RFK Assassin Sirhan Sirhan Granted Parole

LOS ANGELES, CA —Robert F. Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan was granted parole on Friday after prosecutors declined to oppose his bid for freedom.

The decision does not automatically grant the 77-year-old Sirhan his freedom. The decision now enters a 90-day review period, and will then be forwarded to the governor, who could reject or modify it. In other high-profile parole cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom has shown a willingness to override the parole board to keep notorious killers behind bars.

For the first time in decades, Sirhan faced a parole board Friday without opposition from prosecutors or letters from the Kenedy family arguing for his continued incarceration.

No one from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office made an appearance at the hearing to oppose his release. Nor did the office submit any documentation supporting it. Essentially, the office took a neutral stance.

It is, perhaps, an ironic twist that liberal policies of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon could aid the liberal icon's killer. Gascon's controversial policies are the latest outgrowth from the civil rights movement for which Kennedy is best known. Gascon has set a policy against attending parole hearings for defendants who have served lengthy prison sentences beyond the required minimum term. It's part of a broader effort to reform the criminal justice system and the racial disparities that see minorities incarcerated at higher rates with longer sentences, and it's garnered widespread backlash within the district attorney's own office.

Gascón, a former police officer who took office last year after running on a reform platform, says he idolized the Kennedys and mourned RFK’s assassination but is sticking to his policy that prosecutors have no role in deciding whether prisoners should be released.

“I can get very emotionally wrapped around my personal feelings (about) someone that killed someone that I thought could have been an incredible president for this country,” Gascón said. “But that has no place in this process. Just like it doesn’t for the person nobody knows about.”

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“The role of a prosecutor and their access to information ends at sentencing,” Alex Bastian, special advisor to Gascón, said in a statement Thursday.

The 77-year-old Sirhan's 16th parole hearing took place at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa, in San Diego County. He has served 53 years in prison for the slaying of an icon.

RFK was a Democratic presidential candidate when he was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after delivering a victory speech in the pivotal California primary.

Douglas Kennedy was a toddler when his father was gunned down in 1968. He told a two-person board panel that he was moved to tears by Sirhan’s remorse and that the 77-year-old should be released if he’s not a threat to others.

“I’m overwhelmed just by being able to view Mr. Sirhan face to face,” he said. “I’ve lived my life both in fear of him and his name in one way or another. And I am grateful today to see him as a human being worthy of compassion and love.”

Six of Kennedy’s nine surviving children, however, said they were shocked by the vote and urged Gov. Gavin Newsom to reverse the parole board’s decision and keep Sirhan behind bars.

“He took our father from our family and he took him from America,” the six siblings wrote in a statement late Friday. “We are in disbelief that this man would be recommended for release.

The statement was signed by Joseph P. Kennedy II, Courtney Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Christopher G. Kennedy, Maxwell T. Kennedy and Rory Kennedy.

But another sibling, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has spoken in favor of his release in the past and wrote in favor of paroling Sirhan. He said in the letter that he met him in prison and was moved by Sirhan, “who wept, clinching my hands, and asked for forgiveness.

“While nobody can speak definitively on behalf of my father, I firmly believe that based on his own consuming commitment to fairness and justice, that he would strongly encourage this board to release Mr. Sirhan because of Sirhan’s impressive record of rehabilitation,” he said in a letter submitted during the hearing to the board.

Sirhan's younger brother, Munir, a Pasadena resident, told the Post, his family was hopeful Sirhan would be released.

He said some of his neighbors have submitted letters supporting his brother's release.

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Sirhan's new defense attorney, Angela Berry, said the board's decision should be based on who Sirhan is today and not about past events, which is what the board has based its parole denials on before. She said she plans to focus on his exemplary record in prison and show that he poses no danger.

“We can’t change the past, but he was not sentenced to life without the possibility of parole,” Berry told the AP on Thursday. “To justify denying it based on the gravity of the crime and the fact that it disenfranchised millions of Americans is ignoring the rehabilitation that has occurred and that rehabilitation is a more relevant indicator of whether or not a person is still a risk to society."

Sirhan was convicted in April 1969 of first-degree murder and assault in the June 5, 1968, assassination of Kennedy, 42. Kennedy was speaking at the hotel while moving closer to the Democratic presidential nomination. Five others were shot during the attack but survived.

The native Palestinian was initially sentenced to death, but it was later commuted to life in prison after the state Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972. He has now served more than 50 years in prison.

Sirhan was transferred to Donovan State Prison from a Kings County penitentiary on Nov. 22, 2013 -- the 50th anniversary of the murder of his victim's older brother, President John F. Kennedy.

He previously was housed at Corcoran State Prison in Central California.

Sirhan has claimed amnesia brought on by excess consumption of alcohol and denied committing the killing, despite having admitted to the crime in open court during his trial.

He was last denied parole in 2016.

City News Service and the Associated Press contributed to this report.