The death penalty was commonly carried out in back in the 1960’s. I think what spared Sirhan’s life was that this all happened in California. That state was not performing death penalites at that time.
Yesterday, California just reversed the guilty verdict against the Mexican national who was in SF illegally, stole a gun ...and shot a very young woman dead.
The jury originally put him in jail. Yesterday the state of California nullified their verdict and declared him not guilty.
Actually he was given the death penalty in 1969 but in 1972 the state supreme court threw out the death penalty statewide so everyone on death row's sentences were changed to life in prison. That same year voters passed a constitutional revision to reinstate the death penalty and it became law again in 1973. However in 1976 the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional again, and in 1978 voters reinstated it again, which is where it now stands. Of course any criminal who was commuted along the way was off the hook, Sirhan being one of them.
The death penalty was commonly carried out in back in the 1960’s. I think what spared Sirhan’s life was that this all happened in California.
If you weren’t around at the time, RFK was seen by many as a savior of the Dem party. He jumped into the race late after Eugene McCarthy was winning primaries because the VN war was dragging the dems down. That, and of course, he was the brother of the sainted JFK.
I don’t think the murder and trial in California
was the only thing that prevented a death penalty ruling.
I believe it would have been hard for any Kennedy to ever
argue against the death penalty had it been the ruling.