Final Delays Criticized in Harris Case : Reaction: Some area residents say the 11th-hour volleys of court actions leading to the execution were inhumane.

Looking up from her paperback novel, “Rage of Angels,” Betsey Williams expressed a little rage of her own at the fitful process that ended Tuesday with the death of Robert Alton Harris.

It’s not that she wanted the convicted murderer to be spared. “I’m glad they did it,” Williams said. “I think he deserved it.”

What she resented, Williams said, was the 14-year delay between Harris’ crime--the slaying of two teen-agers in San Diego--and his punishment in the gas chamber at San Quentin.

“Fourteen years was too long,” Williams said. “I think the judicial system should work a lot faster than that.”

And like many people interviewed Tuesday at the Ventura County Hall of Justice, Williams said she was disturbed by the middle-of-the-night, cross-country volley of court actions in Harris’ case. In his final hours, the 39-year-old killer was granted three separate stays of execution--including a last-second delay after he had been strapped into the gas chamber--before the U.S. Supreme Court issued a final order permitting the execution.

“I don’t think that was fair,” Williams said as she waited to drive a busload of schoolchildren back to Ojai. “It was too nerve-racking for him and the victims’ families.”

Bill Goth, a county employee who was eating lunch at the courthouse cafeteria, agreed.

“I feel he got what he deserved,” Goth said, as he pushed back the remains of his soup. “But it was tough on him having all those stays. I’m not sure his attorneys did him any justice. I don’t think that’s very humane.”

Virginia Caldwell and Marty McKinzie engaged in a friendly debate as they sat outside in the sun.

“The Bible says, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ ” said Caldwell, a death-penalty opponent who lives in Oxnard. “God will give him his just reward. I wouldn’t want any part of that.”

But McKinzie said those who violate the Sixth Commandment deserve to suffer the same fate as their victims.

Then there are practical considerations, he said.

“It’s costing us too much money” to wage the seemingly endless court battles over capital punishment, said McKinzie, a Camarillo resident. “We have other things to spend that money on.”

He dismissed the argument that abuse as a child helped turn Harris into a killer, saying, “He was an adult, and he was responsible for his actions.”

Several courthouse visitors were ambivalent about capital punishment.

“I guess I’m kind of for it in a way, and then again I’m not,” said Veronica Smith, who was feeding her 6-week-old daughter at a cafeteria table.

“But some people deserve it,” Smith said. And if anybody harmed her baby, she said, “I’d want to do it myself.”

Smith had driven up from Orange County with her friend, Melissa Carrizal, who was fighting a speeding ticket. “I’m all for it,” Carrizal said of Harris’ execution. “They should have done it when he committed the crime.”

Smith said some delay is warranted before an execution, lest an innocent person be put to death. She cited the case of two Los Angeles men who served 17 years in prison for the slaying of a deputy sheriff before their release last month after doubts arose about their guilt.

“If they’re guilty, though, and there’s no reasonable doubt, then fry ‘em,” Smith said. As she and Carrizal broke out in embarrassed giggling, Smith added, “That’s terrible.”

Steven Powell, a Ventura defense attorney who supports the death penalty, said it nonetheless makes him uneasy.

To some extent, he said, “The state is descending to the same level as the criminal. But the element of vengeance is something that we see in the law from time immemorial, and that can’t be disregarded.”

Margaret Ely, a legal assistant who was answering phones in the Ventura County public defender’s office, said the public’s demand for vengeance simply leads to more violence.

“As long as we carry that anger . . . we’re just perpetuating the climate that creates a Robert Alton Harris,” said Ely, who also is a Santa Paula councilwoman.

“It’s tragic that we live in a world where kids are abused to the point where they grow up and kill people, then we as a society kill them.”

In the district attorney’s office one floor away, office assistant Sandy Alvarez said Harris “got what he deserved.”

“You take a life, you have to give yours up,” she said, pointing out that Harris had previously been involved in a killing. (Harris pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the 1975 slaying of a neighbor in Imperial County and served 2 1/2 years in state prison.)

“He did it once before,” Alvarez said. “If he had gotten it then, there would have been two less victims.”

As he observed Alvarez being interviewed, Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles R. Roberts Sr. said the media has paid too much attention to the execution.

“It glorifies these people,” Roberts said. “My son got a National Merit Scholarship and there’s not a drop of ink. What does that tell about us as a society? It’s better to kill somebody and get 15 minutes of fame.”

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