Kevin Cooper v. Arthur Calderon, Warden of California State Prison at San Quentin

In 1985, Kevin Cooper was convicted of murder in the deaths of Douglas and Peggy Ryen, their ten-year-old daughter Jessica, and an eleven-year-old friend of the Ryen family, Christopher Hughes, and of the attempted murder of the Ryens’ eight-year-old son Joshua, who survived the attack. The facts of the case are described in the opinion in our case No. 97-99030.

Cooper filed his first federal habeas petition in 1994. One individual, Calvin Booker, had purportedly confessed to the Ryen-Hughes murders and claimed that Kevin Cooper was innocent. In his first petition, Cooper claimed that trial counsel had been ineffective for failing to object to the untimely production of the Booker confession by the prosecutor. The district court denied Cooper’s first petition in its entirety, and we denied Cooper’s appeal on the merits. See Cooper v. Calderon, 255 F.3d 1104 (9th Cir.2001).

On April 30, 1998, Cooper filed this second federal habeas petition that raised only a new ineffective assistance claim. While Cooper’s trial was underway, he learned of another purported confession. According to a statement from inmate Anthony Wisely, another inmate named Kevin Koon had confessed to the…