Parole Board

One memorable moment during the Chowchilla kidnapping trial came during the testimony of one of the young victims. A girl testified that during the ordeal, she had tried to get everyone to sing, "If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands. " "No one clapped," she said in a small, plaintive voice. The 1976 kidnapping was full of moments that set it apart from most crimes. The nation's panic when an entire school bus of children disappeared along with their driver. The victims' daring escape.

Last month his lawyer tried to convince a parole board that Sirhan Sirhan was a brainwashed hit man when he gunned down Sen. Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in 1968. But handwritten notes purportedly from Sirhan, kept for 42 years by a Century City executive, suggest that his behavior was calculated and controlled as he waited to shoot the just-victorious presidential primary candidate in the hotel's kitchen pantry area. Michael McCowan was an investigator and the youngest member of Sirhan's defense team in 1969 when the accused assassin sat down with a yellow legal pad and described his visit to a shooting range before his election-night trip to the hotel.

Unanimously reversing the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for the third time in a week, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that state prisoners have no constitutional right to be paroled. The decision rebuked the San Francisco-based appeals court for ordering the parole of several inmates who had been convicted of murder or attempted murder. All three of the opinions overturned in the past week were written by veteran liberal Judge Stephen Reinhardt from Los Angeles. In Monday's decision, the justices said Reinhardt and the 9th Circuit were wrong to second-guess the California parole board and the state courts for denying parole to Damon Cooke of Los Angeles, who was convicted of the attempted murder of a friend in Berkeley in 1991.

Some 250 convicted killers went to court in California last year claiming former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger put politics ahead of the law when he blocked their parole ? and based on other recent cases, scores of them are expected to prevail. The action, which costs taxpayers million of dollars in legal fees and other expenses, stems from an unusual twist in state law: California has a professional parole board charged with deciding on inmates' release dates, but also gives the governor the power to overrule the board's decisions.

The reduced prison sentence that Arnold Schwarzenegger recently extended to a political ally's son stands in stark contrast to the former governor's denial of clemency for dozens of inmates involved in similar crimes. In one year alone, Schwarzenegger cast aside decisions by the state's parole board to free 29 such inmates who had served long prison sentences . They, like former state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez's son Esteban, participated in crimes that left a victim dead but did not deliver the fatal blows.

The controversial decision to shorten Esteban Nuñez's prison sentence has obscured a more important commutation that outgoing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger granted a young woman who has fought to turn her life around from its almost unbelievably bad beginning. Sara Kruzan had been abused physically and sexually for most of her young life before she was gang raped, then pushed into a life of prostitution at age 13 by the neighborhood pimp. When she was 16, she robbed and killed the man, a crime for which she was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

A Costa Mesa dentist who killed three patients in his chair from 1983 to 1984 has lost his bid for freedom after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected his parole application. Schwarzenegger this month overturned the parole board's recommendation to free Tony Protopappas, 65, who has served more than 25 years of his 15-years-to-life sentence on three second-degree murder convictions. In late 1983 and early 1984, Protopappas gave fatal doses of a general anesthetic to Kim Andreassen, 23; Cathryn Jones, 31; and Patricia Craven, 13. Protopappas was using narcotics heavily at the time and wasn't licensed to administer the drug, prosecutors said.

By a 38-36 vote Monday night, the Assembly killed the Fair Sentencing for Youth Act authored by state Sen. Leland Yee (D- San Francisco), refusing to lead California out of the Dark Ages by banning sentences of life without the possibility of parole for juveniles. No other country sentences children to prison in this manner, and it is appalling, but not unexpected, that the Assembly could not muster enough political will to enact a law that in every way is beneficial to the public.

Jilly Rizzo had spent hours preparing for his 75th birthday party, a soiree the next day that was to include his friend Frank Sinatra and other Rat Pack luminaries. A few minutes after midnight, he got into a white Jaguar and headed for his girlfriend's house. As his car slowly crossed Gerald Ford Drive, Rizzo probably didn't see the Mercedes blazing down the rain-slick street. The driver was Jeffrey Perrotte, a 28-year-old alcoholic, a local man with a rap sheet of DUIs who had the papers for court-ordered alcohol rehabilitation sitting in the glove box of his car. The Mercedes struck the right side of Rizzo's car, which burst into flames.

A convicted killer who has been described as mass murderer Charles Manson's "right-hand man" should not be released from prison, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley told Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday. Bruce Davis, 67, who has served 38 years in prison for the 1969 killings of musician Gary Hinman and ranch hand Donald "Shorty" Shea, was recommended for release by a two-member Board of Prison Terms panel in January. In a letter to the governor, who has the power to reverse parole recommendations, Cooley wrote that he believes that Davis "continues to minimize, rationalize and offer excuses" for his role in the killings.