On
this date, April 21, 1992, Robert Alton Harris was executed by the gas chamber
in San Quentin, California for the murders of two teenage boys. He was the
first person to be executed in the State of California since 1967. I am
grateful that 20 years later, the victim’s family was grateful that justice was served. I hope this can be a lesson for those victims’ families waiting for
justice, it is the 2013 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week this week. I will
post information from several internet sources before writing a rebutting essay
to the late Mother Teresa.
Robert Alton Harris
|
|
Born
|
January 15,
1953
Fort Bragg, North Carolina |
Died
|
April 21,
1992 (aged 39)
San Quentin State Prison San Quentin, California |
Conviction(s)
|
Murder,
kidnapping, burglary, robbery
|
Penalty
|
Death
|
Conviction
status
|
Executed in
gas
|
Robert Alton Harris (January 15, 1953 – April 21, 1992) was an American criminal
and murderer who was executed at San Quentin State Prison in 1992 in
conjunction with the 1978 murders of two teenage boys in San Diego. His
execution was the first in the state of California since 1967.
Harris
was born in North Carolina and was abused as a child. He had run-ins with law
enforcement as early as age 10, and was first placed into juvenile detention at
age 13 for stealing a car. His mother abandoned him at age 14 and soon after he
was again placed into juvenile detention after stealing another car. Following
his release he found work, married, and had a son, but in 1975 he was
imprisoned for manslaughter; he was paroled in January 1978.
On
July 5, 1978, Harris and his younger brother commandeered a car occupied by two
16-year-old boys, ordered them to drive to a remote area, then killed them. The
brothers then drove the boys' car to a San Diego bank, robbed it, and used it
as their getaway car. Harris was arrested less than an hour after the robbery
and charged with murder, auto theft, kidnapping, burglary, and bank robbery. He
was convicted and sentenced to death on March 6, 1979. After a series of
appeals and stays of execution, Harris was executed in San Quentin's gas
chamber on April 21, 1992.
Early
life and criminal history
Robert
Alton Harris was born at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the fifth of nine
children of Kenneth and Evelyn Harris. 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. Both parents were alcoholics, and Robert reportedly was born two months
premature as a result of Kenneth kicking Evelyn in the abdomen; Robert is also
reported to have suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome. Robert was especially
targeted for abuse by his father, who believed that Robert was conceived in an affair.
The Harris family moved to Visalia, California in 1962 following Kenneth
Harris' discharge from the Army. Kenneth Harris was jailed in 1963 for 18
months and again for a longer period of time in 1964, both times for sexually
abusing his daughters. With Kenneth in jail, the remaining family members lived
a migrant life around the San Joaquin Valley.
Robert
spent four months in juvenile hall at age 13 for stealing a car. In 1967,
Evelyn abandoned Robert, then 14, in Sacramento and left him to fend for
himself. After making his way to Oklahoma to live with his brother and sister,
he stole a car and was subsequently arrested in Florida. He spent the next 3
years in the Florida juvenile detention system, but when he turned 19, the
system could no longer keep him, and he was sent to Chula Vista, California. At
some point Harris married and the couple had a son, Robert, Jr., born in 1974
or 1975. In 1975 while living in a trailer park in Imperial County, Harris beat
his brother's roommate 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 was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and imprisoned in San Luis Obispo;
during his imprisonment Harris' wife filed for divorce. Harris was paroled in
January 1978.
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. On July 2, Daniel stole two guns from a
neighbor's house in Visalia, California, and the two drove to San Diego that
night. They spent the next two days purchasing ammunition and practicing the
robbery in a rural area near Miramar Lake.
On
July 5, the Harris brothers happened upon John Mayeski and Michael Baker, both
16, sitting in a green Ford LTD eating hamburgers in a supermarket parking lot
in Mira Mesa. Mayeski and Baker were best friends who had planned to spend the
day fishing to celebrate Mayeski's newly acquired driver's license. Robert
Harris commandeered Mayeski's car and ordered him to drive to Miramar Lake,
with Daniel Harris following in another vehicle. Robert Harris told the boys
that they would be using the vehicle to rob a bank, but that no one would be
hurt. At Miramar Lake, the Harris brothers ordered the boys to kneel, whereupon
the boys began to pray. Robert told the boys to "Quit crying, and die like
men", then shot both boys multiple times. The Harris brothers then
returned to Robert's Mira Mesa home and finished the victims' half-eaten
hamburgers while Robert boasted about the killings.
About
an hour later, the Harris brothers robbed the Mira Mesa branch of the San Diego
Trust and Savings Bank located across the street from where they had abducted
Mayeski and Baker, and fled with about $2,000. A witness to the robbery
followed the Harrises to their home and notified police. The Harris brothers
were arrested less than an hour after the robbery. One of the officers who
apprehended the Harris brothers was Steven Baker, father of victim Michael
Baker, who at the time was unaware that his son had been killed, let alone by
one of the men he was arresting.
Conviction
and execution
The
San Diego County District Attorney's Office filed felony charges of auto theft,
kidnapping, murder and burglary against Robert Harris, while the U.S.
Attorney's Office filed bank robbery charges against him. 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. Daniel Harris was convicted
of kidnapping and sentenced to six years in state prison; he was released in
1983.
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." Wilson then left
without waiting for reporters' questions.
In
1990, federal appeals court judge John T. Noonan, Jr. issued a stay on the
execution, as Harris argued that childhood brain damage interfered with his
judgments during his crimes.
Robert
Alton Harris was executed on April 21, 1992, in the gas chamber at San Quentin
State Prison -- the first execution in California in 25 years. 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. At 6:01 a.m., Harris was escorted into the gas chamber.
The
execution order was given at 6:07 a.m. PDT, and Robert Alton Harris died at
6:21 a.m. PDT. Harris' body was removed from the chamber at 7:00 a.m. and was
taken to a funeral home at 8:15 a.m.
Harris'
execution was originally scheduled for 12:01 a.m. on the morning of April 21,
but a series of four stays issued by individual federal judges delayed the
execution until just after 6 a.m. In its order vacating the fourth stay of
execution, the U.S. Supreme Court stated, "No further stays of Robert
Alton Harris's execution shall be entered by the Federal courts except upon
order of this Court."
Harris'
execution is specifically remembered for his peculiar 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," a misquote from the
film Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, released in 1991. His execution was
the subject of a 1995 Dutch documentary film, Procedure 769, witness to an
execution.
 |
| Executions in California were carried out in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison. It was modified for the use of lethal injection, but has been returned to its original designated purpose, with the creation of a new chamber specifically for lethal injection. |
LINKS:
COMMENTS:
I do respect the late Mother Teresa in many
ways, I respect her for her Pro-Life position and how she had helped the needy.
However, I totally disagree with her stance against the death penalty. I
understand she is not with the ACLU (as they are Pro-Choice). When I was a
former death penalty opponent, I thought she was right but now I know she was
not. I would like to rebut her from reading this article.
“What you do to them, you do to God.”
REBUTTAL: Those men on California Death Row are
very evil. The State is obeying God when they execute these evildoers. Please
do not equate Jesus with murderers, he is a good and loving God and not a
killer. You
should use that quote to those on death row, that what they do to their victims
are what they had done to God, they had destroyed human lives, so they must
forfeit theirs.
Please
learn the facts of the murders:
WHO
IS ON DEATH ROW - A GRIM REMINDER
On May 16, 1996, 8-year-old Michael Lyons, a
third-grader, was walking home from his school when he was kidnapped by serial
killer and convicted sex offender Robert Rhoades. Rhoades tortured and
sodomized Michael for 10 hours. He stabbed him 70 times before slitting his
throat and dumping his body by a river. Rhoades' DNA also linked him to the
rape-murder of 18-year-old Alameda high school student Julie Connell.
Michael's murder is just one committed by the 729 death
row killers in California. These killers represent less than 2 percent of all
murderers in our state. Their victims include:
- 235 who were sexually assaulted
- 225 children
- 90 who were tortured
- 43 police officers.
- Other death row killers include:
Lawrence Bittaker - twisted off the nipples of his
teenage victims with pliers as he raped them, then shoved ice picks in their
ears. Bittaker photographed and tape recorded some of his crimes.
Richard Allen Davis - kidnapped 12-year-old Polly Klaas,
attempted to sexually assault her and strangled her to death. Davis was a
career criminal, with prior convictions for burglary, kidnapping, and attempted
armed robbery.
Richard Ramirez - the "Night Stalker" -
convicted of 13 counts of murder, where he raped, tortured and mutilated his
victims, who ranged from 6 to 83 years old. In 2009, he was tied through
DNA to the previously unsolved murder of a 9-year old child.
That’s all I said. He talked again about
how it was in the state’s hand, so I repeated what I said, .Do what Jesus would
do if he was in your position. We have to pray, she continued. We all have to
pray so that he gets the grace and the courage to do what Jesus would do. Pray
hard. Get as many people to pray for courage for him. Get everyone in the
country to pray. And then, we have to respond to his decision with love and compassion.
And keep praying for the family of the victims, too.
REBUTTAL: Mother Teresa should have got them to
pray when the victims were murdered. Please see this quote from the late President
Ronald Reagan.
God sees only love. God only sees the love that we
put into what we do.
REBUTTAL: The Death Penalty is the affirming of
life, it is the loving thing to do for society. If we do not execute violent
criminals, there is nothing but chaos. God who demands the death penalty for
murderers in the Old Testament is the same Jesus Christ in the New Testament.
Do what Jesus would do.
REBUTTAL: Please see my blog post, ‘DEFENDING THE DEATH PENALTY: THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST’.
Mother
Teresa needs to know that there are mass murderers, serial killers, prison killers, recidivist murderers and war criminals who cannot be rehabilitated.
Please learn more from the bible and do not grieve the Victims’ Families For the Death Penalty and also protect society.
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