Editing Sirhan B. Sirhan (section)

===Imprisonment===
Despite the fact that Sirhan admitted his guilt in a recorded confession while in police custody on June 9, a lengthy, publicized trial followed in ''The People of the State of California v. Sirhan Sirhan''. The judge did not accept his confession and denied his request to withdraw his plea of "not guilty" in order to plead "guilty".

Sirhan was convicted on April 17, 1969, and was sentenced six days later to death in the gas chamber. Three years later, his sentence was commuted to life in prison, owing to the California Supreme Court's decision in ''The People of the State of California vs. Robert Page Anderson'', which ruled that capital punishment is a violation of the California Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The February 1972 decision was retroactive, invalidating all existing death sentences in California.