The Sirhan Verdict

The victim was one of the most arresting personalities of his time, world-famous while still young, striving for the ultimate in political power. Into his path stepped a pathetic young man whose only claim to recognition was the misery of his life. Suddenly, with a horrified nation as witness, yet another of America's most promising leaders was gunned down. The obscure assassin became the center of attention for investigators, lawyers, psychiatrists. Much of the trial became an exploration of Sirhan Bishara Sirhan's fantasy-ridden mind and how that mind led him to commit murder. Last week seven men and five women found Sirhan guilty of first-degree murder in the assassination of Robert Francis Kennedy.

Rarely had a jury been as respected by court personnel as the panel that decided the fate of Sirhan. A friendly, cooperative group, they accepted their 64 sequestered days and nights without bickering or bitterness. In court, their attentiveness to the intricate testimony of 90 witnesses, which helped to fill 107 volumes of transcript, caused Judge Herbert V. Walker to praise them as the best jury he had ever encountered.

But their job did not end with the verdict. Under California law, the jury then had to hear arguments on whether Sirhan should get life in prison or death in the gas chamber. A decision is expected this week. If spared, Sirhan will serve his time in a special cell block at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville. California authorities do not want to expose him to the mercies of fellow inmates at a regular prison, and Vacaville treats disturbed but legally sane convicts. Though he would be eligible for parole in seven years, his chances for release would be remote. In fact, Defense Attorney Grant Cooper told the jury that his client "deserves to spend the rest of his life in the penitentiary."

Restated Distinction. During its 16 hours 42 minutes of deliberation in a drab, ninth-floor room of the Hall of Justice, the jury temporarily buoyed the defense's hope for a second-degree verdict. Jury Foreman Bruce Elliott, a systems analyst with a Ph.D. in electronic engineering, asked Judge Walker to restate the legal distinction between second-and first-degree murder.

Weighing the massive accumulation of evidence, the jury had to decide whether Sirhan was completely responsible for his act. In a summation that ran nearly four hours, Deputy District Attorney David Fitts derided defense testimony by psychiatric experts and portrayed the murder as a "cold and calculated decision."

The state concerned itself with presenting Sirhan's thoughts and movements immediately preceding the killing. The prosecution recounted his hatred of Jews and of Kennedy for allegedly espousing their cause. The jury was told how Sirhan had practiced with the murder weapon and later stalked Kennedy on the night that the presidential candidate was celebrating his victory in the California primary.

Impassive Reaction. Against this clear-cut charge, the jury had to consider the more esoteric plea by the defense. Not surprisingly, the twelve at times appeared bewildered by the masses of confusing and contradictory psychological evidence presented to convince them that Sirhan was a "schizophrenic, paranoid psychotic." Defense Attorneys Cooper, Russell Parsons and Emile Zola Berman portrayed their client as a man hopelessly crazed by his role in history. They repeatedly referred to his traumatic youth as a Palestinian refugee, victimized by the warring Arabs and Israelis. On the murder night, the "deluded dreamer" was in a "hypnotic trance," his obsession with the murder ritual heightened by liquor. In his summation, Cooper pegged his plea to Sirhan's "diminished capacity" to tell right from wrong. For his part, the proud, hotheaded Sirhan seemed to like being described as a cold-blooded killer. He erupted violently at the mention of his low IQ and the public exposure of irrational jottings found by police in his notebook.

In anticipation of yet another fit of rage, three security guards were positioned around the sallow, dark-eyed defendant while the verdict was being read. Sirhan reacted impassively, however, and was led quietly back to his high-security cell to await sentencing. The first-degree verdict will be appealed, a process that could take a year or more. It is doubtful that all three members of his volunteer team of expert criminal lawyers will continue very long on the case. For them, it has been a wearing and expensive several months. Nor is it likely that Sirhan will be executed, regardless of the sentence the jury proposes. Capital punishment is increasingly rare. Although at least 435 convicts languish on death rows around the country, no murderer has been put to death in the past two years, no matter how heinous the crime.

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