Sirhan Sirhan was convicted in April 1969 of the first-degree murder of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles in June 1968. A jury in Los Angeles fixed the penalty at death. In 1972 the California Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and modified the judgment to life imprisonment, a result that followed from its own ruling earlier that year against capital punishment under the state constitution. Sirhan has been eligible for parole ever since and has been refused at hearing after hearing. A panel recommended his release in 2021, and the governor reversed that recommendation the following January.
The senator was the single person he was convicted of killing. The same jury also found him guilty on five further counts of assault with intent to commit murder, one for each of five other people. The senator was a candidate for the presidency and a sitting member of the US Senate.
Sirhan was born in Jerusalem on March 19, 1944. He was 24 years old at the time of the offense, which took place in Los Angeles in June 1968. He was held to answer for the offense by an indictment returned in 1968.
The prosecution was brought by indictment, and that route was one of the points the defense later raised on appeal. The regular jury was sworn on February 5, 1969, and the alternate jurors on February 11, 1969. On February 10, 1969, before the alternates were sworn, a motion was made to allow Sirhan to plead guilty to first-degree murder. It was denied, and the trial went on before a jury.
The defense was diminished capacity, advanced in order to avoid a death sentence. Sirhan testified that he did not remember the events. The prosecution presented him as a calculating man who had planned what he did.
On April 17, 1969, the jury returned its verdict. It found Sirhan guilty of murder in the first degree and found that he had acted "alone and not in concert with anyone else." The jury then fixed the penalty at death, and the court sentenced him to death. The sentence was the one the defense had been trying to avoid.
During the appeal Sirhan dismissed his trial attorneys and appointed three new lawyers, among them a Michigan attorney who had attended the trial.
The appeal went to the California Supreme Court. The appeal raised the constitutionality of the death penalty, the sufficiency of the evidence for first-degree murder given the claim of diminished capacity, the effect of publicity on the fairness of the trial, the admission of evidence, the use of an indictment in place of an information, and the way the grand and trial juries were selected.
The court decided the case on June 16, 1972, in People v. Sirhan, 7 Cal. 3d 710. It held that the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction for first-degree murder and rejected the other challenges. On the penalty it applied its earlier decision in People v. Anderson, 6 Cal. 3d 628, which held that the death penalty violated the state constitution's prohibition on cruel or unusual punishment. Its disposition read: "the judgment should be modified to provide for life imprisonment and as so modified affirmed."
A life sentence in California carries eligibility for parole, and Sirhan went before the parole board repeatedly. He was denied parole 15 times before 2021.
In August 2021 a two-member panel of the board found him suitable for parole, the first time he had been recommended for release. The decision then went to the governor, who has the power to affirm, reverse or modify a grant. On January 13, 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom reversed it. His decision said that Sirhan lacked insight into what had led to the offense, that his account of it had changed over time, that he had not renounced political violence and that he "poses a current threat to public safety."
Sirhan's attorney challenged the reversal in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. In October 2023 the court denied the petition, finding some evidence that he was currently unsuitable for release because he posed an unreasonable risk of danger to society. His attorneys said they would appeal. A separate petition to the California Supreme Court challenged the governor's power to reverse a board decision, and the court asked the attorney general for an informal response.
On March 1, 2023, at his 16th hearing, a parole panel denied him parole for three years, saying he still lacked insight into what caused the offense and recommending further work on understanding it. His attorney disputed the finding. The date of the next hearing was later brought forward through an administrative review.
At his 17th hearing, on August 16, 2024, a panel again denied parole for three years. The panel's findings recorded that he remained evasive about his motives and said he did not know why he had acted, and his attorney said the panel had told him directly that he was still a danger. As of that decision he is eligible for another hearing in three years.
The defense at trial rested on diminished capacity, and the jury rejected it by returning a first-degree verdict. On appeal the California Supreme Court held the evidence sufficient. Sirhan's account of the events has been that he cannot remember them, and the parole panel and the governor each treated that account as a failure of insight.
The jury's finding that he acted "alone and not in concert with anyone else" is the one finding on the question of whether others were involved.
March 19, 1944: Sirhan Sirhan is born in Jerusalem.
June 1968: the senator is killed in Los Angeles.
February 5, 1969: the regular jury is sworn.
February 10, 1969: a motion to plead guilty to first-degree murder is denied.
April 17, 1969: the jury finds him guilty of first-degree murder and fixes the penalty at death.
June 16, 1972: the California Supreme Court modifies the judgment to life imprisonment.
August 2021: a two-member parole panel finds him suitable for parole.
January 13, 2022: the governor reverses the grant.
March 1, 2023: parole denied for three years at the 16th hearing.
October 2023: the Los Angeles County Superior Court denies his petition against the reversal.
August 16, 2024: parole denied for three years at the 17th hearing.