RFK murder devastated nation. Deny parole for Kennedy killer.

The recent recommendation by the two members of the California Parole Board, Sirhan Sirhan, to release the Palestinian militant who murdered Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 angered many Americans. So should it.

However, Sirhan’s fate ultimately rests in the hands of Governor Gavin Newsom. After weathering last month’s recall vote, Newsom should reward its supporters by doing the right thing: denying Sirhan his freedom.

Sirhan’s parole is the result of a legal quirk of history. In the 1960s, few states, particularly those with the death penalty, had a life-long no parole option as a sentencing option. For capital offenses, it was either life (with the option of parole) or death.

Sirhan was actually sentenced to death. But when the death penalty was temporarily abolished in the early 1970s, his sentence was changed and he was automatically granted parole. Today, every state but one (Alaska) maintains life without parole as a sentencing option regardless of whether the death penalty is on the books.

Every few years Sirhan was paroled and turned down. Most people expected him to die in prison at some point, as did Charles Manson, another convicted prisoner from the California cohort who were automatically paroled in the 1970s. In certain cases, probation should be nothing more than an empty gesture.

Regardless of my position against Sirhan’s release, I am actually a strong proponent of the probation system. I believe in second chance as an incentive to rehabilitation and deplore the fact that the United States is far more punitive than other western nations. We don’t need to keep convicted felons behind bars after they no longer pose a threat to society. Yet there are a select few murderers whose crimes are so reprehensible or so detrimental to our society that life without parole should be the norm.

One of the core principles of punishment – protecting society from dangerous individuals – does not justify the lengthy sentences routinely imposed by American courts. Yet another important principle of punishment – expressing outrage and demanding justice for particularly heinous crimes – clearly suggests keeping Sirhan incarcerated until his death.

Much of the coverage of the matter has centered on disagreements among members of the Kennedy clan over whether the killer of their relatives should ever see the outside of the prison walls. However, unlike most murder cases, which primarily involve those who have lost a loved one, the impact and pain caused by Sirhan’s crimes stretched well beyond the Kennedy grounds.

As an advocate of liberal causes, Kennedy was revered by a diverse coalition of working-class whites, impoverished blacks, and anti-war youth. Despite entering the presidential election late, Kennedy’s populist candidacy quickly gained momentum, crowned by his surprising victory in the California primary over establishment favorite Hubert Humphrey.

“When Sirhan Sirhan shot Bobby Kennedy half a century ago,” recalls Larry Tye, a Kennedy biographer, “it was not just a life that was coming to an end, but a romantic vision for America that the RFK became a rare optimist in an even bigger era made more politically torn than ours today. ”

More than a million Americans of all ages, races, and social classes lined the tracks from New York City to Washington, DC to see the “funeral procession” that carried their fallen hero to his final resting place. They stood there with prayer signs in their hands and tears in their eyes and mourned for the man and for what could have been. Regardless of the election result, Kennedy’s untimely death deprived the nation of a charismatic agent of change.

The devastating effect Kennedy’s assassination had on the mind and psyche of the nation was due in part to its being followed by the fatal shootings of President John F. Kennedy (which happened five years earlier) and Martin Luther King Jr. (that was only months earlier) followed. However, as Thurston Clarke noted in response to his book on RFK’s inspirational presidential campaign, many “felt the loss of Bobby Kennedy even more than the loss of John F. Kennedy. … They were of the opinion that the country would have been different if Robert Kennedy had been president than if John F. Kennedy had lived. ”

The legal formality that allowed Sirhan to be granted parole is easily overlooked by many Americans. They would see the release of a convicted assassin only as a token of leniency in the criminal justice system and would back up their demand for the death penalty as the only surefire way to prevent such a miscarriage of justice.

To avoid capital punishment advocates making a strong case for undoing dwindling support for the death penalty in this country, Sirhan cannot be paroled. He must not become the newest figurehead for maintaining or even extending the archaic death penalty.

James Alan Fox is the Lipman Family Professor of Criminology, Law, and Public Order at Northeastern University and a member of the USA TODAY Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter: @jamesalanfox.