Word: sirhan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
During the trial of Sirhan Sirhan, Ted Kennedy was subject to pressure from both sides. First the prosecution asked the Senator what his family would think if Sirhan were allowed to make a negotiated plea of guilty, thus avoiding the death penalty. Ted responded that the family had no position. Then the defense counsel tried to get Kennedy to petition the jury to reject the death penalty. Again he demurred...
...think the death penalty is completely uncalled for." With that proclamation, Attorney Melvin Mouron Belli put on his crusader's armor and announced to the world that he planned to take over Sirhan Sirhan's appeal. As it turned out, his plan was all news to Sirhan. Stating that "I, Sirhan Sirhan, have full confidence in my present attorneys, Grant Cooper and Russell Parsons," the convicted assassin of Robert Kennedy indicated that he would engage them "and none other...
...Harsh. Having reached the first-degree murder verdict the previous week, the panel, under California law, had to decide on Sirhan's punishment. The defense and prosecution made brief pleas, after which the jury spent eleven hours and 45 minutes deciding Sirhan's fate. "I know he premeditated the murder with malice," said Broomis, "but I still thought the death penalty was too harsh." Four formal ballots were taken, but life imprisonment never received more than three votes. Finally, unanimity was achieved. George A. Stitzel, a pressroom foreman for the Los Angeles Times, reported later: "One item that...
Benjamin Click, owner of a women's clothing store and the only Jew on the panel, reasoned that Sirhan was not only anti-Zionist but "fanatically" against anyone who supports Israel. "Bending over backwards to give him more of a break," Glick voted for life imprisonment on the first ballot. He stayed up all the next night, finally deciding that Sirhan "deserved death for his heinous, dastardly crime...
Defense testimony by two psychiatrists and six psychologists was often obscure, at times conflicting-and never convincing to 'the jury. When the defense pressed its experts for judgments on Sirhan's sanity, the imprecision of the science became obvious. Each psychologist and psychiatrist seemed to have a slightly different theory about Sirhan's mental state. "All those psychiatrists-they really had us all stirred up," said Albert N. Frederico, a plumber. "It was confusing. It stunk...