John E. Howard; Co-Prosecutor in Sirhan Trial

John E. Howard, 70, one of the three Los Angeles County prosecutors who won conviction of Sirhan Sirhan in Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. When Sirhan was arrested for the June, 1968, assassination of Kennedy, Howard, Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Lynn (Buck) Compton and Deputy Dist. Atty. David Fitts were chosen to prosecute the case. Sirhan was sentenced to death, but the sentence was overturned several years later. Sirhan remains in prison. Howard eventually became chief deputy district attorney, and briefly took over leadership of the office in the mid-1970s when his boss, Dist. Atty. Joseph Busch, died of a heart attack. The County Board of Supervisors later appointed John K. Van De Kamp to complete the term. In Irvine on Monday of cancer.