New York Times
The United States Supreme Court rejected the appeal of Kevin Cooper, a California death row inmate convicted of killing four people in 1983. Mr. Cooper and his supporters argue that others committed the murders and that evidence against him was planted by the police. Mr. Cooper was hours away from execution in 2004 when the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ordered new DNA tests. A federal judge ruled that the new tests did not exonerate him, and appeals courts have upheld the decision. Mr. Cooper’s supporters insisted that the conditions for the testing rendered them useless, and a 103-page dissent in the Ninth Circuit’s decision to deny Mr. Cooper a rehearing earlier this year stated that “the State of California may be about to execute an innocent man.”