California Governor Gavin Newsom denied parole Thursday for Sirhan Sirhan, the 77-year-old Palestinian immigrant who was convicted of the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (DN.Y.) in Los Angeles .
A two-member panel of the California parole board approved Sirhan’s release in August after serving 53 years behind bars , and that ruling was later approved by the legal staff of the parole board.
But California voters amended their state constitution in 1988 to allow the governor to reverse the decisions of the state’s Board of Parole Hearings in convicted murderer cases.
Newsom chose to do so, saying in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that Sirhan, after decades in prison, “has not addressed the deficiencies that led him to assassinate Senator Kennedy. Mr. Sirhan lacks the insight that would prevent him from making the same kinds of dangerous decisions he made in the past. “
Kennedy’s wife, Ethel Kennedy, publicly declared her opposition to parole in September, and six of her nine surviving children joined her . The family said in a statement late Thursday that it appreciates Newsom’s decision. “We greatly appreciate the Governor’s consideration of the facts and his faithful application of the law, ” the statement said . “His decision represents the vindication of the rule of law over all who would betray him with hatred and violence… the Governor protects Californians and people around the world, and that is in tradition and true to the legacy of Robert Kennedy. We are deeply grateful for this decision ”.
The revocation returns Sirhan’s case to the parole board, which must hold another parole hearing within 18 months, under California law.
Senator Robert F. Kennedy was 42 years old and had just won the California Democratic presidential primary when he was shot point-blank in the back of the head while moving through the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in downtown Los Angeles shortly after. midnight on June 5, 1968. Two more shots at point-blank range slightly wounded the senator, and a quarter went through his jacket without hitting him, all from behind.
Kennedy died a day later, on June 6, 1968, further convulsing a country already reeling from the assassination two months before the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and four and a half years after the assassination of the brother. of Kennedy, President John F. Kennedy .
Some believed that Senator Robert F. Kennedy had a chance to capture the Democratic nomination for the presidency and follow his older brother John to the White House.