Chino Hills Killer Loses His Latest Appeal

Despite losing his latest last-ditch court appeal Friday, convicted killer Kevin Cooper has retained a “strong spirit” just three days before his scheduled execution, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said.

Jackson met with Cooper for about an hour Friday morning inside San Quentin State Prison. “His resolve is strong, and I hope we reinforced his determination to live, not die,” Jackson said of Cooper. “I told him to prepare to live, not to prepare to die -- to keep hope alive.”

Cooper, 46, was convicted in 1985 of murdering four people inside a Chino Hills home, including a 10-year-old girl and 11-year-old boy.

Jackson said Cooper maintained his innocence Friday and was visibly shaken when prison officials checked his arms to see if his veins could handle the lethal injection scheduled for 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

Cooper also was asked what clothes we wanted to wear for his execution.

“These acts are spirit breakers,” Jackson said, “but I assured him others have survived this with less than three days remaining.”

Jackson has called for the execution to be postponed until evidence that Cooper’s defense attorneys say may exonerate him is fully investigated. Several members of the jury that convicted Cooper also support further investigation.

On Friday, a U.S. district judge in San Jose denied Cooper’s appeal on the grounds that execution by lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment and therefore unconstitutional.

Judge Jeremy Fogel rejected that argument, citing recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that lethal injection “comports with current societal norms” and does not meet a “torture or a lingering death” standard that defines a violation of the 8th Amendment.

A day earlier, the California Supreme Court had denied Cooper’s petition on grounds that additional facts in the case needed to be investigated. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to respond to another Cooper appeal.

Cooper’s defense team filed another appeal Friday with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, saying the execution should be stayed because of a recent, sworn statement by a former United Press International reporter who says a source had told her that police planted evidence at the murder scene.

John Kochis, a San Bernardino County chief deputy district attorney, said the source, Anthony Albert Ruiz, told Department of Justice investigators Friday that he never worked in law enforcement and had no knowledge of how the Cooper crime scene was investigated.

The defense said the execution should be delayed until Ruiz submits to a lie detector test.

Cooper has asked Jackson to meet with him again Sunday and Monday.