Robert Kennedy Was My Dad. His Assassin Doesn't Deserve Parole.

[SouthBayDem]

By Rory Kennedy

Ms. Kennedy is a documentary filmmaker. She is the youngest child of Robert Kennedy, the New York senator and presidential candidate assassinated in June 1968.

I never met my father. When Sirhan Sirhan murdered him in the kitchen hallway of the Ambassador Hotel in front of scores of witnesses, my mother was three months pregnant with me. Of my 10 older brothers and sisters, Kathleen, the eldest, was 16, and Douglas, the youngest, was little more than 1. I was born six months after my father’s death. My mother and the majority of my siblings agree with what I now write, although a couple do not. But I will say, for myself, while that night of terrible loss has not defined my life, it has had impact beyond measure.

In 1969, when Mr. Sirhan was found guilty by a jury of his peers and sentenced to death, I was barely a toddler. I know, as it is part of the historical record, that my uncle Teddy sent a five-page handwritten letter to the district attorney in a last-minute plea to save the condemned assassin’s life. The letter invoked my father’s beliefs: “My brother was a man of love and sentiment and compassion. He would not have wanted his death to be a cause for the taking of another life.”

Despite this plea, Superior Court Judge Herbert Walker upheld the sentence, ruling that Mr. Sirhan should “die in the manner prescribed by law,” which in California in 1969 was the gas chamber. There was no consideration of future rehabilitation. The court’s decision seemed based entirely upon the prevailing conception of justice in California at that time: As my father was taken forever, so too should Mr. Sirhan be.

My father’s murder was absolute, irreversible, a painful truth that I have had to live with every day of my life; he was indeed taken forever. Because he was killed before I was born, it meant I never had the chance to see my father’s face and he never had the chance to see mine. He never tossed me in the air, taught me to ride a bicycle, dropped me off at my freshman dorm, walked me down the aisle.

Full article: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/opinion/sirhan-sirhan-parole-kennedy.html

[TheRealNorth]

1. I was born after RFK was assassinated.

But I think he would have made a great President. The reason I know this is when I heard a tape of him addressing a crowd when he found out MLK had been assassinated, and how he tried to address the emotions of the people that just found that out.

[3Hotdogs]

2. He would have been a great president. But there are also another consideration.

If Sirhan had killed almost anyone else or in many other states, he would have been freed years ago.

I don't support the death penalty. And there are people who should never be free -- Son of Sam? Most of the people behind bars should be freed after at least 25 years. They are not going to repeat and beyond 25 years, what's the point?

Those are my unconnected thoughts.

[70sEraVet]

3. I can relate to the pain of being cheated out of a chance of ever knowing your father

But Sirhan's act that night had a much more tragic result; it may well have cheated this country of the chance at a much brighter future.
When I saw a picture last week of a 70-something Sirhan, I first thought, "yeah, let him spend his last decade or two in peace". But then I began thinking of what could have been.

[BeckyDem]

4. RFK would have likely prevented Nixon and then prevented the Reagan era.

Losing MLK, JFK, RFK was immense..all murder victims because of their politics. America has paid a heavy price, so too, should Sirhan.

[Paladin]

5. Amen. Such a tragic, costly loss. (nt)