Candlelight Vigil in Santa Ana Protests State’s Death Penalty

About 20 people gathered at the Civic Center here to protest the state’s death penalty and to hold a candlelight vigil for condemned killer Robert Alton Harris.

“It is a time for grieving,” Mike Niemeyer, a chaplain at the Juvenile Hall in Orange and one of the organizers of the vigil, said earlier in the evening. “There is a sense of loss, not just the loss of a human being, (but) a loss of values in society.”

The 20 people began to gather about 8:15 p.m. and listened to news reports over a portable radio. Most just sat quietly, shielding their lighted candles from a warm breeze blowing through the plaza.

“I believe in the theological principle that we have no right to take a life,” said Sister Louise Ann, the chaplain at the Orange County Women’s Jail. “As a chaplain, I see these people as real people. I think . . . I have changed my opinion by knowing them.”

The small crowd applauded when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a second stay of execution for Harris, based on the defense claim that the use of lethal gas constitutes “cruel and unusual” punishment.

“I’m just morally opposed to the death penalty, and I thought I had to do something by coming out here,” said Jean Wilkinson of Huntington Beach. “Maybe people will begin to think about the death penalty.”