Kevin Cooper is Guilty #3
New York Times columnist Nick Kristof is not being honest with you. And perhaps he’s also not being honest to himself.
In January, Kristof wrote a column about convicted killer Kevin Cooper that asked the question, “Is an Innocent Man Still Languishing on Death Row?” Then he wrongly claimed that new DNA evidence “points elsewhere” than Cooper.
Kristof said he had obtained the lab results for new DNA testing sought by Cooper’s lawyers. Kristof did not release the findings with his column. I wonder why.
Unlike Kristof, I will share the findings, as reported by San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson’s office. You can read them here.
I’ll go over the specifics on the evidence in future posts. For the moment, I want you to consider Kristof’s overall approach to the Cooper case and use of language.
To start, if Kristof thinks that tests show Cooper was framed, why would he call for more tests?
The answer: The Cooper defense lobby is sort of like Donald Trump demanding endless recounts for the 2020 election: Every time they lose, they claim the system was rigged against them.
--Cooper, Kristof wrote, “appears to have been framed” for the 1983 murders of Chino Hills chiropractors Doug and Peggy Ryen, their daughter Jessica, 10, and Christopher Hughes, who had slept over with his best friend Josh Ryen, 8, who somehow survived the attack.
Authorities found a blood smear on a wall in the Ryens’ house after the bodies were discovered. If you believe law enforcement framed Cooper, you have believe that San Bernardino sheriffs somehow put Cooper’s blood in the Ryen home six weeks before Cooper was captured and arrested.
On the one hand, Kristof portrays San Bernardino sheriffs as mindless racists. So how did these rubes develop the pre-DNA testing foresight to put Cooper’s DNA in the Ryen home, car and elsewhere when they had not caught him?
--Let’s remember how we got here. Because there was no DNA testing at the time of the trial, Cooper later said that he wanted DNA testing which would prove he was innocent. If DNA tests did not clear him, Cooper said, he would drop his appeals.
So what happened? When DNA testing was conducted, it placed Cooper in the Ryen home, which he said he never entered.
Rather than drop appeals, the Cooper team countered that the evidence was planted.
--Here’s another Kristof whopper: “There is growing recognition in criminal justice circles that Kevin Cooper may be innocent,” Kristof wrote as he supported that assertion by citing an opinion that Cooper may be innocent written by a federal judge.
Growing? Judge Fletcher made that argument in 2009 – 11 years ago. And he made that argument in a dissent because the Ninth Circuit upheld the jury’s finding of guilt.
Yes, Kristof can point to death-penalty opponents like himself whose ranks may have increased. But within the criminal justice system, a jury, California judges, federal panels and evidentiary hearings have upheld Cooper’s guilt.
—Last point for today: The authorities were right to focus on Cooper early on, because of the circumstances, not Cooper’s status as a black man as Kristof argue.
Repeat criminal escapes prison, hides out in out-of-the-way house that overlooks a home where a family is found murdered. The family station wagon is missing. So is the escaped inmate. It would be malpractice not to consider Cooper the prime suspect.
Which makes Kristof’s use of the race card particularly gratuitous and offensive.
Debra J. Saunders is a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Contact her at dsaunders@discovery.org.