God does love the real world, and those who perceive its reality cannot see the world of death. 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. But the diagnostic approach to defining sanity has a serious flaw: it often flies in the face of common sense. One day she and her latest man, and the four youngest kids, drove off and left Robert, 14, to fend for himself. 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. Robert Alton Harris It's an awful, terrible feeling.". We have only begun questioning our fascination with car chases, gun battles, and violent crime on television and in the movies. Just before 6 a.m., the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the final stay of execution, which had been issued by Judge Pregerson and also focused on the method of execution. Is pain an illusion? [5] A witness to the robbery followed the Harrises to their home and notified police. 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. The death penalty exists so that we may know with absolute certainty that a criminal will never inflict pain and suffering on any other family ever again. In the hard wiring that is human nature, maybe all those contradictory messages that alternately tell us to hit back, run, or stand tall in the face of violence can give us a clue that there is no simple solution. 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. 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.. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Sharron, a bookkeeper, and Sam, a teacher, work for the San Diego City School District. I couldnt forgive him. 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. His date with the gas chamber is set for Tuesday morning at one minute past midnight Pacific time. 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. After a series of appeals and stays of execution, he was executed in San Quentin's gas chamber on April 21, 1992. The only clean way through is first to forgive yourself for all the pain youve gone through and all the things you may not have had the opportunity to say to someone you loved. Robert Harris had other crimes on his mind. I dont know what the answer is, but its not forgiveness, and its not letting prisoners out. Civil complaint seeks a court order to require owner Caydon Property Group to remedy all municipal code violations or allow the city to do so at the owners expense. Millers account of David Magris, the reformed felon, gave me profound satisfaction. Miller draws from a set of doctrinal preconceptions (A Course in Miracles) to lay a massive guilt trip, not on criminals, who elicit his forgiveness and understanding, but on the innocent people they rape, rob, and mutilate. The choice for nonviolence is inherently personal and private. Barbara enrolled him in the eighth grade but, after a day, the school kicked him out. He was unemployed, drinking heavily and living on welfare. Alton was born on March 13, 1937 in Ranger to John Marion Harris and Audie (Gailey) Harris. Even the most pacifist among us may be disquieted to realize how deeply the belief in vengeance is rooted. This is how I go about changing my own human nature. In the simplest terms, we collectively want to kill those who kill. I thought he was either going to kill mom or Kenneth.. Even if we conclude that he knew better and was capable of not making such a horrendous decision, the fact remains that he did this insane thing for no discernible reason other than the compulsion of his own horrific past. It is tragic testimony to the current popularity of the belief in vengeance when caring and intelligent people say that they dont even care whether the death penalty actually deters crime; they just like capital punishment as a symbol. After sixty days in jail, Magris was free briefly before being brought up on burglary charges, for which he received a suspended sentence. Robert Harris outlived his parents. 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 lawsuit raised the issue of whether California should switch to lethal injection as a form of execution. We could, however, create more community service programs, so that criminals at least have a civilized alternative. It can ease the pain these families have been experiencing. According to court testimony by Daniel Harris, this happened: Robert Harris promised not to harm the boys, then shot Mayeski in the head and back, killing him. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Rev. Miller assumes that suppressing criminals is about vengeance. 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. He was arrested less than an hour after the robbery and charged with murder, auto theft, kidnapping, burglary, and bank robbery. 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. He said he had never before seen the extraordinary legal action taken by the U.S. Supreme Court in Harris case. It did nothing to change him and made me into a sacrificial lamb. Unable to start the car, Robert Harris decided to steal another car in which two youthsJohn Mayeski and Michael Bakerwere eating lunch. Youve been hurt or no longer have someone you loved, so you feel robbed, cheated, and abandoned, and that makes you angry and afraid. We do not have the political will to cease serving as the number-one arms merchant to the world. When Robbie was 1 1/2 years old, Harris pummeled him with a bamboo cane. When we think about it, most of us know that vengeance isnt justice, because justice is what we want for ourselves and vengeance is what we wish on people we think dont deserve justice: criminals, homosexuals, the homeless, people of other races, people who have AIDS. Former San Diego Police Chief Bill Kolender, who watched Harris die, said the execution sent a message that killers will face justice. 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 The Course defines salvation as the perception of the real world. He especially liked to boil and eat uteruses, though he ate men as well as women. Havent we all been seized at least once by a murderous rage and wondered later what kept us from acting on it? 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. Michael's murder, Sharron Mankins said, destroyed the inner peace the couple had found with each other. In short, a political stance against the death penalty must be metaphysically daring. Robert was 39 years old. Kay Mayeski died a year ago after a long battle with cancer. Sharron and Sam Mankins each brought three children from previous marriages to their own, creating what they call a "Brady Bunch" household. Who would call a man sane who casually kills two teenagers for their car, and then finishes their lunch before going about his criminal business? Who would call a man sane who casually kills two teenagers for their car, and then finishes their lunch before going about his criminal business? Moreover, most people believe that their sins deserve serious punishment someday; in fact, a great many people inwardly punish themselves every day with chronic guilt and anxiety. He said he decided he would be more useful by a phone outside the chamber after the first execution attempt was abruptly stopped. But citing the 1st Amendment right of freedom of religion, the judge concluded that Harris would be more willing to clear his conscience to a confidant rather than a stranger offered by the prison. The execution ended fourteen years of legal wrangling over Harriss fate, capped by four overnight stays of execution. Taught from the womb onward that the world runs on senseless violence, Harris behaved with a chronic viciousness that clearly suggested he was incapable of making sensible choices. Robert Harris was sentenced in 1979 to die at San Quentin Prison, but his case has been bouncing back and forth between the Supreme Court in Washington and the 9th U.S. Privacy PolicyTerms of ServiceSign Up For Our NewslettersSite Map, Copyright 2023, The San Diego Union-Tribune |. Despite his own reformation there, Magris reports that prison is a place where vengeance is both institutionalized and intensified. He was raised by his maternal grandparents and was not told who his real parents were. He quotes a confessed murderer who advises crime victims to forgive yourself for all the pain youve gone through. This is the sort of fuzzy pseudothinking that makes Rush Limbaugh rich. It is being posted online from the U-T archives to mark the 25th anniversary of the Robert Alton Harris execution at San Quentin. 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. Robert and his brother Daniel, then eighteen, decided to rob a bank themselves. SAN QUENTIN -- After an exhausting night of uncertainty and three last-minute legal delays, condemned San Diego murderer Robert Alton Harris was put to death at dawn today in Californias gas chamber. For this reason alone, not for vengeance or punishment, the death penalty will continue to be demanded until prison reforms have been so perfected that a criminal is no longer dangerous once his sentence is served. ", After hearing that Wilson denied Harris's petition for clemency, Sharron Mankins told reporters, "This is just what we were waiting to hear.". After some joking and laughter, and a promise no harm would come to them, he told them to start walking. To imagine that Robert Alton Harris dispensed an incomprehensible mercy to his young victims would seem to us the height of lunacy; yet the death he dealt was surely no worse than that suffered by a child with a terminal wasting disease. The only way to have peace is to teach peace. He might as well have been a brute force of nature, like a tornado. The Course asserts that the world we see veils the answer: You do not understand how what you see arose to meet your sight. All the hatred inside me totally disappeared. Harris was sentenced to die 13 years ago for killing 16-year-olds John Mayeski and Michael Baker in 1978. They also dropped by to visit their father, who clubbed Robert in the head with a wrench. Thus I am satisfied that my essay did indeed have the effect I intended upon Elbinger: making him question his own belief in vengeance. Kroll said a television has been removed from Harris cell, but that he has books. It never has. Harris was The brothers then drove back to town in the boys' car and robbed a bank. In an age of media conglomerates, were something of an oddity: an ad-free, independent, reader-supported magazine. 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. I am glad that Robert Alton Harris was executed because, as the perpetrator of a heinous crime, he deserved to be. He became inhuman. One makes choices. Memorial service held for Harris - UPI Archives His wife Evelyn, one of 11 children from a poor Cherokee family in Oklahoma, took her first drink by age 8. Nor does the execution of a convicted murderer. 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. Arizona, which conducted its first execution in 30 years on April 7, is considering a switch to lethal injection. WebRobert Harris has been under sentence of death for thirteen years. WebALARCON, Circuit Judge: Robert Alton Harris (hereinafter Harris) appeals from the denial of his petitions for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the constitutionality of his Robert was the fifth of their nine children, and the slowest. Robert Alton Harris San Quentin, California On July 5, 1978, Robert and his brother Daniel found John Mayeski and Michael Baker, both 16, eating hamburgers in Mayeski's car celebrating his new driver's license. Steve Baker said in an interview that he has to contend with loss and regret. In an order signed by Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas, the court said it had carefully read and considered legal arguments from both sides. Son of Executed Killer Faces Trial : Crime: It was a shock for Robert . Harris, 39, who already had been strapped into the gas-chamber chair once and then removed exactly two hours earlier, was led to the chamber a second time at 6:01 a.m., after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a one-day stay granted by 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Harry Pregerson. 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. Actually killing someone to get even, however, is crazy. Such questioning will not immediately yield a deathless world of spirit, for we have gone too deep into our illusions for that.