Matthew T. Mangino
GateHouse News Service
June 14, 2013
This month marks the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. His senseless and tragic death came about on the evening of June 5, 1968, in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
Moments before entering the hotel kitchen, Kennedy had given a victory speech after winning the important California Democratic primary for president of the United States.
Kennedy was being ushered through the hotel kitchen by a group of campaign volunteers. The kitchen was crammed with supporters and well-wishers. Suddenly, Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a young man angered over Kennedy’s pro-Israeli position in the Middle East.
Less than five years earlier, Kennedy’s brother, President John F. Kennedy, was struck down by an assassin’s bullet, and only two months earlier civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was slain in Memphis, Tenn., by an assassin.
Sirhan was convicted ten months later and within a week of his conviction he was sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 after the California Supreme Court vacated all pending death sentences.
Sirhan remains in a California prison and has been denied parole 14 times, most recently in 2011. However, his lawyers have come up with a new plan for his release that reads like the plot of a Hollywood movie.
Although Sirhan’s conviction occurred more than four decades ago, he has asked the court to review his conviction through a Writ of Habeas Corpus. His direct appeal rights have long been exhausted, but habeas corpus remains a viable option.
Appeals are used to correct errors that occurred before or during trial based on evidence found on the court record. A Writ of Habeas Corpus asks the court to consider “new” evidence that the trial judge might not have heard.
In 2008, Sirhan’s lawyers hired memory expert Daniel Brown, a professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. Brown was described by Sirhan’s lawyers as "one of the world's foremost experts in hypno programming."
Brown interviewed Sirhan for 60 hours over a three-year period. Sirhan now remembers that when he fired his shots in the hotel kitchen he believed he was at a gun range and shooting at circular targets, reported CNN.
Sirhan’s lawyers believe he was programmed to cause a distraction in the kitchen, allowing a second gunman to secretly shoot Kennedy from behind. Lawyers say that Professor Brown believes a mysterious young woman in a polka dot dress lured Sirhan into the kitchen as part of the alleged mind control plot.
The conspiracy claim is bolstered somewhat by an analysis of a recently uncovered tape recording of the shooting. The recording is the only known soundtrack of the assassination and it reveals at least 13 shot sounds over a period of less than six seconds. This appears to contravene the theory at trial that eight shots were fired by Sirhan.
Sirhan’s claims of hypno programming and assassination might make for an action-packed Hollywood thriller — if it hadn’t already been written, produced and premiered more than 50 years ago. "The Manchurian Candidate" released by MGM in 1962 starred Frank Sinatra and portrayed a supposed war hero who was brainwashed into becoming an unwitting assassin.
At times, truth is stranger than fiction. In the case of Sirhan Sirhan, fiction is being used to cobble together a cockamamie claim that is beyond strange and just downright fantastic.
Unfortunately, Sirhan’s claim can’t be completely written off — especially not in California. The Twinkie defense worked for Dan White after he assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978.
Thirty-five years later, can the Manchurian defense work for Sirhan Sirhan?
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly and George and the former district attorney for Lawrence County, Pa. You can read his blog at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
Mangino Launches Weekly Syndicated Column with GateHouse News Service
I am very pleased to announce my new weekly column syndicated by GateHouse News Service. GateHouse serves 79 daily papers, 257 weeklies and 405 websites coast to coast.
Matthew T. Mangino: Crime and punishment - there is more to the story
GateHouse News Service
March 1, 2013
Fifteen years ago when I was elected district attorney of Lawrence County, Pa., I had just turned 35 and knew everything there was to know about seeking justice, protecting the public and locking away bad guys.
Today, things are not so obvious. Two terms as district attorney, six years on the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole and two years at the University of Pennsylvania have taught me that there is a story behind every crime, every new law, every court decision and every piece of academic research.
Each week I hope to share those stories with you along with the insight that comes with more than 25 years as a criminal justice practitioner.
There are no easy answers and, at times, there is no single answer, but the issues of crime and punishment are significant enough to merit critical exploration and objective explanations.
The U.S. incarcerates more people for longer periods of time than any other nation on earth. There are 2.3 million men and women in prisons nationwide, with one in 32 American adults under some sort of correctional supervision.
Today, about 17 states are involved in justice reinvestment strategies. States as diverse as Kansas, West Virginia and Connecticut have joined with the Council of State Governments to map out individualized strategies to reduce the number of people in state prison. The savings will be distributed for initiatives in policing, drug treatment and community supervision.
These ideas were born out of necessity not enlightenment. Policymakers have come to the realization that mass incarceration is a drain on state budgets.
Finances are also driving the death penalty debate. Capital punishment is lawful in 33 states—five fewer than just a few years ago. State-sponsored death has long been attacked as brutal and unfairly administered. Today, the death penalty is attacked as being too costly.
Opponents of the death penalty point to endless and costly appeals; the increased expense of housing offenders on death row; and the financial hardship of defending challenges to every facet of execution including the origin of the execution drugs, the contents of the final meal, and even the obesity of the condemned.
The death penalty is also under scrutiny for a series of recent DNA exonerations.
According to the Innocence Project, there have been 18 men freed from death row as a result of DNA analysis. Jurors are much less likely to sentence a killer to death if they believe innocent men have been sent to their death. Last year marked the second lowest number of death sentences since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
The death penalty is not the only staple of the criminal justice system that has taken a hit as a result of DNA.
DNA has also uncovered wrongful convictions that were originally based on bite mark analysis; hair and fiber analysis; handwriting and even fingerprint analysis. Eyewitness identification, often the only evidence available to police, is being aggressively challenged.
Some experts suggest that such evidence is prone to error. Poor viewing conditions, limited time and fear all play a role in possible misidentification.
Regardless of your opinion of the criminal justice system, crime will continue. For every person on death row, there are one or more victims of murder. For every eyewitness identification there is a corresponding crime. For every trial, regardless of evidence, there is a victim who has been harmed.
Rather than continuing the unbridled and sometimes spurious attacks on the criminal justice system, society would do well to demand an honest dialogue that focuses on fairness, justice and accountability. I hope to contribute to that dialogue each week through this column.
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly and George and the former district attorney for Lawrence County, Pa. You can read his blog at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)