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- Kevin Cooper is a Death Row inmate in California's San Quentin Prison. He was convicted of the 1983 hatchet and knife murder of three members of Chino Hills family Ryen and their young houseguest, Christopher Hughes. Cooper, a repeat criminal who escaped from a nearby prison two days before the killings, claims he is innocent and that sheriff's investigators framed him for crimes committed by three white men. Cooper was hiding in an abandoned building near the crime scene at the time of the murders. He fled to Mexico after the murders, only to return to California and be arrested after woman accused him of sexually assaulting her at knife-point. He was scheduled to be executed on February 10, 2004, but his execution was postponed only hours before it was to take place in order to allow for DNA testing. This rare postponement followed an activist campaign led by various groups in the Bay Area and around the country, such as the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, the ACLU, Death Penalty Focus, and The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. In 2001, Cooper became the first death row inmate in California to get post-conviction DNA testing of evidence. The results of those DNA tests failed to exonerate him of the 1983 murders and indicated that hairs found on three of the victims were likely their own, which undermines Cooper's theory that other people committed the murder. The testing also establishes that there is strong evidence that Cooper is the donor of the DNA extracted from the following items of evidence: A bloodstain found inside the Ryens' home; The saliva on a hand rolled cigarette butt found inside the Ryen station wagon; The saliva on a manufactured cigarette butt found inside the Ryen station wagon; A bloodstain located on a tee shirt that was found beside a road some distance from the Ryen home. There is strong evidence that one of the victims, Doug Ryen, was the donor of another bloodstain found on the same tee shirt. Cooper is also consistent with being the donor of two additional blood smears and a possible donor of blood spatter on the same tee shirt. Since his imprisonment, Cooper, who is African American, has become active in writing letters from prison decrying the judicial establishment as racist, for his absolvement, and against the death penalty in general. Cooper has filed multiple appeals and applications for a writ of habeas corpus. To date, all have been denied. On December 4, 2007, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Cooper's third federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The ninth circuit panel concluded: "As the district court, and all state courts, have repeatedly found, evidence of Cooper’s guilt was overwhelming. The tests that he asked for to show his innocence “once and for all” show nothing of the sort. " On May 11, 2009, an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals filed an order denying Cooper's request for an en banc rehearing of the December 4, 2007 decision denying his request for relief. Four judges (Fletcher, Wardlaw, Fisher, and Reinhardt) filed dissents, indicating that they disagreed with the decision. Judge Fletcher's dissent in particular is highly critical of the majority decision. A total of eleven judges joined the dissents (fourteen votes were required to grant the request for a rehearing). Judge Rymer filed a concurrence. Cooper's sole remaining avenue of review is an appeal to the United States Supreme Court.
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