During his 45 years in law enforcement, including 24 years with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, homicide investigator Tom Parker (pictured) changed his view on the death penalty. “There were times during my career when I would gladly have pushed the button on a murderer,” he said. “Today, my position would be, life without parole.” Parker says that seeing corrupt homicide investigations convinced him that innocent people could be executed. As result, he now opposes capital punishment and is supporting California’s Justice That Works Act, a ballot measure that would repeal the death penalty. Parker says the worst case of police misconduct he has seen in a capital case is that of California death row prisoner Kevin Cooper. Parker has re-investigated the case pro bono for five years in an effort to free Cooper. “I’m convinced he was framed. We arrest and convict innocent people almost every day in this country. As long as we have a death penalty in America, we will continue to execute innocent people.” Cooper was sentenced to death for four 1983 murders, and has completed his appeals, meaning that he could be executed if California resumes lethal injections. Parker says Cooper’s conviction was a result of “police tunnel vision” - making the evidence fit the suspect, rather than seeking a suspect who fit the evidence. Working as a consultant with Cooper’s attorneys, Parker has found witnesses who say they saw three white men, two of whom wore blood-spattered clothing, acting strangely at a bar near the crime scene on the night of the murders. The initial statement from the one survivor of the crime pointed to three white men as the perpetrators, but Cooper is black. Cooper recently received support from the American Bar Association in his efforts to receive clemency from Governor Jerry Brown.

(M. Burns, “From FBI Boss to Death Penalty Foe,” Santa Barbara Independent, July 7, 2016.) See New Voices and Innocence.

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