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RFK Assassination Legal Case Update

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Not the Ideal Attorney

The fact that at this late date we still can't agree on what happened on June 5 goes back to the very beginnings of the case. If Sirhan had been represented by capable attorneys determined to learn the truth about the politically fraught second murder of a Kennedy brother in five years, things might have turned out differently. Instead, his attorneys persuaded Sirhan to plead guilty in hopes of avoiding the death penalty; Sirhan put up no resistance to this strategy since, as he would later reveal, he had zero recall of what happened on the night of the shooting. He was sentenced to the death penalty anyway, though several years later the sentence was commuted to life in prison after California abolished the death penalty.

Pepper, in his recent filing, directs much of his outrage at attorney Grant Cooper:

"As a matter of record he accepted, without even the most perfunctory examination or challenge, all of the State's ballistic evidence.... As a result, defense Counsel Cooper's indictment [for illegally possessing grand jury proceedings in another case] went away. He was rewarded for obtaining the guilty plea and death penalty sentence."

Indeed, here's what Cooper said in his closing remarks:

"Now, let me state at the outset that I want this to sink in if anything sinks in -- we are not here to free a guilty man. We tell you as we always have, that he is guilty of having killed Senator Kennedy....we expect that under the evidence in this case, whether Mr. Sirhan likes it or not, under the facts of this case, he deserves to spend the rest of his life in the penitentiary....Don't we know from dozens and dozens of witnesses that this defendant pulled the trigger that killed Senator Kennedy?...there is no question about that....I wouldn't want Sirhan Sirhan to be turned loose as he is dangerous, especially when the psychiatrists tell us that he is going to get worse and he is getting worse. There is a good Sirhan and a bad Sirhan and the bad Sirhan is nasty... we as lawyers owe the obligation to do what we think is right to the fullest extent of our ability but we also owe an obligation to society. And, I, for one, am not going to ask you to do otherwise than to bring in a verdict of guilty in the second degree."

It takes a moment to realize that this is not the prosecutor, but the defense lawyer. No wonder most of us take for granted that Sirhan Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy -- and acted alone.

Pepper again:

"Throughout his closing argument, Petitioner's Trial Counsel never lost an opportunity to praise the prosecution's case and the prosecutors themselves. He, continually, strangely, elevated them, and the prosecution's case in the jury's eyes."

Frontal Assault -- From the Back

Pepper, who first filed for a new trial in 2011, wants the chance to present a court with his new evidence: the Pruszyinski tape, impartial eyewitness accounts, (i.e., all 12 witnesses who say Sirhan always was in front of the Senator), and other evidence, including testimony from Dr. Daniel Brown of Harvard, a specialist in hypnosis and trauma memory, who has spent more than 70 hours examining Sirhan since 2008.

Among the intriguing elements the magistrate did not mention in his report: some question exists about the original trial evidence -- which is crucial to establishing whether Sirhan was the assassin or whether someone else killed Kennedy. Indeed, Sirhan's trial counsel did not ask the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner to confirm that the bullet slug presented as evidence was the same one he removed from Senator Kennedy's neck. At the time of the autopsy, the examiner had marked the slug "TN31." In the intervening years, Pepper says, Sirhan's defense has learned that the slug introduced during the trial appears to have had the mark "DWTN" -- suggesting it was not from the same gun.

If forensic evidence does indicate that Kennedy was killed by shots from behind, how can that be squared with the sworn statements of 12 witnesses who assert that they saw Sirhan in front  of the senator, with the senator facing in his direction. In addition, one of the bullets that went into Kennedy's head was fired from just inches behind his right ear, but no witnesses saw Sirhan behind Kennedy, much less close enough to have fired at that range. (All five witnesses who testified at Sirhan's trial stated that he was in front of Kennedy.)

One witness, Karl Uecker, a maitre d' at the hotel, was leading Kennedy by the hand through the crowded pantry. After Kennedy stopped to shake hands with a dishwasher, Uecker again took him by the hand and began moving forward. It was while they were on the move that Uecker heard a shot, saw Sirhan in front of him, grabbed for the gun and forced Sirhan onto a steam table.

Even the magistrate who opposes giving Sirhan a new trial accepts that Sirhan was in front of Kennedy. His explanation of the discrepancy is that Kennedy turned his head at the last minute to shake hands with people in the crowd, making it possible for Sirhan's bullets to enter the back of his head. Two of the other three shots that hit Kennedy entered his back at powder-burn range from less than an inch away. (The bullets in the back appear to have been fired before the head shot, since that one brought Kennedy instantly to the floor.)

So, according to the magistrate's Report, Sirhan somehow got several bullets into Kennedy's back from close range and  the fatal bullet into the back of his head -- even though Uecker himself was between Kennedy and Sirhan, and Uecker asserts that at no point could Sirhan's gun have been closer than a foot-and-a-half from Kennedy. The magistrate, having accepted that Sirhan's hand was pinned to a table soon after several frontal shots missed, asserts that he nonetheless was able to get off the successful rounds from that position.

Pepper minces no words in expressing his outrage at the magistrate's narrative of the assassination:

"The scenario put forward by the Report is errant nonsense. It is embarrassing to say the least and though it may have been due to the Magistrate's reliance upon uninformed Clerks, it should not see the light of day, much less be submitted to the habeas Judge."

But if that long-accepted scenario makes no sense, the implication is clear:

The question remains as to who fired the other three previous shots at close range from the rear. Once again, the Report ignores this critical fact.

Significantly, Pepper brings in the recent testimony of Nina Rhodes-Hughes, who says that Kennedy was not turned around, but was facing forward, when the shots were fired. Rhodes-Hughes is certain there was a second shooter.

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Author, investigative journalist, editor-in-chief at WhoWhatWhy.com

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