If Harris Dies, Next Execution Could Be a Year Away

Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp predicted Thursday that it will be at least a year after the scheduled execution of Robert Alton Harris in April before the state of California puts to death another prisoner.

After Harris, Van de Kamp said, the Death Row inmate whose legal appeals have moved furthest through the courts is Edgar Hendricks, a male prostitute who was sentenced to death for the murder of two San Francisco men in 1980. If his death sentence is upheld, Hendricks could be sent to the gas chamber in about a year, the attorney general said.

Although 277 prisoners are on Death Row, the remainder all have court appeals that will take 18 months or longer to resolve, Van de Kamp said. Harris is scheduled to be executed on April 3 at San Quentin Prison.

The only possibility of another execution within the next year, the attorney general said, is in the case of a “volunteer,” such as inmate Ronald Lee Deere, who has expressed a willingness to go to the gas chamber rather than pursue legal appeals in federal court. Deere was sentenced to death for the 1982 murders of a Blythe man and his two children.

Van de Kamp, a Democratic candidate for governor, delivered his remarks at the first of a series of regular press briefings he has scheduled to discuss legal developments in the Harris case.

The attorney general, whose office is responsible for handling death penalty cases that have been appealed, denied suggestions that the high-visibility briefings are an attempt to capitalize on Harris’ scheduled execution for his own political purposes.

Van de Kamp is personally opposed to the death penalty but insists that he will do everything he can to make sure the state’s capital punishment law is put into effect. “The issue is for me at this juncture: The law must be upheld,” he told reporters. “That’s my job.”

He said he will not attend the scheduled 3 a.m. execution. Instead, he said, he will be stationed at a “command center” where he and his staff will be prepared to fend off last-minute legal challenges filed by Harris’ attorneys.

It is possible, he added, that Harris’ execution could be delayed for days or weeks depending on the success of further appeals he is expected to file in federal court.

Hendricks, sentenced to death for the San Francisco murders, has not yet exhausted his appeals in federal court. Hendricks broke into the home of James Parmer, shot him six times at point-blank range and stole his checkbook. Soon after, he had a sexual encounter with Charleston Haynes in a hotel room. Hendricks shot him five times and stole his checkbook, as well as other items. In seeking the death penalty for these two murders, prosecutors also presented evidence that Hendricks had earlier killed two men in Los Angeles and an Oakland woman. His attorneys urged leniency, contending that he was the victim of homosexual rape as a teen-ager who killed out of “homosexual rage.”

In the Blythe case, Deere was convicted of murdering three relatives of his former girlfriend. At his trial, Deere told the judge, “I feel I should die for the crimes I done.”