RFK was my dad. His assassin doesn't deserve parole.

I return to Uncle Teddy’s words: “My brother was a man of love and sentiment and compassion.” These are qualities I greatly admire, but I wonder, was Mr. Sirhan not already shown compassion when his death sentence was commuted to life in prison? It is a high-minded notion, after all, the belief that everyone — everyone — deserves a chance for rehabilitation and, after having served enough time in prison, even parole. Did Uncle Teddy ever imagine, in asking the court for compassion, that the man who killed his brother might one day walk free? I do not think so.

And what I do know is that Mr. Sirhan is not someone deserving of parole. I believe this despite last week’s recommendation by the Los Angeles County parole board’s two-member panel to consider his release.

For prisoners sentenced to life, parole is based on evidence of their suitability for release — and to a significant degree, that means evidence of rehabilitation. At the time of the assassination, Mr. Sirhan admitted his guilt. At the time of the trial, he moved to plead guilty to murder in the first degree. Yet, across the decades that followed, right up through last week, he has not been willing to accept responsibility for his act and has shown little remorse. At his previous parole hearing, in 2016, when asked by Commissioner Brian Roberts to explain how he was involved in the murder, Mr. Sirhan replied, “I was there, and I supposedly shot a gun.”