Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Demonization of others -- Berkeley-style

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On Jan. 10, UC Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau issued a most unscholarly email in his rush to play the blame-game on the Tucson shootings that killed Christina Greene, 9; John Roll, 63; Gabe Zimmerman, 30; Dorothy Morris, 76; Dorwin Stoddard, 76; and Phyllis Scheck, 79 and wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 13 others. He wrote:

It calls upon us as an academic community to stop and ponder the climate in which such an act can be contemplated, even by a mind that is profoundly disturbed. A climate in which demonization of others goes unchallenged and hateful speech is tolerated can lead to such a tragedy. I believe that it is not a coincidence that this calamity has occurred in a state which has legislated discrimination against undocumented persons. This same mean-spirited xenophobia played a major role in the defeat of the Dream Act by legislators in Washington, leaving many exceptionally talented and deserving young people, including our own undocumented students, painfully in limbo with regard to their futures in this country.

UC Chancellor Birgeneau's statement

Ben Margot, AP

UC Chancellor Birgeneau's statement was "lazy, ill-informed and undisciplined"

Turns out, Birgeneau got his wish for academic contemplation. John Ellis, head of the California Association of Scholars, released a statement calling Birgeneau's e-mail "improper and incompetent."

Ellis also observed that Birgeneau's actions go against

"the heart of the university's mission and purpose. A university is a place where complex issues are analyzed carefully, with judicious attention to arguments on the one side and the other, and with all the relevant evidence scrutinized without prejudice before judgments are made. That makes the campus a very different place than the everyday political street, where invective and ad hominem slurs drown out reason and evidence, and prejudice precludes careful attention to the full spectrum of arguments. The most disturbing aspect of Birgeneau's statement is that it is an example of the rancorous, intellectually lazy, ill-informed and undisciplined thought which the university exists to transcend. It presents the worst possible example to the students who come to his campus to learn to think in a disciplined way, and to the campus faculty whose job it is to work toward that end. And it must undermine public support for the university when the people of this state see the leader of its most distinguished educational institution speaking in a way that is so completely deficient in the careful thought and measured analysis that they expect of the educated mind."

Well put.

Posted By: Debra J. Saunders (Email, Twitter) | Jan 18 at 04:29 PM

Listed Under: Bezerkely | Permalink

Kevin Cooper is still guilty

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On Jan. 14, Supreme Court Judge Kenneth K. So refused convicted killer Kevin Cooper's request for further DNA testing to overturn his conviction in the 1983 murders of Chino Hills chiropractors Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and 11-year-old houseguest Christopher Hughes.

I've written on Cooper before. For the Cooper-may-have-been-framed version, you can look here.

Kevin Cooper victim Christopher Hughes' mother Mary Ann

AP, Damian Dovarganes

Kevin Cooper victim Christopher Hughes' mother Mary Ann

From Judge So's ruling:

Defendant escaped from custody in Pennsylvania while awaiting trial on a numberof criminal charges. While an escapee in October 1982, he kidnapped, raped, and then stole the car of a high school student who had interrupted him while he was burglarizing a home. Defendant then fled to California and assumed the alias "David Trautman." Under that name, he was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to prison for two residential burglaries in Los Angeles County. On April 29, 1983, defendant was sent to the California Institute for Men (CIM), a prison in Chino, California, for routine processing after sentencing. Because defendant's true identity (and criminal history) had not been discovered by California Institute for Men officials, defendant was transferred to a minimum-security portion of the prison on June 1, 1983.

The following afternoon, June 2, 1983, defendant escaped again -- the twelfth time he had done so in his criminal career. Defendant took refuge in a nearby lumber yard and, then, after nightfall, he made his way to an unoccupied house (the "hideout house") in a rural area of Chino. The hideout house was on a property adjacent to the ranch where Franklyn (Doug) Ryen and Peggy Ryen lived with their two children, ten-year-old Jessica and eight-year-old Joshua. (87 RT 2959-62, 2967-70, 2991.) The Ryen home was located 126 yards from the hideout house.

After the crime:

Defendant fled the area in the Ryen station wagon, which authorities found abandoned in Long Beach. Defendant's theft of the Ryen station wagon is evidenced by the presence of the same unique California Institution for Men-issued brand of loose tobacco on the floorboard of the Ryen station wagon. There were also two cigarette butts in the car. One was from a manufactured cigarette and the other was hand-rolled and contained the same unique tobacco. Pursuant to testing conducted prior to trial, saliva analysis of the two cigarette butts showed they were smoked by a "non-secretor." The ABO blood type of the person who smoked the manufactured cigarette butt was determined to be type A. Defendant's blood type is A. He is also a non-secretor, as is 20 percent of the population. A stain on the door-jam of the Ryen vehicle was human blood, type AB, consistent with Peggy and Jessica Ryen. A hair fragment found inside the vehicle was consistent with defendant's pubic hair.

And:

Additional evidence showed the killer not only chose his weapons from the hideout house, he also returned to the hideout house to clean up after committing the murders at the Ryen home. Luminol testing of the shower stall and bathroom sink in the hideout house was positive, a result consistent with the presence of otherwise invisible blood residue. Positive luminol readings in the shape of foot impressions were also obtained on a carpet and in a closet. Hairs recovered from the drain trap in the bathroom sink were consistent with Jessica's, and a hair recovered from the shower drain was consistent with Doug's.

Despite the foregoing evidence tying defendant to the hideout house, to the Ryen house, and to the Ryen vehicle, defendant took the stand in his trial and denied that he ever entered the Ryen house or station wagon. (97 RT 5327; 98 RT 5492.) He claimed that after learning he would not be getting any help from his girlfriend, he simply walked from the hideout house on the night of the murders, occasionally stopping drivers to ask for directions to Mexico. (97 RT 5435-38; 98 RT 5449-50; see also Cooper v. Brown, supra, 510 F.3d at p. 913.)

As the California Supreme Court concluded regarding the evidence of defendant's guilt:

It is utterly unreasonable to suppose that by coincidence, some hypothetical real killer chose this night and this locale to kill; that he entered the [hideout] house just after defendant left to retrieve the murder weapons, leaving the hatchet sheath in the bedroom defendant used; that he returned to the [hideout] house to shower; that he drove the Ryen station wagon in the same direction defendant used on his way to Mexico; and that he happened to wear prison issued tennis shoes like those of defendant; happened to have defendant's blood type, happened to have hair like defendant's, happened to roll cigarettes with the same distinctive prison issue tobacco, and so forth. Defendant sought to discrete or minimize each of these items of evidence, but the sheer volume and consistency of the evidence is overwhelming.

Gov. Schwarzenegger was right to resist calls to commute Cooper's sentence.

Posted By: Debra J. Saunders (Email, Twitter) | Jan 18 at 05:27 AM

Listed Under: Hell | Permalink