Governor to Run Harris Hearing
Gov. George Deukmejian indicated Thursday that he plans to preside at a clemency hearing for condemned killer Robert Alton Harris, despite Harris’ complaint that the governor, a longtime proponent of capital punishment, cannot be fair.
Harris, scheduled to be executed April 3 in the gas chamber at San Quentin, asked Deukmejian in a letter Monday to let someone else preside over the hearing March 27.
In Sacramento on Thursday, Deukmejian said he would decide “later this week, probably,” on a response to Harris’ letter. He added, though, that the law allowed no one but the governor to grant clemency--that is, to commute Harris’ sentence to life in prison without parole.
“Under the law, the governor is the only person that has the authority to grant clemency,” with the concurrence of the state Supreme Court, Deukmejian said, answering a reporter’s question while riding a light-rail trolley car to launch the campaign for a gasoline tax increase.
Harris, 37, convicted of the 1978 murders of two teen-age San Diego boys, is in line to become the first person executed in California in 23 years. His case has progressed further through the courts than any of the more than 270 prisoners on Death Row.
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