.

Debra J. Saunders is a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Contact her at dsaunders@discovery.org.

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