Kevin’s June letter to comrades and loved ones
Dear Comrades in Struggle,
This is Kevin Cooper writing these few things to you. It’s been a while since I last sent out a missive letting you know how I am, so I have decided to do so now.
I am COVID-19 free and have had two Moderna vaccination shots, and I am negative for that horrible virus. I truly hope that the same can be said by all of you (smile).
It’s my understanding that all of you now know that Gov. Newsom did grant me the innocence investigation that we have been asking him for. We asked Gov. Jerry Brown for it too, but that coward wouldn’t do it.
Just so you know, this is the first time in the history of the death penalty in California that a death row inmate has been granted an innocence investigation. There are a lot of firsts in this case, starting with the fact that I was the first death row inmate to walk inside that death chamber waiting room in 2004 and actually walk out of it hours later.
Every other person, man or woman was carried out in a body bag after they were murdered by this state and prison.
This was the first case from death row that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights took, had a hearing about and ruled on, saying that my constitutional and human rights were violated by this state.
The first case in which 13 justices on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dissented in, and the 13th, while concurring and upholding the conviction, wrote an opinion which agreed with everything that we stated but couldn’t grant me relief because of the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Effective Death Penalty Act signed into law by Bill Clinton.
The first death penalty case in which the president of the American Bar Association wrote a letter in support of a death row inmate – me. The first to have two different governors order DNA testing.
And, hopefully in the not too distant future, the first death row inmate to walk off of death row from a pardon issued by the governor.
This is the first time in the history of the death penalty in California that a death row inmate has been granted an innocence investigation.
Throughout all of this, you, or many of you, have been with me and sending me your heartfelt thoughts, prayers, support and anything else that I may have needed. For that, I send you my gratitude and heartfelt thanks!
While we still have a way to go, we can see the light at the end of this very long and very dark tunnel that I am in. My entire legal team is confident that once this investigation is done they will get me out. In order for us to even get this investigation order, we had to prove our case, and we did!
It’s very important to me to communicate with you that we believe that if I do get a pardon – because we have not only proved that I am innocent, but that I was framed by those cops in San Bernardino County and the DA’s office – that my case can be the final nail in the coffin of the death penalty in this state. We will finally bring an end to it.
If I am to get off of this modern-day public plantation, I want for you to know that I am going to continue to fight for our human rights, which most definitely includes ending the death penalty, LWOP – which as you know is just another form of the death penalty – and every other crime against humanity that certain people and or institutions love to do to we oppressed people.
I will hopefully meet some of you in person, and I want to work with all of you, even if online, to continue to do my part in this historic fight for equality, freedom, justice and everything else that can and will give us all a better quality of life without oppression.
As a Black man in this world and country, as a man of culture and consciousness and conscience who is not only oppressed but also imprisoned and almost burned alive from the inside by those torturous lethal injection drugs in 2004, I know who my fight is with, and who it is not with.
My fight is against oppression and oppressors, that’s it, that’s all! With these few things said, I will end this for now, wishing all of you peace, good health and much happiness.
In struggle and solidarity,
Kevin Cooper
Send our brother some love and light: Kevin Cooper, C-65304, 4-EB-82, San Quentin State Prison, San Quentin CA 94974.