Sirhan Bishara Sirhan Trial: 1969

It took cross-examination by Chief Deputy District Attorney Lynn Compton to expose Sirhan for what he was: self-absorbed and arrogant, a master manipulator.

"Do you think that the killing of Senator Kennedy helped the Arab cause?" asked Compton.

"Sir, I'm not even aware that I killed Mr. Kennedy."

"Well, you know he's dead."

"… I've been told that."

"Are you glad he's dead?"

"No, sir, I'm not glad."

As an exercise in cynicism it was hard to beat. Certainly the jury thought so. On April 17, 1969, they returned a guilty verdict.

During the penalty phase, Prosecutor John Howard demanded death for Sirhan: "In resolving the question of this defendant's guilt," he told the jury, "you have found him lacking in honesty, in integrity, and even in the courage of his own convictions. You could not have failed to see the smirk … when he declared 'I don't know who killed Senator Kennedy.' "`Howard ended strongly: "Have the courage to write an end to this trial and to apply the only proper penalty for political assassination in the United States of America."

In pleading for his client's life, Grant Cooper quoted from several of Robert Kennedy's own speeches on compassion, but all to no avail. After 12 hours of deliberation the jury decided that Sirhan would die in the gas chamber.

As it transpired, all of the argument was academic. The U.S. Supreme Court's rulings on capital punishment in other cases resulted in Sirhan's sentence being commuted to life imprisonment. He remains in prison, where he regularly applies for parole and is just as regularly denied.

Interestingly, while Sirhan was being tried, in Memphis, Tennessee, another admitted assassin, James Earl Ray, pleaded guilty to the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., and was quietly dispatched without trial to prison for 99 years.