WebRobert Alton Harris was born at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the fifth of nine children of Kenneth and Evelyn Harris. [15] On April 22, the Ninth Circuit issued an emergency writ of mandate vacating the restraining order, in which Judge Arthur Alarcn was joined by Judge Melvin T. Brunetti, over the dissent of Judge Noonan. Shall we keep people with such damaged consciences alive and try to reform them? Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. In fact, Beckers calculations to the contrary, capital punishment is much more expensive than life imprisonment, and it will continue to be unless we so greatly shorten the appeals process that we increase the proportion of innocent people who are executed. . But 95 percent of everybody we lock up is going to come home someday, rehabilitated or not.. Pete Wilsons televised rejection Thursday of a clemency petition by Harris. Death is not the worst state for a mind with no conscience or controls. Somehow justice has to be swift while being fair.. For instance, why dont we use taxpayer money for programs to prevent children from being tormented by their parents, just as the young Robert Alton Harris was, rather than putting the money into extended stays of execution and the board and care of multiple murderers? Pleading guilty to manslaughter, Robert served two and a half years in the state prison at San Luis Obispo. To have forgiven him would have been to say, We will no longer teach vengeance to you or your victims. The lawsuit raised the issue of whether California should switch to lethal injection as a form of execution. You do somebody wrong in prison and theyre gonna do you the ultimate wrong. In such an environment, Magriss turnabout must necessarily be seen as an exception to the rule, if not an outright miracle. Kenneth Harris had won a Silver Star and Purple Heart in World War II. in such a helpless, depressed state," Sam Mankins said of Michael's death. . It did nothing to change him and made me into a sacrificial lamb. San Diego murders Sometime in May or June 1978, Robert, then aged 25, asked his brother Daniel, 18, for help in planning a bank robbery. An appeal for clemency to California governor Pete Wilson who was mayor of San Diego at the time of the killings was rejected in a live television news conference, where Wilson read a statement acknowledging Harris' abusive childhood but ended with a clear rejection of the clemency request, saying, "As great as is my compassion for Robert Harris the child, I cannot excuse or forgive the choice made by Robert Harris the man. He would spend the rest of his days behind bars, they predicted. That is the method used by most states with death-penalty laws. Prosecutors attacked the appeal Friday as a meritless tactic designed merely to delay the execution. The best revenge you can have on criminals is to see them kill themselves not their bodies, the deaths of which are only a shadow gratification, but what offended you: their selfish malice, their contempt for human life, their identity as criminals. WebTwo suspects, Robert Alton Harris and his brother, Daniel Harris, were arrested a short time later and questioned by police. Sgt. Harris pleaded guilty to a federal charge of bank robbery and received a 25-year sentence.[9]. The innocent release in gratitude for their release. But by denying them justice, we affect our own access to it. WebOn July 5, 1978, Robert Alton Harris ("Harris") and his brother Daniel kidnapped two 16-year-old boys from a Jack-in the-Box parking lot in Mira Mesa, California.22 The D. Patrick Millers essay A Brutal Sadness [August 1993], for all its insight and tender heart, disturbs and angers me in exactly the same way. She must have known it too; that kid was out of our home the next morning, and I never saw him again. One makes hard, painful, Solomon-type choices. After taking the boys to a deserted wash near the Miramar Reservoir, Harris shot the two boys four times each. If we listen to the voice in the Miracle Ladys head, we will understand that the body is an illusion and, therefore, we need not execute guilty murderers because wed only be depriving them of their illusory bodies. Outside the prison, foes and advocates of the death penalty used the twin occasions of Good Friday and Passover to argue their respective religious positions. Harris was convicted and sentenced to death on March 6, 1979. A Course in Miracles suggests a reason that capital punishment is morbidly alluring to so many: The death penalty is the egos ultimate goal, for it fully believes that you are a criminal, as deserving of death as God knows you are deserving of life.. I want them locked up, or killed, to keep their guns out of my face and to save me the expense of hiring guards and turning my home into a fortress, which is what people in my social class had to do before there were prisons. The tragic saga began 14 years ago, on July 5, 1978, when Harris and his brother kidnapped the two 16-year-old Mira Mesa boys, best friends who lived down the street from each other, at gunpoint as they were sitting in the parking lot of a Jack In The Box restaurant in Mira Mesa. R. PULLEY, Warden, Petitioner v. Robert Alton HARRIS. It was a solemn act. Our criminal laws are absurd. San Quentin closure: From The Sacramento Bee archives, Sam Along the way, Robert had run-ins with police--glue-sniffing in Modesto at 12, four months in Juvenile Hall in Santa Rosa for stealing a car at 13. Robert Harris told the boys that they would be using the vehicle to rob a bank, but that no one would be hurt. Robert Alton WebRobert Alton Harris was an American murderer who was executed at San Quentin State Prison in 1992 for the 1978 murders of two teenage boys. It explains that we can begin to perceive the real world by making a simple but very radical choice: Salvation does not ask that you behold the spirit and perceive the body not. His execution was the first in the state of California since 1967.[1]. [6] In June 1973 Harris married, and the couple had a son, Robert, Jr., born in October 1974. He was Michael's father and at the time had been divorced from Sharron Mankins for almost 12 years. It was very sobering and somber, stark and real, eye-opening., For three years of his incarceration Magris served as an institutional photographer, called to duty every time there was an incident between prisoners or contraband was found. I am glad that Robert Alton Harris was executed because, as the perpetrator of a heinous crime, he deserved to be. "There were all these things he was just starting to enjoy. "Understanding and Blaming: Problems in the Attribution of Moral Responsibility". For his last meal, he requested and was given a 21-piece bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, two large Domino's pizzas, a bag of jelly beans, a six-pack of Pepsi, and a pack of Camel cigarettes. LAST SECOND DELAY OF EXECUTION MADE IT `TORTURE,` Her ruling was overturned, but the videotape is to be used as evidence in the class-action case. Shall we study them like lab rats? Robert stole a car and was arrested in Florida, winding up as a ward of federal reformatories for the next four years. 17 SoCal hiking trails that are blooming with wildflowers (but probably not for long! A last-ditch legal attempt to save Robert Alton Harris turned on the argument that he may have suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome. A woman in the area where the families of Harris victims were sitting cried out: Oh God!. At San Quentin prison, where Harris is under a deathwatch, a spokesman said Wilsons rejection of clemency had turned Harris more somber. [7] In 1975 while living in a trailer park in Imperial County,[2] Harris beat his brother Kens roommate, James Wheeler, to death, claiming he did so to protect the victim's wife; however, it was later determined that he beat the victim without provocation. He would not have defended it with such exasperation had he not been moved to question it. It created a very positive effect on day-to-day living in a place where racial and territorial tensions were still prevalent.. Michael's murder, Sharron Mankins said, destroyed the inner peace the couple had found with each other. We know we must still work for such a life and that we may not obtain it owing to our own failures, misfortunes, and sins. An hour later, the Harris brothers robbed the local bank of $2000 but were arrested shortly after. [4] In 1967, Evelyn abandoned Robert, then 14, in Sacramento and left him to fend for himself. Wheeler died. In their reply, state lawyers said the claims were patently without merit and noted that Harris has already filed more than a dozen appeals in piecemeal fashion in an attempt to delay his execution ad infinitum. Kevin Leary, a San Francisco Chronicle reporter who witnessed Harris execution and said he has also witnessed a lethal-injection execution, said he prefers that method. By denying criminals justice, we live with a growing underclass of violent, hopeless people. Give them lobotomies? He had orgasms while doing so. On July 2, Daniel stole two guns from a neighbor's house in Visalia, California, and the two drove to San Diego that night. WebThe defendant, Robert Alton Harris, and his brother, co-defendant Daniel Marcus Harris, abducted two teenage boys. Rarely, if ever, is the public made aware of the reasoning behind the District Attorneys Offices decision not to file charges in a case. One drunken night in an Imperial County trailer court, he and his oldest brother, Kenneth, decided to give a neighbor, James Wheeler, a lesson in how to fight. Do not underestimate the intensity of the egos drive for vengeance on the past. "We've sent letters to Governor Wilson, and I haven't had a call back," she said. [2][3] Kenneth was a sergeant in the United States Army who was awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his service in World War II. At the spiritual level, teaching peace means cultivating the willingness to relinquish the world as we know it, in favor of a peaceful world that is presently beyond both our perception and our imagination. The brothers then used the car as their getaway car when they robbed a bank in San Diego. The idea of miracles engages the child in each of us and its need for clear, happy conclusions the necessary stuff of wonder and myth. Robert Alton Harris | Found a Grave Robert Alton Harris (1909 - 1990) - Genealogy Nothing much had changed. Why is Frank McCourt really pushing this? Do we need more variations on the Christian pie-in-the-sky viewpoint? At a deeper level, we believe that state-sanctioned, ritualized killing will provide us with resolution, emotional satisfaction, and perhaps even a dramatic final opportunity to forgive those who trespass murderously against us. Maybe now they can sleep knowing justice is done.. Mankins, 48, remains haunted by a vision of her son's death and unable, she said, to carry on with her life until "justice is served and Harris is executed.". [15] Seconds before execution, Ninth Circuit Judge Harry Pregerson stayed the execution for the fourth time, explaining that Harris should be allowed to begin a new lawsuit in state court. Such questioning will not immediately yield a deathless world of spirit, for we have gone too deep into our illusions for that. BEING SYMPATHETIC TO BAD-HISTORY In an age of media conglomerates, were something of an oddity: an ad-free, independent, reader-supported magazine. He is the son of Kenneth and Evelyn Harris. Robert Alton Harris Robert joked and laughed with them awhile, then told them to start walking away. Former San Diego Police Chief Bill Kolender, who watched Harris die, said the execution sent a message that killers will face justice. On March 6, 1979, Robert Harris was convicted in the San Diego County Superior Court of two counts of murder in the first degree with special circumstances as well as two counts of kidnapping, and was sentenced to death. His mother had recently been put on parole for bank robbery. Crittendon said San Quentin Warden Daniel Vasquez visited Harris for about five minutes about 7:45 p.m. Crittendon said he didnt know what the two discussed. Robert Harris had other crimes on his mind. It is not a choice an entire society can make. In 1975 he was imprisoned for manslaughter and paroled in January 1978. The cycle of vengeance will never resolve itself; to end it we must question its foundation the belief that the body and its death are real. The state formalizes this rage in impersonal and ritualized executions, but it is rage nonetheless. WebRobert Alton HARRIS, and his brother, Daniel Marcus Harris, abducted two teenage boys from a fast food restaurant, forcing them to drive to an isolated area. He just slowly started looking around the gallery, and the minute he saw me he stopped, and he didnt look anymore, said Baker, a San Diego police detective. In addition to mercy and compassion, there is justice and responsibility in this world. Staff writers David Hasemyer, Jim OConnell, Dana Wilkie and Dori Meinert of Copley News Service contributed to this story. He slapped my face several times, banged my head against a tree, and laughed, Go ahead, pussy. My mother said I should be understanding because his father used to tie him up and punch the daylights out of him and that was the only kind of life he knew. In 1972, when the death penalty was overturned in California, Magriss death sentence was changed to life imprisonment; in 1977, it was reduced from life without parole to life. Robert Alton Harris Particularly in America, we seem bent on encouraging the endless cycle of violence feeding upon itself. Is this letter an illusion? , State Deputy Atty. Nothing unreal exists. Cases of murder and rape are so serious that it may be entirely appropriate to kill the perpetrators, not to get revenge on them or to deter anyone else, but simply to eliminate them. He then proceeded to persecute them before burying a bullet in both their brains. The adult Robert Alton Harris lost his right to live. I was a nurse for several years and spent hours with people as they died. He spoke with a lisp and sat by himself talking to imaginary friends and fantasizing about visits from mystical Indians and flying saucers. Magris emphatically believes so, arguing that society could be spending money and energy in more positive approaches to rehabilitation, which in the long run would be far more economical. Actually surrendering his belief in vengeance is a miracle he will have to induce himself. Federal Circuits, 9th Cir. But we are not God. Other members of the victims families clutched one another, Hearn said, as they watched Harris die. WebRobert Alton Harris was an American car thief, burglar, kidnapper and murderer who was executed at San Quentin State Prison in 1992 for the 1978 murders of two teenage boys Theyd fight and then go in the hole [solitary confinement], meaning their entire prison experience was altered. At Miramar Lake, the Harris brothers ordered the boys to kneel, whereupon the boys began to pray. ROBERT ALTON HARRIS THE EXECUTION THAT WAS FILM - Robert Alton HARRIS - YouTube For that is what Miller finally offers us, asking us to relinquish the world as we know it, in favor of a peaceful world that is presently beyond both our perception and our imagination.. Janice Gay demonstrated outside San Quentin against the execution of Robert Alton Harris in 1992. Are the crimes illusions, too? Menu. Killing has gone on and will always go on. If we must go down as the victims of senseless violence, we intend to go down with guns blazing. We seem studiously to avoid many other choices: to forgive without condoning or committing further violence ourselves; to lay down our arms; to turn the other cheek or even to try to love our perceived enemies. I saw guys who had committed suicide who were so determined and brutally sad that I was waking up in the middle of the night still smelling their blood., From 1981 until his release in 1985, Magris served as an inside coordinator for a study group on A Course in Miracles at San Quentin. Miller also assumes there is something inherently wrong with anger and vengeance. I dont know what the answer is, but its not forgiveness, and its not letting prisoners out. The choice for nonviolence is inherently personal and private. The power of the mad lessons he learned was such that Harris was doomed to commit violence again and again. The guys could go into that room and feel that they were in a safe environment where issues and feelings could be aired, without having to worry about going out in the yard and getting a knife stuck in their back. On July 2, Daniel stole two guns from a neighbor's house in Visalia, California, and the two drove to San Diego that night. We wound up kidnapping someone, and the victim was murdered. The Supreme Court of the United States reimposed Harris' death sentence in Pulley v. Harris (1984), reversing the Ninth Circuit by a vote of 72. Harris was paroled in January 1978. One gets off ones idealistic cloud of spirituality and finds a way to make common-sense choices that will benefit the people who are truly innocent. She chose to enslave him, and eventually he won the respect of the tribe through his service. We cannot even raise these questions as long as we feel vengeful. But around age ten Magris learned that the man in the photographs around his house was his biological father a bad man, he was told, who was in prison for murder, a Mafioso whose brothers and sisters were pimps and whores. Even then I knew her advice was bad. As the old saying goes, life itself is a fatal disease. "[15], Harris was executed on April 21, 1992, in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison the first execution in California in 25 years. In a recent interview at their home, Mankins and her husband of 17 years, Sam, 56, said the pain of Michael's death has been compounded by the decade of litigation that has kept Harris alive. After Harris was discharged in October, 1962, the family arrived in the San Joaquin Valley $2,500 in debt, with eight kids to feed and a ninth on the way. The execution order was given at 6:07a.m. and Harris died at 6:21a.m. His body was removed from the chamber at 7:00a.m. and was taken to a funeral home at 8:15a.m.[citation needed], Harris's execution is specifically remembered for his choice of final words (recorded by Warden Daniel Vasquez): "You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the grim reaper. Back in the late 1970s, Harris and his teenage brother, Daniel, stole hamburgers from their young victims' bodies after shooting them in a car robbery. So I tried to reach out in a . The old man clubbed his son in the head with a wrench. It was almost as if Robert Harris knew this time that he was going to die, said San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Lorie Hearn, one of 18 media witnesses to the execution. [5] He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and imprisoned in San Luis Obispo;[2] during his imprisonment Harris' wife filed for divorce. Fear will run rampant in your mind if you allow it, and when it does, it becomes bigger than life. Violence begets violence. Michael would have turned 30 this year, and only in the last year has his mother found the emotional strength to talk with reporters about him, she said. Open your mind to change, and there will be no ancient penalty exacted from your brother or yourself. [2][3][5] After making his way to Oklahoma to live with his brother and sister, he stole a car and was subsequently arrested in Florida. It was the most macabre experience of my life, said Michael Tuck of KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. Education and responsibility are what I pursue as a writer and a human being. His date with the gas chamber is set for Tuesday morning at one minute past midnight Pacific time. A lawsuit by two Rincon Middle school teachers argues parents deserve to know. He made his way to Oklahoma, where sister Barbara and brother Randy lived. Harris wanted to use their car in a bank robbery he had been planning. [3] Robert was especially targeted for abuse by his father, who believed that Robert was conceived in an affair. If legislators can shorten the time between conviction and execution "so victims don't go through torture for 13 years, even if they can shorten it for 10 years, at least that's something," she said. To eliminate capital punishment would not raise the ethics of humanity. When Roberts eldest sister was arrested for theft shortly after the familys arrival in California in 1962, she told of her fathers sexual abuse; he was convicted of being a sex offender and went to jail for eighteen months. It never has. [15] On April 18, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel issued a temporary restraining order barring Harris' execution while she considered his lawsuit challenging the gas chamber's constitutionality. Three others--Mississippi, Missouri and North Carolina--give the choice of gas or lethal injection. Pete Wilson (R) denied Harris's petition for clemency. A probation officers report noted that his parents whereabouts were unknown. From the archives: Time runs out for killer of 2 youths here Despite his own reformation there, Magris reports that prison is a place where vengeance is both institutionalized and intensified. But Magris lived a double life. For instance, nearly everyone harbors self-hatred of a complex nature, including the petty and the profound. All lives are not equal; neither are all deaths. This process eventually will feel shattering to the ego and ones sense of reality because real forgiveness will actually undo the world as we see it. Later, the father would load his gun and tell Robbie to run. Lungren said he originally planned to witness the execution and was present in the gas-chamber viewing area when Harris was strapped in for the first, aborted execution attempt. This love of life gives rise to the deterrent theory behind the death penalty. I asked Magris what he would say to crime victims who assert that they have a right to see the criminals who hurt them punished. I invite responses at 103 N. Hwy 101, #1022, Encinitas, CA 92024. The Course defines salvation as the perception of the real world. Wanting to get even is only natural, we tell ourselves. Kay Mayeski died a year ago after a long battle with cancer. If we presume that God brings all natural deaths to us, why not exact a death penalty from our Creator? On his twenty-first birthday, his credentials as a petty criminal well established, Magris and his pals decided to do a robbery. In 1978, Robert Alton Harris and his brother, Daniel Marcus Harris, went to a fast food restaurant and abducted two teenage boys. In an order signed by Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas, the court said it had carefully read and considered legal arguments from both sides. Forgiveness is often mistaken for the passive acceptance of wrongdoing and the denial of anger. Seconds before the cyanide gas filled the chamber, Harris had looked squarely into the eyes of Steve Baker, the father of one of the two San Diego teen-age boys Harris murdered. Vasquez had planned to provide a prison chaplain for Harris, but opposed allowing the prisoners second cousin into the prison on the night of the execution, saying that it might lead to a desperate act to free Harris or interfere with the execution.

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