Even when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals does the right thing — as it did Monday in denying convicted killer Kevin Cooper a hearing on yet another of his dubious appeals — there is always a judge, or in this case five, on the court with an overly active imagination. And those judges don't help the court's results-oriented reputation.

On June 2, 1983, Kevin Cooper escaped from the California Institution for Men at Chino, where he was serving time under a phony name for b ...

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