Killer Harris Cancels Bid for Hearing on Clemency

Condemned murderer Robert Alton Harris has withdrawn his application for a clemency hearing scheduled next week, saying in a letter to Gov. George Deukmejian that he does not believe the governor can be a fair and impartial judge of his request for mercy.

In his handwritten letter, Harris said it would accomplish nothing to go through with the hearing, set for next Tuesday, because Deukmejian, a longtime proponent of the death penalty, has made it clear he does not “believe in interfering with my execution.”

Harris is scheduled to be executed April 3.

In his letter, Harris said his participation at the clemency hearing would only “give the show the look of being fair when it is not.” He added, “I cannot be part of that kind of empty game.”

Harris, 37, convicted of the 1978 killings 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 any of the more than 270 prisoners on Death Row in California.

The governor’s press secretary, Bob Gore, said Deukmejian had no immediate response to Harris’ letter. The letter was dated Monday and received by Deukmejian’s office Tuesday.

It was unclear whether Deukmejian could go ahead with the hearing without Harris’ attendance, or whether he would want to do so.

One of Harris’ attorneys, Charles M. Sevilla, said that the withdrawal request cut off any legal basis for holding the session. The law provides for a hearing only at the request of the prisoner, Sevilla said. Since Harris has retracted his request, that “should end the matter,” Sevilla said.

Harris asked for the clemency hearing in a Jan. 26 letter he wrote to Deukmejian. On Feb. 22, the governor said that he would hold the hearing at San Quentin and announced that he would preside.

In a March 5 letter, Harris asked Deukmejian to step aside at the hearing, saying a politician “committed to my execution” should not decide whether he should be spared from the gas chamber. That letter was based on Deukmejian’s longtime support of the death penalty (he wrote the 1977 law reinstating the death penalty in California, the law under which Harris is sentenced to die) and his campaign promises not to interrupt an execution.

In the March 5 letter, Harris also said that Deukmejian, who served as the state’s attorney general before being elected governor, had a conflict of interest in presuming to judge Harris since he prosecuted the early rounds of Harris’ appeals.

Sevilla and Harris’ other lawyer, Michael McCabe, issued a statement Tuesday saying the same factors detailed in the March 5 letter prompted Harris’ decision to withdraw his application for a clemency hearing. The idea to withdraw was “Robert’s decision, although I support it,” Sevilla said in an interview.

The clemency hearing had been one of Harris’ two remaining avenues of review of his death sentence. The other lies with the courts and, in his Monday letter, Harris said that is where he has put his trust.

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected Harris’ case four times, most recently on Jan. 16 when it flatly rejected a broad challenge to his death sentence.

The California Supreme Court upheld Harris’ death sentence in 1981. Last Friday, the state Supreme Court turned down a last-ditch appeal Harris had filed Jan. 5.

Harris’ only remaining hope is to win a reprieve from the federal courts. His San Diego attorneys plan to file legal papers within a few days in the San Diego federal court urging immediate review of the appeal the state Supreme Court rejected, Sevilla said.