She Worked on ACLU Cases : Killer, Legal Aide Bare ’86 Wedding

Because convicted murderer and jail-house lawyer Willie Ray Wisely is representing himself in court, he has won the right to a private Orange County Jail cell, complete with law books, legal files, a personal computer and television.

But when the county provided him a county-paid law clerk, Wisely got more than expected.

Wisely, 34, and the clerk, Gail Marie Harrington, 25, of Newport Beach confirmed Thursday that they were married last Christmas Eve during one of her frequent visits with him in jail.

A spokesman for Orange County Jail said no one in the jail knew that the ceremony had taken place. The couple said that only their families were told.

“What’s so unusual?” Harrington said Thursday in an interview. “I have a friend who married a wonderful guy; I married a wonderful guy.”

But Paul Hoffman, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, called it “so extraordinary that I don’t know that people know how to react.”

Harrington, a third-year student at Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, worked as law clerk to attorney Richard Herman, who had been retained by the ACLU to handle prisoner rights cases. She gathered information from jail inmates, among them Wisely.

“We certainly didn’t know about it. Neither Dick nor I knew she was married to Wisely,” Hoffman said. “To be honest with you, if we had known she was married to Wisely we certainly would have looked into the question of whether it would be appropriate for her to be a clerk on the case. We were as surprised as anyone else.”

For the moment, Hoffman said, Harrington will not be involved in future ACLU cases.

It wasn’t the first time Harrington’s relationship with Wisely has been controversial. Harrington faces charges that she tried to smuggle drugs to Wisely during a jail-house visit. Authorities also have petitioned that Wisely’s special privileges be suspended because the two allegedly were observed in “mutual sexual touching” during a meeting in a holding cell at the Orange County Courthouse.

Harrington has denied the allegations. “When I’m in jail, it’s purely professional,” she said Thursday. “What else can it be? You’ve got cops all over you.”

Last week when the charges against Harrington surfaced, both she and Wisely denied that they had ever had any sexual contact or involvement. Both said they had become close friends as a result of working together and seeing each other almost every day.

“That’s true,” Harrington said Thursday. “He is my best friend.”

Wisely was found guilty by a jury in 1981 of murdering his stepfather by rigging a truck to fall on and crush him. Among other privileges, he was granted the right to a law clerk, and in February, 1986, he interviewed three candidates, Harrington said. He hired her, she said.

“We’ve spent tens of thousands of hours talking, probably more time talking than couples who have been married 20 years and wake up next to each other,” she said. “I fell madly in love with him. He made his feelings for me clear.”

Wisely has spent 6 1/2 years in Orange County Jail awaiting the outcome of his legal maneuvers. “I suppressed those type of feelings for a long time,” Wisely said Thursday. But, he added, “you can lock the body up, but the emotions come out.”

“It’s not unusual for people in jail to get married,” he said. “Actually to fall in love--most people in jail get married for other reasons.”

He said the couple made no announcement of their marriage because “it’s just nobody’s business. This is private between her and I. There was a feeling it would be held against her. Gail didn’t want to broadcast it, and I don’t blame her.”

“I’m in court every day,” Harrington said. “He’s very well known here, very controversial. I wanted to be able to walk into courtroom or office or law school and be judged as Gail Harrington, lawyer-to-be, not a jail-house lawyer’s wife.”

She said she had been wearing a wedding ring since her wedding day and has told people she was married, but no one ever asked to whom.

She said the wedding occurred in the attorney’s room at the jail. She said she had a court order allowing people to accompany her into jail, so she brought in a Baptist minister from Inglewood, Donald C. Sturgeon, who performed the ceremony. She said she found Sturgeon by looking in the Yellow Pages.

She said that while no jail guard was in the room during the ceremony, a guard stationed nearby could see what was happening.

The minister “walked in wearing a collar,” Harrington said. “He (Wisely) put a ring on my finger and kissed me. I don’t think it’s too tough to figure out what’s happening. I think Ray Charles could see that.”

Sturgeon, who is affiliated with the Family Enrichment Center in Anaheim, said Thursday that he was surprised that no one knew of the marriage sooner. The guards at the jail certainly knew, he said. “I had to state my business for being there. . . .

“The funny thing is, there was no secret about it, no secret whatsoever. She had gotten a license.”

He said the exchange of vows was a “standard wedding ceremony,” lasting about 10 minutes. There was no best man or maid of honor because it was a “confidential record of marriage,” requiring no witnesses, he said. He could not remember what the bride and groom wore. And, as he recalled, they did not exchange rings but admitted that his memory could be inaccurate. “We’re talking about nine months ago,” he said.

Sturgeon said he was aware of Wisely’s background and met with him only a few minutes before the simple ceremony. However, he spent more time beforehand with Harrington.

Minister Impressed

“I was tremendously impressed with that girl,” the minister said. “She’s very, very intelligent, very articulate and really very dedicated to the cause of criminal justice. We talked about her educational background and her preparing for the bar.”

If the charges against Harrington for allegedly smuggling drugs to Wisely are true, “that would really amaze and disappoint me,” Sturgeon said. “I saw her as a lady with a lot of potential.”

The Wisely-Harrington marriage was the first time he had ever conducted a wedding ceremony in the jail, he said, and although he “can’t quite understand why someone would want a life” of separation from a spouse, he said he has “a lot of sympathy for people who are incarcerated, regardless of whether they’re guilty or not.”

It is not his place to pass judgment on a couple’s prospects for a happy marriage, he said.

But in the case of Harrington and Wisely, Sturgeon said: “I would say that the prospects were very strong. There did seem to be a considerable amount of dedication there.”

She said she has taken into account the chance that Wisely will never be free. Wisely’s jury recommended a life sentence without possibility of parole, and Wisely has petitioned for a new penalty hearing.

“I’m an optimist at heart, but it would be unrealistic not to consider that,” she said. “I’d rather not bring the kids--we both want children very badly--to see father in prison.”

But she said, “I had no choice. I fell in love. It’s the first time I’ve ever been in love, and I’m 25.”

Wisely said the couple discussed their prospects. “When you fall in love with someone on the outside, on the first night you might go to bed together. We don’t have that opportunity.

“From in here, we can’t relate physically. She cannot relate to me sexually. She’s forced to relate to me intellectually. That’s made our marriage much different. I think if I get outside, we’ll perpetuate that kind of feeling,” Wisely said.

“I don’t know, maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think the commitment is a lifetime one. . . . I don’t want to get married, divorce, married, divorce, married, divorce. That’s almost like having a felony arrest record.”

Harrington, a 1980 graduate of Newport Harbor High School, said her father and mother have reacted favorably to the marriage.

Father ‘Very Close’ to Wisely

She said her father, Joseph Harrington, is “very close” to Wisely. “They talk on the phone daily.” Her mother, Eileen Harrington, an employee of the Newport City Library, “is happy if I’m happy. And I’m happy,” she said.

She said she has no wedding photographs, only a photograph of Wisely in his jail jump suit, which she took herself in jail and keeps by her bed.

Lt. Richard J. Olson, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman, said he could not say whether revelation of the marriage would have any repercussions in the jail.

“Until such time as we really have the information as to when it happened and how it happened, I’m not in a position to answer that question,” Olson said. “I always think, is there a breakdown of security? We don’t know where this occurred. I’m just trying to be safe in what I’m saying.”