Supreme Court upholds killer's stay of execution
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Kevin Cooper was scheduled to die Tuesday before the execution was postponed.
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SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- The U.S. Supreme Court late Monday refused to overturn a stay of execution for convicted killer Kevin Cooper, following a federal appeals court's decision to take a new look at evidence in the 20-year-old case.
"The application to vacate the stay of execution of sentence of death entered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Feb. 9 presented to Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor and by her referred to the court is denied," the notice from the Supreme Court said.
Cooper was to die by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. (3:01 a.m. ET) for killing two parents, their 10-year-old daughter and her 11-year-old friend in a vicious 1983 attack in which a hatchet, at least one knife and an ice pick was used.
Cooper's legal team was quick to praise the court's decision.
"The United States Supreme Court recognized that nothing is more important than facts and truth when it comes to killing a man with capital punishment," attorney Lanny Davis said in a statement.
"Finally, we are going to have the chance to have a court hear the facts that the prosecutors refused to allow the jury to hear, which is why 5 out of 12 jurors asked for this result. Truth and facts are what make our system of justice work."
Relatives of those killed more than 20 years ago voiced their disapproval over the Supreme Court's decision not to lift the stay.
"I felt that they erred in their decision. They didn't spend any time looking at the information that was given to them," said Bill Hughes, father of Chris Hughes, the 11-year-old victim. "Personally, I have no doubt in my mind that Kevin Cooper is guilty."
"The bottom line is he's still gonna die for this crime," said Mary Ann Hughes, Bill's wife and the mother of Chris. "Now [Cooper] knows what it's like to go to within four hours of execution. So he can think about that in the next year or whatever it takes for it to happen again."
In issuing its stay earlier in the day, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said: "No person should be executed if there is doubt about his or her guilt and an easily available test will determine guilt or innocence."
"The district court may be in a position to resolve this case very quickly."
Cooper was convicted of killing Peggy and Douglas Ryen, their daughter Jessica, 10, and Jessica's friend Christopher Hughes, 11.
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The decision by the 11-judge panel of the appeals court stayed the execution pending the review.
California immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule the 9th Circuit.
"The fairness of Cooper's trial and the validity of the judgment of conviction and the sentence of death have been repeatedly upheld by state and federal courts during the past 18 years," said Hallye Jordan, the spokeswoman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
"The California Supreme Court has reviewed and denied no less than seven state habeas corpus petitions, two in the last week."
At issue are three pieces of evidence: hair found in the clutched fist of the slain 10-year-old; tennis shoes; and a bloody T-shirt.
Prosecutors contend that Cooper broke into an empty home in Chino Hills in June 1983 shortly after he escaped from a nearby prison. They contend he then went to the home next door late on June 4, 1983, and killed Doug and Peggy Ryen, their daughter Jessica and 11-year-old Chris Hughes. According to prosecutors, he also slashed the throat of the Ryens' 8-year-old son, Josh, who survived the attack.
DNA testing has connected Cooper to the crime scene from the bloody T-shirt, a spot of blood taken from the hallway and a hand-rolled cigarette found in the Ryens' abandoned car in Long Beach.
But during trial in late 1984 and early 1985, jurors did not hear evidence that young Jessica was found "clutching a substantial amount of fairly long blond or light brown hair in her hand," according to the 9th Circuit.
Cooper, who is African-American, has maintained his innocence throughout the past two decades. He wants mitochondrial DNA tests to be performed to determine whose hair was found in Jessica's hands.
In addition, he wants the bloody T-shirt found at the crime scene to undergo further tests. The blood on that T-shirt has matched Cooper's blood, but he wants the extra tests to determine whether a preservative agent is contained in the blood. If that were the case, Cooper maintains, it "will show that his blood was placed on the T-shirt after the fact by someone who had access to his drawn blood."
Another key piece of evidence is a bloody "Pro-Ked Dude" footprint found at the crime scene. At trial, jurors were told that type of shoe was issued only for prisons and other institutions.
But the prison warden has since said that was not true, that the shoes were common tennis shoes available at Sears and similar stores. An inmate who was imprisoned at the time has since said he issued Cooper a different type of shoes, a pair of P.F. Flyers.
Questions also have been raised about whether others conducted the killings. In the days after the slayings, young Josh Ryen said three or four men committed the murders and that they were not African-American. When he saw a picture of Cooper on television, the boy said Cooper was not the killer. However, at trial, he identified Cooper as the lone murderer.
The 9th Circuit's ruling also cites a woman who claims that her then-boyfriend, Lee Furrow, came home late on the night of the murders without a T-shirt he had been wearing earlier in the day and that his overalls were covered in blood. Police later threw away the overalls without testing them.
An inmate also has allegedly confessed to another inmate that he and two other men committed the murders. The inmate said "they had gone to the Ryen house to 'collect a debt' but had 'hit the wrong house,'" according to the court documents. Two of the men then went to a girlfriend's house to leave bloody overalls, the documents say.
In addition, the 9th Circuit said that just in the last two days, two women filed declarations that they were at a bar near the Ryens' home on the night of the murders when three loud, obnoxious men entered. The women said two of the men's "clothing and faces were splattered with blood."
At least two jurors who convicted Cooper have said the evidence should be reviewed.
Juror Donna Randle, who still believes Cooper is guilty, told CNN she thinks "he has the right to pursue any avenue up until the very end."
"I feel like it's the right thing to do. I think there were a lot of questions left unanswered," she said.
Kahloah Doxey said she has felt extremely uncomfortable since three years ago when she learned that the young girl was clutching long blond or light brown hair.
"We didn't know that. That wasn't presented to us at trial," she said. "It would suggest that either someone else was there, and it could have suggested reasonable doubt. We had a right to that evidence."
