State Prosecutors Argue for Harris’ Execution

State prosecutors on Thursday urged a federal appeals court to clear the way for the execution of Robert Alton Harris, saying his claim that mental disorders drove him to kill is “demonstrably false.”

In a brief filed in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the prosecutors assailed as “ridiculous” Harris’ contention that he suffered from uncontrollable impulses that psychiatrists failed to diagnose and present in his defense at trial.

“The objective evidence of what actually happened, much of it from (Harris’) lips, proved he did plan, deliberate and intentionally kill,” the prosecutors said. “The evidence at trial cried for the death penalty.”

The 85-page brief, signed by Deputy Attys. Gen. Jay M. Bloom and Louis R. Hanoian, argued that the psychiatrists acted properly and it urged the court to reject Harris’ latest challenge in the 11-year-old case.

In a statement, state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp announced that authorities in five other states within the appeals court’s jurisdiction--Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Washington and Idaho--were joining in support of California in seeking Harris’ execution.

“If Harris’ position is ultimately upheld, we can expect to see virtually unending litigation to challenge the competence of previous (psychiatric) experts,” Van de Kamp said.

Harris’ case is the most advanced procedurally of more than 270 prisoners on Death Row. He had been scheduled to die in the gas chamber April 3 in what would have been California’s first execution since 1967.

But federal Appeals Judge John T. Noonan on March 30 issued a stay of execution to allow a three-member panel to hear Harris’ bid for a fact-finding hearing on his claim that he was denied competent psychiatric assistance at trial. The appeals panel--made up of Noonan and Judges Arthur L. Alarcon and Melvin Brunetti--set May 14 for oral argument in the case.

Harris, now 37, was convicted and sentenced to death for the July, 1978, murders of Michael Baker and John Mayeski, both 16, of San Diego. Authorities said Harris shot the two youths after stealing their car to use in a bank robbery he committed with his brother.

In this most recent appeal, attorneys for Harris contended that new psychiatric data indicates that he suffered from organic brain damage and other disorders that caused him to act impulsively in killing the two boys. Such evidence could have persuaded the jury to forgo the death penalty--and the failure of psychiatrists to detect the evidence and present it at trial violated Harris’ constitutional rights, the lawyers said.

In response, the state’s lawyers contended that Harris’ own actions and statements showed beyond doubt that he acted consciously and deliberately at the time of the crime. They quoted Harris as saying after the crime that he killed the youths because “I couldn’t have no punks running around that could do that (identify him), so I wasted them.”

“The question of why (Harris) killed the boys is plain,” the brief said. “The act was not the result of (mental disorders). . . . It was determined, strategic and showed foresight to accomplish a bank robbery without detection.”

The brief also sought to refute Harris’ claim that under a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision, he was entitled to challenge the competence of the examinations performed by three psychiatrists before his trial in 1979--one of them acting for the prosecution, two selected by the defense.

The 1985 ruling provided only a right of access to a psychiatrist when the defendant’s mental state is at issue, the prosecutors said. It did not create a right to judicial review, long after the fact, of the competence of the psychiatrist, they said.

The state said there was an abundance of medical and other information about Harris available at his trial and that Harris’ new claims, based on new assessments by different psychiatrists, reflect only a disagreement between experts.

If evidentiary hearings must be held any time there is a difference in opinion, the death penalty will be “rendered a nullity,” the prosecutors said. “There will always be a psychiatrist willing to point a finger at another and cry ‘incompetent.’ ”

The state also took sharp issue with Harris’ request that a new judge be assigned to the case if he wins the right to an evidentiary hearing on his claims. The request came after U.S. District Judge William B. Enright of San Diego ruled against Harris last March for the third time in the case.

The prosecutors said it was “grossly unfair” to Judge Enright to suggest that because of previous findings against Harris, he could not be neutral in further proceedings.

A new judge would be forced to plunge into thousands of pages of unfamiliar briefs, transcripts and exhibits filed in the complex and longstanding case, the state said. The request by Harris, it said, represented merely a “thinly veiled” attempt to find another jurist more sympathetic to the killer’s claims.