2 Californians Now One Step Closer to the Gas Chamber
Deputy state Atty. Gen. Pete Wilkinson said today’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court will probably move two defendants in long-pending California cases closer to execution.
Wilkinson said the decision may have the “most dramatic” impact in the case of Robert Alton Harris, whose death sentence for the murder of two San Diego youths in 1978 has been upheld by the state Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
An appeal by Harris, a white man claiming that the death penalty is being imposed discriminatorily on those who kill whites, is now before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
An attorney for Earl Lloyd Jackson, a black man who was sentenced to death for the murders of two white women in Long Beach in 1977, said he still has a viable case after today’s ruling because Jackson’s claims are based on the federal and state constitutions.
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