Education and responsibility are what I pursue as a writer and a human being. He would spend the rest of his days behind bars, they predicted. If we treat prisoners more humanely, would they be getting away with it, or would we be doing ourselves a service?. Defense lawyers said such evidence--that Robert began shooting only after his brother opened fire--would have supported the claim that Robert had not planned the killings but had gone into an uncontrollable mental state, thus making him legally insane at the time of the crime. It is a dangerous world because it is a world of death. What made David Magris different from Robert Alton Harris and other career criminals? Pete Wilson watched television coverage of the events preceding the scheduled execution, sticking close to a telephone should he have to intervene during last-minute appeals from Harris attorneys. Robert also had his first contact with police--for killing cats, although he maintained that he only watched as others did the deeds. He would beat him with a bamboo cane and taunt him with a loaded gun, telling him to run. At 6:01a.m., Harris was escorted into the gas chamber. WebRobert Alton Harris, Petitioner, v. R. Pulley, Warden of the California State Prison At San Quentin, Respondent. 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. They arrived to find the father with his pants down, involved in a sex act with one of Roberts sisters. By Christmastime, the Harrises had their first run-in with the law in California. Perhaps we were simply too cowardly to take up a gun or a knife. Reentry programs would enable prisoners to return to society more smoothly, says Magris, instead of creating the current mind-set that the only way I can make it is in prison, because thats the only place where they get three meals, a cot, and a monthly pittance to buy cigarettes, potato chips, and drugs. Actually killing someone to get even, however, is crazy. Sgt. Gen. Louis Hanoian said no evidence was withheld and the claim that Daniel Harris was hypnotized was an outrageous lie.. All lives are not equal; neither are all deaths. Her ruling was overturned, but the videotape is to be used as evidence in the class-action case. (Michael Franklin/San Diego Union-Tribune 1992 file photo). 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. Somehow justice has to be swift while being fair.. Our criminal laws are absurd. While I agree with D. Patrick Miller wholeheartedly that prisons should exist solely for the positive transformation of their inmates into contributing members of society, I believe he totally misses the point of the death penalty. But we are not God. He mouthed the words, looking me square in the eye: `Im sorry. I nodded my head at him.. Like a number of other prison reform advocates, Magris would like to see the prisons become more self-supporting by giving inmates marketable skills, and requiring them to pay room and board and help support their families on the outside. Wanting to get even is only natural, we tell ourselves. Five years after Michael's murder, tragedy struck the family again when Tammy Baker, Steve and Sharron's daughter, was thrown from the back of a motorcycle and killed the night before her 18th birthday. 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 I owe this to Michael.". He made his way to Oklahoma to live with his sister Barbara and brother Randy and was expelled from the eighth grade after his first day at school. 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. This love of life gives rise to the deterrent theory behind the death penalty. Ive never experienced anything like it in my 10 years here, said Toni House, the high courts public-information officer. They stole guns from a neighbor, returned to San Diego, and took target practice. Atheists may substitute the forces of nature for the idea of God, but the basic logic is unchanged. But when they do choose abortion, with a conscience full of prayer, the very act of their spiritual struggle is a lifting up of the human spirit for all of humanity. On July 2, Daniel stole two guns from a neighbor's house in Visalia, California, and the two drove to San Diego that night. Maybe to God no one is a hopeless case. I used to be against the death penalty, but Im not anymore. Murderers are our whipping boys and girls for the metaphysical insult of mortality. 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. The abrupt command ended a grueling all-night marathon that court employees said was unlike anything in recent memory. We could, however, create more community service programs, so that criminals at least have a civilized alternative. Its absolutely true, as Robert Becker suggests, that killing a murderer prevents him from killing again. spiritual way, and tell him I could forgive him because he was giving his life like that, accepting it like a man., When Harriss head rolled down to his chest, Clark reported feeling this rush of being at peace with myself. In December, 1964, the elder Harris got drunk and became unusually abusive. But 95 percent of everybody we lock up is going to come home someday, rehabilitated or not.. She never had anything good to say for Robbie, sister Brenda Harris said. Schizophrenia was diagnosed. His lack of comprehension that deaths are different must come from a lack of exposure to actual death. "This is a political game now," Sharron Mankins said of recent pleas to spare Harris's life from celebrities including Mother Teresa and Hollywood television stars. When I feel angry and vengeful, I attempt to face those feelings squarely and completely, and then I decide whether I want them to drive my behavior. He later gloated about their deaths and ate the rest of their hamburgers. She must have known it too; that kid was out of our home the next morning, and I never saw him again. Robert was the fifth of their nine children, and the slowest. Chikatilo, the Russian criminal who is estimated to have tortured, killed, and eaten more than fifty people, loved to mutilate their genitals. Sharron and Sam Mankins each brought three children from previous marriages to their own, creating what they call a "Brady Bunch" household. . It can ease the pain these families have been experiencing. They gave him $50 pocket money and a bus ticket to Chula Vista, where his father lived. While a priest held a Good Friday service, two Evangelical preachers recited biblical passages in support of their belief that God would endorse Californias first execution in a generation. Robert stole a car and was arrested in Florida, winding up as a ward of federal reformatories for the next four years. He made his way to Oklahoma, where sister Barbara and brother Randy lived. Pete Wilsons televised rejection Thursday of a clemency petition by Harris. There, in the parking lot, they were kidnapped at gunpoint by two men later identified as Robert Alton Harris, then 25, a paroled murderer, and his brother, Daniel, then 18. We continue to hype and glorify violence: as entertainment; as proof of our strength as individuals, as tribes, and as a nation; and finally, as the best or final answer to violence itself. "He was just a really neat teenager, an easygoing, down-to-earth, even-tempered teen," she said. Staff writers David Hasemyer, Jim OConnell, Dana Wilkie and Dori Meinert of Copley News Service contributed to this story. He graduated from Strawn High School and attended Ranger Jr. College. If youre guilty, you deserve justice, which is to be killed; if youre crazy, you deserve treatment. 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. Society is lucky in that this individual does not seem likely to kill again, but I do not want the safety of my family to depend on luck. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. The revelation hit him like a bullet. There is no glee here, Lungren said at a press conference following Harris execution. Some said he suffered from shellshock. "There were all these things he was just starting to enjoy. When Harris turned 19, authorities could no longer hold him. Randy Harris said he once spoke to his father about the life and crimes that led little Robbie to the gas chamber. The Course is a one-year, self-study curriculum that guides its students toward an instinctive, utilitarian spirituality by restoring their contact with what it calls the Internal Teacher. Published in 1976, the Course was written down over a period of seven years by Columbia University research psychologist Helen Schucman, who claimed to hear a soundless voice giving her a compelling inner dictation. Schucman, who died in 1981, never claimed authorship of the Course. Robert Harris told the boys that they would be using the vehicle to rob a bank, but that no one would be hurt. One of Harris last hopes for a reprieve was dashed Thursday when Wilson denied his request for clemency -- a bid to have a death sentence reduced to a lifetime in prison. WebRobert Alton Harris. Any concept of punishment involves the projection of blame, and reinforces the idea that blame is justified. They admitted that managing a house full of teenagers has been a challenge but describe it as a happy experience. They met in a small conference room and were monitored He also serves as a board member of Centerforce, an organization that manages hospitality houses at state prisons, where the visiting families of inmates are greeted and assisted with child care. D. Patrick Miller too often sounds like a true believer when he applies A Course in Miracles to the body politic. Kroll said Harris was not surprised by Wilsons denial of clemency, but continued to talk about the future, as if he held out hope that a court would grant an Easter weekend reprieve. The investigation revealed that at 10:30 a.m. on July 5, 1978, the defendant and co There still are no pictures of tall, blue-eyed Michael Baker on the walls of the Mankins's home. What are the reasonable consequences of a crime for criminals, for victims, for society? Havent we all been seized at least once by a murderous rage and wondered later what kept us from acting on it? I only know about my own experience. In sum, God and nature get off the hook for apparently committing murders because we have no way of punishing either of them. WebThe defendant, Robert Alton Harris, and his brother, co-defendant Daniel Marcus Harris, abducted two teenage boys. Human beings presently believe in punishment and vengeance as necessary and inescapable strategies for survival, social order, and personal advancement. From the archives: Time runs out for killer of 2 youths here A lawsuit by two Rincon Middle school teachers argues parents deserve to know. [15][17], On April 21, 1992, at 3:49a.m., Harris was strapped into the gas chamber. If we can't execute Harris, we won't be able to execute anyone.". His wife Evelyn, one of 11 children from a poor Cherokee family in Oklahoma, took her first drink by age 8. He became inhuman. One makes hard, painful, Solomon-type choices. He was arrested less than an hour after the robbery and charged with murder, auto theft, kidnapping, burglary, and bank robbery. "We'll be doing fine, and then there's the footage of Harris on TV with that smirk he always has on his face. The suit--which employs emotional statements from Holocaust survivors and physicians--argues that killing the condemned by forcing them to inhale hydrogen cyanide fumes in the San Quentin gas chamber inflicts torture and unnecessary pain and suffering when other, more humane methods--such as lethal injections--are available. 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. Human murderers dont get off the hook because we can punish them. He then calmly finished off the burgers hed stolen off them. Instead we should give the victims and their families the option of either killing their offenders swiftly and cheaply or enslaving them to community service. Soon after his release in 1978, he drove from San Diego to Visalia to attend a Fourth of July picnic with his family; his mother, serving time for bank robbery, was out on parole. . Thats life. D. Patrick Millers essay A Brutal Sadness [August 1993] challenges the often-heard but indefensible view that vengeance is justice. The ego and body were created, says the Course, when we decided to separate from God or, rather, when we mistakenly decided to believe we had separated from God, which the Course asserts is impossible. In a vengeful and violent society, theres a great temptation simply to eliminate the worst byproducts of our cultural mind-set. Killing has gone on and will always go on. Now let me see if I got this straight: some lady hears voices telling her that the spiritual world is real and the material world is an illusion. In the safety of Juvenile Hall, she began revealing the sexual things her father would do to the girls. It did nothing to change him and made me into a sacrificial lamb. 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. After Robert shot To get past that, you have to confront your fear., Without a death penalty, I asked Magris, wont many people conclude that murderers can get away with it? They also dropped by to visit their father, who clubbed Robert in the head with a wrench. Millers example of the child who died of leukemia certainly is a different kind of death from the one that Robert Alton Harris dealt his victims. Rather than interpret this irony as another example of the fallibility of human justice, I interpret it as another example of the perfection of divine justice. The previous essays in this series are Back to the Real World [Issue 153], Climbing the Stone Face of Fear [Issue 164], and Homeless [Issue 166]. Does that timidity make us sane? Rev. Wilson would have no comment or statement about the execution, a spokesman said, though earlier in the evening the governor had promised he would not be making any phone calls seeking to commute the sentence.. Letting the victim sentence the criminal, within guidelines of course, would personalize the concept of justice, empower the victim, and (if he werent executed) allow the offender to make amends by producing wealth instead of draining it. Harris was We do not want to reduce access to even the most dangerous guns in our own country. On the morning of April 21, Clark was deeply moved by Harriss last-minute apology to Steve Baker. 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.". To have forgiven him would have been to say, We will no longer teach vengeance to you or your victims. Not necessarily: I couldnt care less about punishing them. We discuss his true crime history, his execution , and we eat his last meal. This is how I go about changing my own human nature. Margarito Angeles Vargas, 46, is accused of hitting 19-month-old Annaleeh Rodarte the evening of Sept. 24, 2022 on Redwood Street near 40th Street, Robin McPherson, now 68, was slated to appear for a March 2001 sentencing hearing following his convictions for tax evasion and conspiracy, but instead fled the country, according to the Department of Justice, No charges were ever filed by South Dakota authorities against T. Denny Sanford, who has donated nearly $1 billion to San Diego institutions. Shall we keep people with such damaged consciences alive and try to reform them? He joined the Marines in his senior year of high school and narrowly avoided service in Vietnam because of his aged parents health and the pregnancy of his young wife. The nod, however, was not one of forgiveness but only acknowledgment, said Baker, who wore a small gold pin shaped like a hangmans noose on the lapel of his gray suit. Harris describes himself as a drug and alcohol counselor, a Southern Baptist minister and a sheriffs deputy in Mobile, Ala. Where is the criminals accountability in all of this? If we must go down as the victims of senseless violence, we intend to go down with guns blazing. The other warriors captured him and gave the dead mans wife the choice of what to do with his killer. To those who favor capital punishment, his case came to symbolize their frustrations with a legal system that allows lengthy appeals by a killer condemned to die. He spoke with a lisp and sat by himself talking to imaginary friends and fantasizing about visits from mystical Indians and flying saucers. The real world is the state of mind in which the only purpose of the world is seen to be forgiveness. [2] With Kenneth in jail, the remaining family members lived a migrant life around the San Joaquin Valley. San Quentin state prison Warden Daniel Vasquez said Harris told him that his final statement was, You can be a king or a street-sweeper, but everybody dances with the Grim Reaper.. Former San Diego Police Chief Bill Kolender, who watched Harris die, said the execution sent a message that killers will face justice. [14], Harris was scheduled to die on April 21, 1992. It helps us to understand what forgiveness really is: not the self-sacrificing acceptance of wrongs that have been done to us, but rather the willingness to recover a long-abandoned world of peace by questioning both the sanity and reality of the world we have built on vengeance. Those who oppose the death penalty saw a mentally dysfunctional misfit being sentenced to die for crimes for which they felt he was not fully responsible. In these cases we think it just that we suffer reasonable consequences and then be allowed to earn another chance. Robert Harris outlived his parents. It merely asks that this should be your choice. Between this choice and its fulfillment lies our most profound learning task, one that can encompass and direct all other forms of learning. Our sense of civilization requires that this someone be guilty of murder. On July 5, 1978, Harris and his younger brother commandeered a car occupied by two 16-year-old boys, John Mayeski and Michael Baker, ordered them to drive to a remote area, then killed them. Then Robert Harris ate the boys' hamburgers, laughing at the blood that gushed from Mayeski's fatal head wound. After thinking about his creation, the old man demanded to know: How could that bastard do that?, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. After a fruitless search, they drove to a fast-food restaurant for lunch. Societal adulthood is even tougher than Becker thinks. At 52, she recalled that when her mother hit the whiskey, she would get wild and vicious. We invented death as our answer to Gods invention of eternal life, for our creative powers are God-like, though we have used them to make a chaotic world of beauty and death mixed together. Prison was like a rebirth. In an extraordinary move, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor ruled that no further delays of Harris execution would be allowed unless ordered by the Supreme Court. Times staff writers Jenifer Warren and Bob Baker in San Francisco, Paul Feldman in Los Angeles and Alan Abrahamson in San Diego contributed to this story. WebHarris was paroled in January 1978. Justin E.H. Smith On The Mysteries Of Language. According to the Los Angeles Times, Clark had had a vivid dream a few weeks before the execution, in which Harriss death unleashed a cloud of black gremlins that shrieked and flew in circles around his head before descending, tornado like, into hell. A flurry of legal appeals kept delaying what became the states first execution in 25 years. 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. It isnt always so clear. Deputies in San Diego lead Robert Alton Harris from courtroom in 1979 after he was convicted of kidnap murders of two teenage boys. I dont think so. This appeal failed, and Harris went to his death because the justice system determined that he was sane that is, capable of understanding his actions and their consequences, and therefore responsible for his choices. . Leon Harris of Alabama, whom he had chosen as his spiritual adviser, was locked into a cell adjacent to Harris so that he could stay with Harris during the final hours. And it just opens up all the wounds, and we hope maybe, just maybe, the judicial system is going to prevail. He started slapping Wheeler around about 9 a.m. In asking for a stay of Tuesdays 12:01 a.m. execution, the defense charged that prosecutors withheld evidence about Daniel that may have helped save Robert Harris from a death sentence at the 1979 trial. It's an awful, terrible feeling.". Fear will run rampant in your mind if you allow it, and when it does, it becomes bigger than life. Harris' death sentence was affirmed by the Supreme Court of California in 1981. From this mistaken belief arose an entire illusory world of time and matter, a world in which God is hidden from us because God lives in timeless, indestructible reality. When they returned home, Michael said goodnight and went to bed. No. It got worse and worse. Kay Mayeski died a year ago after a long battle with cancer. Daniel Harris was convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to six years in state prison; he was released in 1983. Violence might come to us at random, as Harris came to young Baker and Mayeski, and we would be unprepared to protect ourselves or avenge the deaths of the innocent. Do not underestimate the intensity of the egos drive for vengeance on the past. Later divorced, Magris ended up in a crash pad where drugs were sold to subsidize the rent. Rarely, if ever, is the public made aware of the reasoning behind the District Attorneys Offices decision not to file charges in a case. Arrested on a drug charge, he managed to avoid additional prosecution for running a burglary ring only because there was insufficient evidence to convict him. 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. Today Magris is married and lives not far from San Quentin. He was somewhat distracted and, at times, seemed depressed, Kroll said. Michael's murder, Sharron Mankins said, destroyed the inner peace the couple had found with each other. The brothers ordered the teens to drive to a lake, then forced them to kneel. 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. [15][16], On April 20, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a separate stay of execution the Ninth Circuit had issued on Harris' habeas corpus petition. Through the windows of the soundproof chamber, many of the forty-eight witnesses to the execution saw Harris mouth the words, Im sorry. Baker nodded his head sharply in acceptance of the apology. In a letter earlier this month, he wrote: Robert has looked to me for the strength to seek the Lords forgiveness and face his own death.. Linda Herring, now 26 and married, was convinced that she would be next to die, Sharron Mankins said. The brothers then used the stolen vehicle to Three years ago this month, Kenneth Harris Sr. placed a shotgun against his chest and squeezed. If it costs fifty thousand dollars a year to secure a prisoner, thats one million dollars over twenty years. The brothers then used the car as their getaway car when they robbed a bank in San Diego. One day she and her latest man, and the four youngest kids, drove off and left Robert, 14, to fend for himself. [7] Harris was paroled in January 1978. SAN DIEGO -- The last time Sharron Mankins saw her son, Michael Baker, she was piling him and her five other children into the family car for the drive to the local high school where they watched the neighborhood's Fourth of July fireworks in 1978. "We were just traumatized . SAN FRANCISCO -- Friends and family eulogized executed killer Robert Alton Harris Friday as a man who had found peace of mind while awaiting his fate on SAN JOSE, CALIF. As he first smelled the lethal cyanide fumes, Robert Alton Harris looked to his left where members of his family were standing. At 6:22 p.m. yesterday, he was moved to a death-watch cell about 15 feet from the gas chamber. What does one do in the face of such a mess? Harris was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and was abused as a child. Hours later, police arrested the Harrises at their house three blocks from the Mayeski home. We are horrified by the lengths to which people like Harris pursue vengeance, but not to the point of surrendering our own belief in vengeance entirely. But facing and caring for what we have created, in order that we might someday understand and undo our violence, is a great collective assumption of responsibility. I doubt we have the collective imagination to implement anything so radical. 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. Miller also suggests that since violence begets violence, nonviolence must beget nonviolence. Eats, shoots and leaves And so to the murder; Harris abducted two 16-year-old boys who worked at a fast-food outlet, along with his brother Daniel. The minute I saw him, I had a real sick feeling, sister Barbara recalled of the picnic, in an interview two years ago. Federal Circuits, 9th Cir. I agree with Miller that the sanity/insanity argument is absurd. All the hatred inside me totally disappeared. I thought he was either going to kill mom or Kenneth.. 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. 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. If we presume that God brings all natural deaths to us, why not exact a death penalty from our Creator? For every monk who devoted his life to God, there were a hundred barbarians whose idea of a good time was to burn his books and throw him down a well. He replied, I have a hard time seeing how twenty-five years in prison equals getting away with it. Forgiveness is often mistaken for the passive acceptance of wrongdoing and the denial of anger. But as long as society is unwilling to liberate itself from that same belief, it will continue to have a chaotic correctional system that does little more than warehouse and further degrade societys most dangerous members. , State Deputy Atty. State-level and district guidance advise schools not to disclose to parents if students are transgender without the students consent, citing safety concerns. The fifth of nine children, he was born two months premature in a Fort Bragg, North Carolina, army hospital after his drunken father kicked his alcoholic mother in the stomach. ", "Mother Teresa is telling the governor to pray for these men {on Death Row} and make the right decision by granting clemency," Mankins said. After some joking and laughter, and a promise no harm would come to them, he told them to start walking. David Magris took responsibility for his actions and regained his right to live.

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