Kevin Cooper is Guilty #2
If a legal defense team has enough high-priced lawyers, all they have to do is say that their client was framed and some journalists will parrot their every word without any skepticism whatsoever.
What else can explain how big media types ignore a guilty jury verdict, failed appeals and evidentiary hearings that did not exonerate convicted killer Kevin Cooper?
Apparently they really want to believe he had no role in the the murders of Chino Hill parents Doug and Peggy Ryen, their daughter Jessica and family friend Christopher Hughes, or an attack that left son Josh Ryen for dead. At the same time, they buy every smear about law enforcement.
Here’s an example.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-18/kevin-cooper-dna-test-murder-death-row
Read the above Scott Martell piece, which is an exercise in journalistic malpractice. There is no acknowledgment of the evidence that tied Cooper to the scene of the crime, before and after DNA testing. (Escaped convict holed up in house next door at the time of the slayings, matching sneaker print, Cooper blood in Ryen home, Cooper DNA in Ryen station wagon and more.) The writer claims Cooper didn’t get a fair trial, that evidence was planted (a crime) and that the possible guilt of others was ignored, without anything to back up those claims.
It is embarrassing.
BTW, here’s a letter from San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson that refutes the claim the DA’s office did not look at other suspects.
Cooper was only one of several persons of interest sought by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department during the early stages of the investigation. Three of those other persons of interests were also taken into custody and questioned. Each provided accounts of their whereabouts on the day of, and after, the murders. Investigators also followed up on the suspects’ alibis and determined them to be accurate. Blood samples from all three persons of interest were obtained, analyzed and compared to evidence recovered during the investigation. Only Cooper’s profile matched the blood recovered from the victims’ hallway.
There is so much disinformation it’s practically a full-time job to address it.
Debra J. Saunders is a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Contact her at dsaunders@discovery.org.