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| | Court blocks Cooper's execution / Appeals panel grants a stay -- murder evidence to be tested |
 | | Cooper, now 46, had a long record of burglaries and other property crimes when he escaped from a Pennsylvania mental hospital in late 1982 and kidnapped and raped a woman, according to a California Supreme Court summary of his case. |
 | | Cooper, a prolific writer from his prison cell, has attracted support for his claim of innocence from anti-death penalty and prisoners'-rights activists, labor leaders and other national figures, including Rubin "Hurricane'' Carter, the former boxing contender who was wrongly imprisoned for murder for nearly 20 years. |
 | | A 2002 test found Cooper's DNA in a blood spot on the wall of the victims' home, in two cigarette butts in their car, and on a T-shirt found at a roadside that also contained the victims' blood. |
| sfgate.com /cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/02/10/COOPER10.TMP (1860 words) |
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