California death row prisoner

Join the Fight Against the Racist Death Penalty! Get involved! Join the the Campaign to End the Death Penalty and the fight to abolish the racist death penalty. Click here to find a chapter in your area or to contact our national office to find out what you can do. Visit www.savekevincooper.org for more information on Kevin's case and for ways you can help.

If it wasn't for the initiative of activists in the Campaign to End the Death Penalty and other groups Kevin would likely be dead today. The groundswell of activity that raised doubts about Kevin's death sentence included a signature ad, press conferences featuring Jesse Jackson and Rubin Hurricane Carter, and meetings that featured Danny Glover, Shujaa Graham and Angela Davis. A "Live from Death Row" event allowed an audience to hear Kevin's voice over speakerphone when he called in from his prison cell.

Daily front-page news stories exposed the discrepancies in the case. The San Francisco Chronicle ran two editorials calling for a stay of the execution. But the Governor made no move to change his decision to deny Kevin clemency.

On a march to San Quentin on the night Kevin was to be executed, protesters learned that the US Supreme Court unanimously decided not to intervene in the lower courts decision that imposed a stay. Everyone felt relief and pride at what they had accomplished.

Kevin was sent to death row for the crime of killing four people, yet important DNA evidence was never tested. For example, blond hair found in one of the victim's hands has never been tested. (DNA testing was not available at the time of the original trial.) It is obvious the hairs could not have come from Kevin, who is African American. Also testing can be done on blood found on a T-shirt -- to see if preservatives are in the blood. This would indicate the evidence had been tampered with to try to implicate Kevin.

We have won an important victory. We have fought alongside Kevin, his legal team, and other activists, and we will continue to do so until we will justice for Kevin Cooper and put an end to the racist death penalty.

Posted February 2004.