PERSPECTIVES ON THE HARRIS CASE : Politics Dictate Wilson’s Verdict : A rational look at evidence in the Harris case would mandate clemency, but election pressures are stronger.

His legal appeals exhausted, Robert Alton Harris has just one hope--executive clemency--between him and California’s first execution in a quarter-century. But the smart money in this state would give long odds against clemency for a mix of good and bad reasons. The clemency power is a discretionary act of mercy, and Gov. Pete Wilson is on record in support of the capital sanction. The Harris case was a brutal and notorious crime that took place in the governor’s hometown.

But the most important obstacle to clemency now may be political. The Harris case is the only execution scheduled in California that is not likely to be postponed. Granting clemency here would be seen as going soft on capital punishment just as the governor and the President he supports are bracing for an attack from the hard right in this June’s Republican primary.

But even if denying Harris’ clemency petition is seen as a political necessity, the merits of his plea are much stronger than has been generally recognized. The Harris appeal stands apart from the usual last-minute request first, because he suffered from a series of brutal handicaps that included fetal alcohol syndrome, severe beatings and gross abuse inflicted by both his father and stepfather. Robert Alton Harris was one of California’s biggest losers long before his first offense. Impaired mental functioning and poor impulse control were the natural consequences of this childhood.

From this perspective, Harris’ involvement in serious violence was no surprise. All too often, particularly brutal and senseless acts of violence are committed by the battered and retarded products of the worst environments this society has to offer its young. Though this harrowing legacy cannot excuse crime, it should be central to the calculus of clemency.

But the special power of the Harris petition goes beyond his history of disability. A second reason why clemency is attractive in this case is that the mitigating circumstances of People vs. Harris were unknown to the judge and jury that sentenced this defendant to death. Normally, a governor’s clemency authority is the last place where a condemned prisoner can press his claim for mercy, and the governor will know that the facts in mitigation have been previously considered by representatives of the community and the judiciary. If a governor wants to pass the buck in the usual clemency case, he can deny mercy on the ground that others have weighed the defendant’s claims and rejected them.

Not this time. Harris’ birth defects and legacy of abuse were unearthed by new lawyers, and they have spent the last two years unsuccessfully trying to get a sentencing hearing to have these matters considered in the choice between life imprisonment and death. In the name of federalism, the courts refused to order reexamination (although the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reportedly split 13-to-13 on the issue).

So Pete Wilson becomes the first person and the last with the legal authority to exercise mercy to hear this defendant’s claims. The usual death-penalty review gives multiple opportunities to hear facts that might justify lesser punishment. This one doesn’t.

Harris’ case would argue powerfully for mercy if two or three other executions could protect the governor from a soft-on-murder political assault. As matters stand, however, the GOP right wing threatens to be a more powerful influence on the Harris decision than either Mother Teresa’s pleas for mercy or pressure from the state district attorneys’ association. A grant of clemency in such circumstances would be a remarkable act of political courage.