Victim’s Family Angered by Speech

Mary Ann Hughes impatiently chewed gum, whispered disparaging remarks and glared sternly at the speaker, waiting for her opportunity.

It was a year ago Wednesday that Kevin Cooper, the man convicted of killing four people, received a last-minute stay of execution.

One of the victims was Hughes’ 11-year-old son, Christopher.

And on this anniversary of what they had hoped would be Cooper’s death, Hughes and her husband, Bill, listened to actor Mike Farrell call for an end to the death penalty.

Farrell, the “MASH” star and president of an anti-death-penalty group that supported Cooper’s stay of execution, spoke Wednesday at Cal Poly Pomona, where Bill Hughes has worked for 37 years.

In his 45-minute speech on “Ethics and the Death Penalty,” Farrell said the government’s ultimate punishment failed to achieve effective closure for victims’ families.

Then he asked if the audience had any questions.

“How dare you talk about closure!” hollered Mary Ann Hughes. “My son would be 33 today. You take the picture of my son’s wounds and put a picture of one of your children’s faces where my son’s face was. I guarantee you’d have a completely different perspective.”

On June 2, 1983, Cooper escaped from a Chino prison and hid at a small home. Two days later, authorities alleged, he broke into the Chino Hills home of Doug and Peggy Ryen and hacked them to death with a hatchet and buck knife. Prosecutors said he killed them in their sleep, along with Christopher and their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica. Each suffered more than two dozen wounds.

Eight-year-old Joshua Ryen’s throat was slit from ear to ear, but he survived.

Cooper, who was convicted in 1985, filed numerous appeals and became the first death row inmate to win post-conviction DNA testing.

But those tests supported the contention that it was Cooper’s blood on a wall outside the Ryens’ bedroom and his saliva on cigarettes smoked inside the couple’s stolen car.

On Feb. 9, 2004 -- 15 hours before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison -- the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco issued a stay that was affirmed that night by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The appeals court ordered further testing.

Bill Hughes, the longtime director of the university’s Arabian Horse Center, declined to listen to Farrell’s speech. Instead, he waited outside the student center, watching supporters carry posters reading, “Justice for Christopher.”

“At best, this is inappropriate, and at worst, it’s an insult,” Hughes said. “This university is my family. Why do they allow someone like this to come into our house?”

Farrell, a university spokesman and Saul Landau, the professor who coordinated the appearance, all described the timing of Farrell’s speech as “pure coincidence.”

Landau said he had never met Bill Hughes and did not know the significance of the date until university officials alerted him to the protest.

“This is a very serious issue that had nothing to do with the anniversary,” Landau said after Farrell’s speech.

In his speech, Farrell called the death penalty an “outdated, immoral practice” used “by demagogues to further their political career.” He contended that executions unfairly targeted minorities, the poor and the mentally challenged.

He said later that he had empathy for the Hughes family but never considered rescheduling.

“This problem these people have with this could’ve also come up if I was at this school on another date, or even if I appeared anywhere in this county,” he said.

Farrell made several public appearances last year criticizing the death penalty and urging federal judges to stop Cooper’s scheduled execution.

Wednesday’s speech came a day after U.S. District Judge Marilyn Huff disclosed an order denying Cooper’s request to call more witnesses who could support his claims of innocence on non-scientific matters.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Holly Wilkens said she hoped the ruling meant the case was closer to being returned to the 9th Circuit.