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Death-row inmate

case under review

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered an independent investigation into the conviction of death row inmate Kevin Cooper, who says he was framed for the stabbing deaths of four people, including two children, at a suburban Los Angeles home in 1983.

Cooper, 63, has been seeking gubernatorial clemency since 2016.

In his executive order, Newsom said he "takes no position" on Cooper's guilt or innocence or whether to grant him clemency.

Newsom appointed a law firm to review court records and all facts and evidence in the case, including those that don't appear in trial and appellate records, along with the results of DNA tests previously ordered by the governor.

The order said the tests had been completed, but Cooper's lawyers and the San Bernardino County district attorney's office have "starkly different views" about whether they support Cooper's claims.

Cooper's attorney, Norman Hile, called the order gratifying.

"We are confident that a thorough review will demonstrate that Kevin Cooper is innocent and should be released from prison," he said.

Cooper was convicted of a 1983 attack in Chino Hills, east of Los Angeles. Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and 8-year-old son, Joshua, were attacked in their sleep along with an 11-year-old neighbor, Christopher Hughes, who was a house guest. Investigators said they were stabbed more than 140 times with an ice pick, knife and hatchet.

Joshua's throat was slashed, but he survived.

San Bernardino County prosecutors said previous DNA tests showed that Cooper, who had escaped from a prison two days before the slayings, was in the Ryens' home and smoked cigarettes in the Ryens' stolen station wagon, and that Cooper's blood and the blood of at least one victim was on a T-shirt found by the side of a road leading away from the scene of the murders.

Cooper claimed that investigators planted his blood on the T-shirt.

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