SAN QUENTIN DIARY : Warden Restricts Harris’ Visitors After Marijuana Is Found in Cell

San Quentin Warden Dan Vasquez downgraded convicted double-murderer Robert Alton Harris to “Grade B” prisoner status and restricted his visitors Friday after three marijuana-filled balloons were found in his cell during a surprise search.

The California Appellate Project, a legal-aid service for Death Row inmates, swiftly filed suit in Marin County Superior Court seeking to restore Harris’ full visiting rights. However, Judge Peter Allen Smith agreed late Friday to only partially restore those rights.

Harris’ visiting rights were curbed after guards, acting on a tip from an unidentified television broadcaster, discovered three balloons stuffed with enough marijuana for about 10 to 12 cigarettes.

The broadcaster, who works for the syndicated television program “Hard Copy,” told prison officials Thursday that she heard from an inmate that Harris had claimed he planned to overdose on heroin rather than wait for the gas chamber.

Vasquez said Harris’ cell had been thoroughly searched but nothing was found. A second search after Harris returned to his cell after a visit Thursday by one of his brothers and a close friend turned up the balloons hidden in his pillowcase.

As a result, the warden has forbidden Harris from meeting again with the brother, Randall Harris, or the friend, Michael Kroll.

Judge Smith, in his ruling, supported the ban on Kroll and Randall Harris but decided that other family members and Harris’ lawyers may still meet with the inmate until 6 p.m. Monday, or about nine hours before the scheduled execution that was stayed by a federal appeals court Friday.

Vasquez said the judge’s decision poses some hardship on the prison, but he said he was generally “satisfied” with the ruling. Michael G. Millman, lead attorney for CAP, could not be reached for comment.

In court filings seeking to overturn Vasquez’s decision, Harris said the ban would unfairly deprive him of the company and counsel of Kroll, his closest friend.

In his own error-filled hand, Harris declared on paper that “i love this man and his support help me in alot of ways through the years I have been here.”

Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, speaking at a news conference in Sacramento, defended the new restrictions on Harris.

“Clearly, there is a danger in these kinds of situations that other items could be smuggled in as well--drugs more serious than marijuana, or some item that could be used as a weapon for suicide or violence,” he said.

Van de Kamp declined to say whether Kroll or Randall Harris are suspects in the smuggling. Smuggling marijuana into the prison is a felony. He said Harris may have gotten the drug elsewhere, such as from a guard or another inmate in the visitor’s area when he met with the two men.

“This is under investigation now,” Van de Kamp said.

Meanwhile, Kroll said: “I’m not sweating this. I know I didn’t smuggle anything in to Robert Harris.”

Randall Harris, noting that prison guards watched their every move during the visit on Thursday, said that in order to have smuggled anything in to Harris “we’d have to be Houdini. . . . We were never scrutinized by fewer than four people.”

It had to happen, and it did. A tasteless T-shirt salesman arrived Thursday afternoon outside the gates of San Quentin.

Working discreetly from the trunk of his car, he appeared during the evening shift change for guards with $12 shirts depicting the state’s gas chamber, its door swung open wide.

The caption, referring to the sound of cyanide pellets being dropped into acid to form a deadly gas, reads: “Plop, plop. Fizz, fizz. Oh, what a relief it is.”

International interest in California’s death penalty continues to grow.

In addition to the clemency appeals on Harris’ behalf by Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II and the picketing of the American Embassy in London by the human-rights group Amnesty International, Italian lawmakers have expressed concern over the pending execution.

In a move embracing all segments of the political spectrum, 200 members of the Italian Parliament signed a petition Friday urging Gov. George Deukmejian to stop not only the planned execution of Harris but to permanently ban capital punishment.

“The death penalty is against the value of human life in every case,” the petition reads. “Leave inactive your state’s gas chamber to give the world an example of civility, to affirm the coherence of the choice of democracy (and) to respect the international treaties on human rights.”

Before the appellate court issued its stay of Harris’ execution, San Quentin officials were fretting over problems that might result from letting a large number of civilians into the prison to either witness or report on the event.

This prompted anxious prison personnel to pass along a few handy do’s and don’ts--mostly don’ts--to the 150 or so reporters and others who were scheduled to step inside those walls next week.

Among the sometimes obvious, sometimes obtuse “basics” outlined by state Department of Corrections spokesman Tipton C. Kindel:

- “Do not run. In a prison, this indicates someone is in trouble.”

- “It is a felony offense to bring into any state prison (any) alcoholic beverages, drugs, firearms or any other weapons.”

- “Do not wear Levi’s or jean-style blue, black or gray pants.”

This last mandate is necessary for all prison visits because blue jeans, dark navy to faded gray, are inmate attire, and no one wants to be mistaken for an inmate.

Prison-visit veterans recommend something in olive and khaki--the colors of guard uniforms.

Times staff writer Doug Shuit in Sacramento contributed to this story.