Governor Rejects Harris’ Request, Says He’ll Preside at Clemency 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 March 27 hearing.

In Sacramento on Thursday, Deukmejian said that the law allowed no one but the governor to grant clemency from the death penalty and 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 in answer to a reporter’s question.

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 farther through the court system than those of any of the more than 270 prisoners on Death Row.