A couple things struck me while listening to the two guests discussing Sirhan. First, while playing the audio clips, the one guest foot stomped you could tell how stable and self aware he was by listening to how carefully he measured his words. It was very obvious to me Sirhan was reading from a script that I'd bet was written for him, not by him. The guest representing the one organization admitted during the interview that they worked with Sirhan for almost a year to check all the boxes required and coach him up for his parole hearing. The "self aware" statements were what he was told to say/read. I don't have a problem with that, lawyers coach up clients all the time, but I thought the guest was disingenuous in implying we were listening to Sirhan's sincere, off-the-cuff statements.
Secondly, one of the guests made the point their goal and the purpose of the parole process was not to reexamine/retry the case, but to determine if the potential parolee was self aware and posed a threat to society if released. She then spent most of the rest of the show reexamining the case and how it was investigated/tried. She even went so far as to claim "mind control" by the CIA. Of course, she offered no evidence of that.
I guess I never thought of it until last night, but if the governor of California is responsible for deciding his parole date, that must mean Sirhan was tried under state law and he's in a state prison. Why wasn't he charged and tried in a federal court since he was accused of shooting a US senator and presidential candidate?
