Prosecutors won't oppose release of RFK assassin Sirhan Sirhan

Robert F. Kennedy.
(Image credit: Harry Benson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

For the first time, prosecutors will not oppose the release of Sirhan Sirhan, the man convicted of murdering Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.

Sirhan, 77, will go before a two-person parole panel on Friday, with a new lawyer who plans to argue that he doesn't pose a threat to society and has had a clean record in prison. Kennedy was shot on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after winning California's Democratic presidential primary. Sirhan was arrested at the scene and convicted in 1969 of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to death, which was reduced to life with possibility of parole in 1972 when the state abolished the death penalty.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.