Delay Asked in Setting Execution
Robert Alton Harris’ attorneys filed a request Wednesday to postpone a hearing at which a San Diego judge is expected to set a date for Harris’ execution.
Lawyers Charles M. Sevilla and Michael McCabe asked the San Diego Superior Court to put off the hearing, now set for Monday, while the California Supreme Court considers a new appeal that Harris, convicted of the 1978 murders of two San Diego teen-agers, filed last month.
The state Supreme Court has set March 16 as the deadline for written briefs in the appeal.
On Jan. 16, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an earlier appeal Harris had filed, setting the stage for Monday’s hearing, a procedural formality. The law requires the judge at the hearing, who has not yet been determined, to set an execution date for 30 to 60 days after the session.
Even if the state Supreme Court hears Harris’ new appeal, Harris must still find a judge who will agree to put off the execution once the date is set.
Harris, 37, is on San Quentin’s Death Row for killing two 16-year-old San Diego boys in 1978. His case has progressed further through the court system than the cases of any of California’s other 272 condemned prisoners.
Harris was arrested July 5, 1978, by Steve Baker, a San Diego police officer, who did not know at the time that Harris’ victims were Baker’s son, Michael, and Michael’s friend, John Mayeski.
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