Cuomo Rejects Jean Harris’ Plea for Clemency

Gov. Mario M. Cuomo on Friday rejected a clemency plea from Jean Harris, the former headmistress of an exclusive Virginia girls’ school who was convicted in the 1980 murder of Scarsdale Diet author Dr. Herman Tarnower.

Harris, 65, is serving 15 years to life for the slaying of her lover. Friends and relatives who had mounted a 25,000-signature petition appeal on her behalf promised to continue their effort.

Cuomo, who regularly grants clemencies during the Christmas season, received 526 applications and granted clemency for two state prison inmates, both serving 15 years to life on drug sale charges.

Cuomo spokeswoman Anne Crowley declined to discuss the matter. Harris is eligible to reapply for clemency in one year.

David Harris, the eldest of Harris’ two sons, called Cuomo’s denial “a political decision” connected to what he said were the governor’s presidential ambitions.

“I think when he sees her name, he sees Willie Horton,” the son said. “If he’s going to be President, from a political standpoint, she could be a liability.”

(Horton is the Massachusetts prison inmate who, while out on furlough, raped a Maryland woman and beat her husband. Vice President George Bush used the Horton furlough issue in his presidential campaign against Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis.)

Michael Kennedy, Harris’ Manhattan attorney, said he talked to his client after she heard the news at Bedford Hills state prison for women north of New York City.

“Oh, my God, Michael. I’m so sad,” he quoted her as saying.

‘Deeply Discouraged’

Alice Lacey, secretary of the Jean Harris Legal Defense Committee based in Monroe, N.H., said she also had spoken to a “deeply discouraged” Harris.

“She felt Cuomo would probably never let her out,” Lacey said.

Harris, who has had two heart attacks and suffers from angina, had sought clemency on medical grounds.

Russell Leggett, the retired state Supreme Court judge who sentenced Harris, had recommended her for clemency.

“She committed one violent act in her whole life and it was committed under extreme emotional disturbance,” Leggett said. “Society does not gain a thing by her continued confinement.”

Harris has maintained that she meant to kill herself and not Tarnower on March 10, 1980. Upset because he had taken up with a younger woman, Harris wound up shooting Tarnower four times. She said the shooting was an accident.

During her almost eight years in prison, Harris has been active in its Children’s Center and has written two books.

Had she received executive clemency, Harris in effect would have had her minimum sentence commuted to time served, and she would have become eligible immediately for parole consideration, officials said.