Court Denies Harris’ Appeal of Execution

The California Supreme Court today denied the appeal of condemned killer Robert Alton Harris, making his April 3 execution at San Quentin more likely than ever.

The convicted double killer is set to be the first man to die in San Quentin’s gas chamber in 23 years.

Harris is expected now to head quickly to federal court to press his argument for a delay in his execution.

“We think the court’s decision is the correct result. We are pleased the court denied his request,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Dane Gillette, head of the state’s death penalty unit. “Mr. Harris has had a substantial opportunity over the last 11 years to litigate these issues.

“We assume there will be some effort to take the case to federal court and we are prepared to cover that should it arise,” Gillette said.

Harris, 37, must persuade a federal judge there is enough merit in his current appeal to halt the execution long enough to hear more detailed arguments or to order the new penalty hearing Harris has requested.

Harris also has a separate request for clemency set for hearing by Gov. George Deukmejian on March 27 at San Quentin.

The governor, who authored the state’s death penalty law while attorney general, is considered unlikely to reduce Harris’ sentence to life in prison.

Harris and his brother, Daniel, bent on stealing a car to use in a bank robbery, abducted two teen-age boys in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant and drove them to a rural spot outside San Diego.

The boys were shot by Robert Harris, who later drove back to his girlfriend’s apartment and purportedly ate the boys’ leftover hamburgers while joking about the killing.

The state’s high court rejected the argument by lawyers for Harris that his years as the object of severe child abuse left him victim of post traumatic stress syndrome, similar to war veterans, and organic brain damage.

Harris contends that the new psychological information is the result of new research on child abuse developed since his sentencing in 1979.