Setback to racist death penalty
Kevin Cooper execution halted
Protesters cheer news at San Quentin gate
By Bill Hackwell
San Quentin State Prison
California
In a dramatic change of events on Feb. 9, less
than four hours before his scheduled execution, Kevin Cooper
was granted a stay from death by lethal injection. The U.S.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier in the day had ruled
nine to two to send the case back to a federal judge in San
Diego because a significant amount of information had surfaced
indicating that San Bernardino police had planted and tampered
with evidence in order to get a conviction of Cooper in the
1983 deaths of four people.
Prior to the ruling, California Attorney General Bill
Lockyer, a Democrat, began an appeal process to petition the
Supreme Court to overrule the stay. The San Francisco office of
the ANSWER Coalition immediately activated its phone fax and
email network, flooding the Attorney General's office to demand
he not appeal the lower court's decision.
Despite the stay, opponents of the death penalty continued
their mobilizing efforts to march on San Quentin, where Kevin
Cooper was in a deathwatch cell 12 feet from the execution
chamber. It had become clear when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
denied Cooper even the customary clemency hearing that the
state of California was hell bent on following through with the
execution, despite the growing evidence of Cooper's
innocence.
In recent weeks the Cooper case has galvanized progressive
forces around the state and has also become a focus of national
attention as sentiment against the death penalty gains
momentum. Demonstrations have taken place all over California,
including protests at Schwarzenegger's mansion in Los Angeles.
Full-page ads by the Committee to Stop the Execution of Kevin
Cooper appeared in the New York Times and several California
newspapers.
Actors and well-known progressive figures--including Denzel
Washington, Mike Farrell, Danny Glover, Anjelica Houston,
Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky and many others--have lent their
names to stop the execution. Legislators from all over Europe
spoke out against the execution, including the mayor of
Schwarzen egger's hometown in Austria.
As media trucks lined up in front of the west gate to San
Quentin, hundreds of pro testers started to march the one and a
half miles from the Larkspur Ferry to the main gate near the
Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, which crosses San Francisco Bay.
The loud and militant demonstration for ced the California
Highway Patrol to stop traffic in the westbound lane of the
bridge.
The march had large contingents from the Campaign to End the
Death Penalty and the ANSWER Coalition. When the protesters got
close to the gate of San Quentin, they were met by another 100
cheering anti-death penalty protesters who had just heard that
the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to intervene to block the
stay of execution.
Speaker after speaker reiterated that this was a victory for
the people. The fact that Kevin Cooper was still alive signals
that people see the death penalty as not just a flawed system
from a technical point of view but one that is a racist
instrument of repression against the poor. Several former
death-row prisoners spoke, including Shujaa Graham and Juan
Roberto Melen dez, a Puerto Rican who had been on death row for
17 years and was the 99th person to be exonerated. Melendez
said, "The judicial system makes so many mistakes that an
innocent man can easily get killed."
Jesse Jackson, who had met with Cooper several times in the
previous week, told the crowd, "This is part of a struggle
across the nation to remove a system that is flawed."
Gloria La Riva, speaking for the ANSWER Coalition, drew
thunderous applause when she said, "It's George Bush who should
be sitting on death row for his war crimes in Iraq, Palestine
and Afghan istan and for killing over 150 prisoners while the
governor of Texas."
Although buoyed by the victory, acti vists left San Quentin
knowing that Kevin Cooper's reprieve, which gives him at least
40 days before the state can issue another death warrant, is a
period in which the struggle must not just continue to exist
but must grow.
Reprinted from the Feb. 19, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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