Gavin Newsom Rejects Parole For Sirhan Sirhan

deadline.com:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has rejected parole for Sirhan Sirhan, concluding that the man convicted of assassinating Robert Kennedy “still lacks the insight that would prevent him from making the kind of dangerous and destructive decisions he made in the past.”Sirhan was granted parole last summer by a state panel, but Newsom still had the authority to nix his release.“The most glaring proof of Sirhan’s deficient insight is his shifting narrative about his assassination of Kennedy, and his current refusal to accept responsibility for it,” Newsom wrote in an op ed for the Los Angeles Times.The issue of whether Sirhan, 77, should be released divided children of Kennedy.

Robert Kennedy Jr. and Douglas Kennedy argued for Sirhan’s release, but other children, as well as Kennedy’s widow Ethel, expressed opposition to it.Sirhan’s attorney, Angela Berry, told the Associated Press that he would ask a judge to overturn the governor’s decision.

She said that Sirhan had demonstrated a record of rehabilitation, and that he no longer posed a public safety risk. The Parole Board whether he was still a risk to society and his age in deciding whether to grant release.Robert Kennedy was mortally wounded on June 5, 1968, shortly after speaking to exuberant supporters following his victory in the California presidential primary.

Kennedy died just over a day later at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan. He and his wife, Ethel, had 10 children, and an 11th was born following his death.In his op ed, Newsom argued that Sirhan has dodged responsibility for the assassination, after earlier confirming that he killed Kennedy and, in an interview with David Frost, that he acted alone.“He claimed he could not remember the crime, then stated he was