Lawyer Says Harris Has Valid Claim for Clemency

The attorney from a blue-chip Los Angeles law firm who will ask Gov. Pete Wilson to spare Robert Alton Harris from the gas chamber says he took the case only after concluding that the convicted murderer has a legitimate claim.

Howard I. Friedman, a senior partner in the downtown firm of Loeb & Loeb, will turn 64 on April 21, the day that Harris is scheduled to die.

Friedman is perhaps best known for representing heiress and businesswoman Joan Irvine Smith in her legal battle with Donald Bren over control of the Irvine Co. and the value of her company stock. She and her mother won $255 million in damages and interest last year.

With its offices on Wilshire Boulevard, on Park Avenue in New York, and in Rome, Loeb & Loeb counts as its clients major financial institutions. It is also involved in the entertainment industry, particularly in film financing.

Friedman is one of the “venerable giants” of Los Angeles legal circles, said Century City lawyer Bert H. Deixler. He has a reputation for being a top courtroom attorney, possessing an unusually sharp memory, and holding fast to a belief in the duty of lawyers to perform their share of free legal work--as the Harris case will be.

Harris’ defense team--the American Civil Liberties Union and San Diego lawyers Charles Sevilla and Michael McCabe--turned to Friedman, hoping that his presence would add credibility to Harris’ plea for executive clemency.

For his part, Friedman said he was drawn to the case of the Death Row inmate because “there is merit to his clemency petition.”

Friedman, who has never handled a clemency matter, would not comment further on his reasons for taking on the case. Nor would he discuss how he will try to sway Wilson, except to say that “you can infer” that the focus will be on the abuses inflicted upon Harris when he was a child.

“My audience is with the governor and no one else,” Friedman said. “It is very important in matters such as this that one confine one’s comments to the one who has to make the decision.”

Harris, 39, has lost repeatedly in the courts over the last 11 years. His final chance of avoiding execution may be with Wilson.