Friends, Yesterday, Keith Cooper’s lawyer “filed a petition that asks an Elkhart Circuit Court judge to grant Cooper a new trial — an attempt to fulfill Pence's request that Cooper exhaust his options in court before seeking a pardon from the governor's office.” (Indianapolis Star, October 3, 2016) I am committed to seeing Keith Cooper’s felony record wiped clean, so I support his lawyer filing for a new trial. At the same time, this does not negate the reasons for continuing the effort to get Keith Cooper a pardon, so these efforts should continue simultaneously. Although some of this I have said before, because we are getting new signatures all of the time, this analysis bears restating. In 2006, Keith Cooper signed an agreement to be released from prison. He did this in order to help his family, who, by that time, had had to sell all of the family’s possessions and move into a homeless shelter. To get this deal, Cooper had to agree not to continue contesting his felony conviction. His agreement never required him to affirm his conviction nor to plead guilty. Cooper has never pleaded guilty to any crime. In the last few days, as Cooper’s story has gone viral, some commenters have asserted that that he should not have signed that deal, but if he hadn’t, he would have had to wait a year or more to have his case retried while his family was in trouble. When Cooper made this deal, the judge overseeing the proceedings was Gene Duffin, the same judge who heard the original trial of the robbery charge against Cooper in 1997. The original prosecutor in 1997 was Michael Christofeno, who has since repudiated his prosecution and called upon Governor Mike Pence to pardon Cooper. The Elkhart County prosecutor who signed off on this deal in 2006 was Curtis Hill, who is still the chief prosecutor for Elkhart County and the current GOP candidate to become Indiana’s next Attorney General. By filing a petition for a new trial, Cooper’s lawyer is following the guidance of Pence’s response in which he declines to pardon Cooper. Yet, if Cooper’s case moves forward to a new trial, that result would indicate that the 2006 deal was never really binding, was never really the deal. I support Cooper getting exonerated by any means possible, but what Pence is requiring is passing strange. If the deal isn’t the deal, then the door creaks open for others who have made a similar deal to be released from prison to ask for a do-over. It would be better both for Keith Cooper and for the law itself to have Governor Pence issue him a pardon and to avoid a ruling on whether or not Cooper can have a retrial. Late in August, the Elkhart County prosecutor Curtis Hill attended the opening of Indiana’s Trump-Pence campaign headquarters, and while there, he made several disparaging comments about Keith Cooper’s case: https://www.facebook.com/PardonKeithCooper/posts/591575414344242:0. Curtis Hill would do well not to comment any longer on Cooper’s case if what he is going to say is demonstrably untrue or disproved. Whatever his opinion of Cooper’s innocence, Mr. Hill must think his position exceedingly silly. He may conclude that he has to oppose a new trial for Keith Cooper if he wants to avoid being challenged for retrials on any other deals he has made for prison inmates’ early release. On the other hand, once Cooper’s lawyer has exhausted any available judicial remedies, Pence’s response would suggest that Cooper could still get a pardon. So let’s lay the possibilities out: • Cooper’s petition for a retrial is opposed by Hill and is denied by the judge. According to his letter, Pence may then still consider a pardon. My question: why go through the expense of this to the Elkhart County taxpayers if a pardon may still be given? • Hill decides not to oppose a new trial for Cooper. Recall that Cooper had been thought to be procedurally barred from seeking a new trial by the deal he had signed in 2006. If, in fact, Hill concludes that Cooper can have a new trial, he may have to explain why a new trial is okay for Cooper but not for anyone else. But if so, why wouldn’t Hill contact Pence and ask him to pardon Cooper? If he does this, he would follow the example of the original prosecutor of Cooper’s 1997 case. Pence might still say that Cooper should go through the court, but Hill would no longer look quite as oppositional to an innocent man. And again, a new trial is an expense to the taxpayers. • Hill could decide not to oppose a new trial, or a judge could rule that trial may go forward. But then Hill could argue that the evidence for Keith Cooper’s innocence is not new. Attorney Elliot Slosar, who represents Cooper has “said all the delays may hurt their chances as prosecutors may argue the newly discovered evidence is too old to meet the requirement of being considered actually new.” Generally, to have a conviction overturned, there has to be new evidence of a person’s actual innocence, and most of the evidence for Cooper’s innocence had been found years ago. If this evidence is excluded from consideration, Cooper’s conviction may stand, and he will still need a pardon. • If Keith Cooper gets a new trial and his case is heard, I assume that the same evidence which has persuaded 107,000 petition signers would also persuade a judge and/or jury that Keith Cooper is and always has been innocent of the robbery. If indeed it takes all of this for him to be finally exonerated, that’s a win for our effort! But having to go through everything to get this result could have been and can be avoided with a pardon. There is still a role for our effort here. This petition will stay active. Curtis Hill was given thirty days to respond to the petition for a new trial. This means that he will have to make a decision on the public record of what to do before Election Day, when he is hoping to be chosen as Indiana’s next Attorney General. There’s no need for us to wait and see. We have two things we may ask Curtis Hill to do: (1) Ask him again to contact Governor Mike Pence in support of a pardon for Keith Cooper, and (2) Ask him not to oppose a new trial for Keith Cooper. Hill will have to work out for himself how he can do that, but that’s his problem, not ours. And, if you are an Indiana resident, let him know that you are watching this case as Election Day approaches. The phone number for the Elkhart County Prosecutor’s Office (Curtis Hill’s office) is (574) 296-1888. You may also send an email from this link: http://www.elkhartcountyprosecutor.com/contact As for Governor Pence, I still hope he gets asked about the pardon at tonight’s debate. Whether he does or not, please continue to contact his office in support of a pardon for Keith Cooper. Tell his staff that he can save everyone a lot of trouble by doing the right thing. His contact information is all here: http://www.in.gov/gov/2752.htm One other person needs to get on board for a pardon for Keith Cooper: the GOP candidate to be Indiana’s next governor, Eric Holcomb. Last night, during a gubernatorial debate, Holcomb distanced one of his policy positions from Pence’s position—Holcomb supports accepting Syrian refugees to Indiana, while Pence has fought (and lost) against their resettlement in court. Let’s get Holcomb to diverge from his mentor on Keith Cooper’s pardon too. His contact information: Office phone number: 317-232-4545 Office email at this link: http://www.in.gov/lg/2333.htm Campaign Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/HolcombForIndiana/ Campaign email link: https://action.holcombforindiana.com/comment/contact-us_20160830/?_ga=1.128379468.1924021185.1472068066 If Pence will not pardon Keith Cooper, we need the next governor, whether John Gregg or Eric Holcomb, to do so. Thank you for all of your help. Slowly but surely, we will see Keith Cooper legally exonerated. Jack Heller