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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. "I'm not cherishing this," Mankins admitted. He then calmly finished off the burgers hed stolen off them. 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.. Arizona, which conducted its first execution in 30 years on April 7, is considering a switch to lethal injection. Crossing the state line into Nevada, he was arrested and removed from his home to juvenile hall, then placed in foster care with a cousin. He died on 21 April 1992 in San Quentin State Prison, California, USA. His date with the gas chamber is set for Tuesday morning at one minute past midnight Pacific time. Robert was the fifth of their nine children, and the slowest. 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 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. This is how you will learn the truth that will set you free, and will keep you free as others learn it of you. Schizophrenia was diagnosed. Gen. Louis Hanoian said no evidence was withheld and the claim that Daniel Harris was hypnotized was an outrageous lie.. With his father again in prison, Robert and his family took up the migrants life, following the crops up and down the valley. The cold logic of economic analysis produces this intriguing option. And as gas filled the glowing green chamber, he mouthed `Its all right to several people. Turn them into Christians? He has spoken publicly against capital punishment alongside his surviving victim, Dennis Tapp. Several multiple murderers have said how much easier it was to murder the second time. Robert Alton Harris was executed by gas chamber in 1978 for murder. . [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. "[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. Killing has gone on and will always go on. 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. Magris recalls, I had a gun, and I gave it to one of the other three guys to do a service station. They settled at a farm labor camp outside Visalia. He said it was too soon to know whether witnessing Harris death closed a horrible chapter in his life. 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.. The revelation hit him like a bullet. At 4:01 a.m., guards entered the chamber and unstrapped Harris from the chair. Other members of the victims families clutched one another, Hearn said, as they watched Harris die. 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. 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. The only way to have peace is to teach peace. Like Lewis K. Elbinger, I, too, hope the time will come when humanity attains the state of spiritual realization in which capital punishment is unnecessary. Harris' Final Appeals Stress Brother's Role - Los Angeles Times 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. 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. For the simple fact that we cannot: God seems unreachable, unpunishable, the ultimate, invulnerable Boss in an unassailable Heaven. Our tax dollars can help care for neglected children and rehabilitate criminals, but we should not forget that the government cannot do it alone; it requires the commitment and responsibility of the people involved. The older Harris brother, Randall, confirmed Daniels latest account of the facts in a sworn affidavit, noting that Daniel had confessed a few years after leaving prison that his rifle went off first and that Robert then just went crazy and opened fire. "We've sent letters to Governor Wilson, and I haven't had a call back," she said. 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. [4] In 1967, Evelyn abandoned Robert, then 14, in Sacramento and left him to fend for himself. The Course asserts that the world we see veils the answer: You do not understand how what you see arose to meet your sight. But 95 percent of everybody we lock up is going to come home someday, rehabilitated or not.. Some said he suffered from shellshock. The adult Robert Alton Harris lost his right to live. I asked Magris if anything helpful happened to him in prison. It is access to the means to a full and meaningful life. But the diagnostic approach to defining sanity has a serious flaw: it often flies in the face of common sense. But unlike him I am actually interested in humanity getting there not endlessly delaying that attainment in order to land one more punch on anybodys nose. Justice in there is swift and sure and very clear. Robert Alton Harris Hes employed as a general manager for a packaging manufacturer and serves as chair of the Northern California Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. The visitors were not allowed to bring anything to Harris, but they shared sodas and sandwiches supplied by the prison. 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. Stories from the Past - April 3, 2020: Bandsmen protest the "forced . He said he decided he would be more useful by a phone outside the chamber after the first execution attempt was abruptly stopped. In adolescence, he emulated criminal role models and became involved in narcotics and petty crimes, which eventually led to involvement with drug syndicates. After some joking and laughter, and a promise no harm would come to them, he told them to start walking. WebOn July 5, 1978, Robert and his brother Daniel attempted to hotwire a car they intended to use in a bank robbery. Such a death often allows people to let go of this world, to say goodbye to loved ones and allow them to say goodbye to you. "We just felt like we were totally deserted. So lets leave the spiritual growth of forgiveness to the individuals private conscience, and lets come together as a society that has to find practical and ethical solutions to crime and punishment. We could, however, create more community service programs, so that criminals at least have a civilized alternative. I never thought in my life that this would come over me. [6][8], 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. One makes choices. He looked absolutely inhuman. Harris had been held since Thursday in a cell on death row. Justin E.H. Smith On The Mysteries Of Language. 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. 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. The old man clubbed his son in the head with a wrench. 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. In that sense, political activism in the name of forgiveness can be seen as an important part of a transformational spiritual discipline. Magris was arrested several hours later and charged with murder, kidnapping, robbery, and attempted murder. This is the fourth in a series of essays inspired by the principles of A Course in Miracles. He would not have defended it with such exasperation had he not been moved to question it. But true forgiveness accepts wrongdoing and anger and strives to heal, correct, or redirect them. Needing a car, the Harris brothers spotted Baker and Mayeski and kidnapped them, planning to use the teenagers car for their robbery. 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. Think of how Native Americans prayed to the spirit of the buffalo and thanked it for its sacrifice before and after the kill, and compare that to our meatpacking slaughterhouses, where prayers are absent. "It's frustrating," Sharron Mankins said. 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 claimed that hed only watched others do it. Steps taken to delay or annul his execution illustrate some of the arguments against the death penalty. To demonstrate or legislate with full force against the death penalty is to acknowledge that we are actually campaigning to change human nature. Hours later, police arrested the Harrises at their house three blocks from the Mayeski home. [5], On July 5, the Harris brothers happened upon John Mayeski and Michael Baker, both 16, sitting in a green Ford LTD eating cheeseburgers in a supermarket parking lot in Mira Mesa. But in an affidavit filed Friday, Daniel Harris said he at first told prosecutors that he may have fired the first shot from a rifle he carried to the scene. We will try our best to teach you peace, and by learning it, you will teach us as well.. On July 5, Robert and Daniel Harris kidnapped John Mayeski and Michael Baker, both sixteen, in order to use their car for the getaway. 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 The result is a lesson in blame, for all behavior teaches the beliefs that motivate it. He started slapping Wheeler around about 9 a.m. An hour later, the Harris brothers robbed the local bank of $2000 but were arrested shortly after. Harris was visited by several people Friday, including a brother, Randy, and a friend, writer Michael Kroll. Finding a way to do that would greatly improve the bottom line of our societal bookkeeping. I looked at him and I saw just another human being, Clark told Times reporter Alan Abrahamson. We know what justice is, unless we are philosophers or lawyers. I only know about my own experience. . Robert Alton If we can't execute Harris, we won't be able to execute anyone.". A $300-million (minimum) gondola to Dodger Stadium? The brothers then used the stolen vehicle to The state attorney generals office immediately took the second matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned it, as it did the last stay by Pregerson. The nine Supreme Court justices stayed up all night, Lungren said, acting on the stays issued by the federal appellate court for Harris. Patel had issued a temporary restraining order late Saturday in response to a class-action lawsuit filed by Harris attorneys claiming that death in the gas chamber is cruel and unusual punishment. He became inhuman. "I wish things could have been different. He wanted to rob a bank. Before I couldnt do it. Harris was visited by several people Friday, including a brother, Randy, and a friend, writer Michael Kroll. 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. We resign ourselves to the random destruction wrought by tornadoes because we cant change nature. After a fruitless search, they drove to a fast-food restaurant for lunch. A probation officers report noted that his parents whereabouts were unknown. Its absolutely true, as Robert Becker suggests, that killing a murderer prevents him from killing again. A few years later, in 1975, Robert was unemployed and drinking heavily. Chikatilo, the Russian criminal who is estimated to have tortured, killed, and eaten more than fifty people, loved to mutilate their genitals. He wanted to rob a bank. 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. He was arrested on July 5th 1978, when him and his brother hijacked a car with two teenage boys in it and they ordered them to drive to a remote location where the brothers brutally murdered them. But the most effective political stance against capital punishment will be firmly grounded in an ongoing process of self-forgiveness. Shall we keep people with such damaged consciences alive and try to reform them? Think of the students in Tiananmen Square. Born prematurely at Fort Bragg, South Carolina, the fifth child of nine. By Christmastime, the Harrises had their first run-in with the law in California. Havent we all been seized at least once by a murderous rage and wondered later what kept us from acting on it? If youre guilty, you deserve justice, which is to be killed; if youre crazy, you deserve treatment. If I listen to the voice in my own head, however, I conclude that anyone who violates Article 3 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the security of person) loses the protection of society in regard to his or her own life, liberty, and security of person and must suffer the consequences. But by denying them justice, we affect our own access to it. I, too, hope the time will come when humanity attains a state of spiritual realization in which capital punishment is unnecessary, but that is an end to be achieved through education and the great assumption of responsibility by individual citizens. Under terms of a plea bargain--in which he received three years for kidnaping for his role in the crime--Daniel Harris testified during his brothers trial that Robert had shot both victims. Former San Diego Police Chief Bill Kolender, who watched Harris die, said the execution sent a message that killers will face justice. Two years ago, Harris came within hours of being executed. Miller concluded in A Brutal Sadness that to demonstrate or legislate with full force against the death penalty is to acknowledge that we are actually campaigning to change human nature. I have scarcely read a more arrogant sentence in print. The equation is simple and so blatantly clear in human history and in the daily news that one has to wonder why our modern society has not yet grasped it. A pragmatic friend of mine views capital punishment as a bookkeeping function, coldly arguing that its the only way to guarantee that those irredeemable murderers will not kill again. Robert Alton Harris was born at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the fifth of nine children of Kenneth and Evelyn Harris. A few minutes later, Harris second cousin, Rev. 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. Harris was 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? Robert Alton Harris Rev. The state formalizes this rage in impersonal and ritualized executions, but it is rage nonetheless. Is pain an illusion? 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 created a very positive effect on day-to-day living in a place where racial and territorial tensions were still prevalent.. 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. 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. Dr. Howard Kornfeld, a San Francisco physician, said Harris will experience the terror of air hunger, a sense of strangulation, and desperate gasping for breath for a period extending up to several minutes.. Every criminal made choices. He mouthed the words, looking me square in the eye: `Im sorry. I nodded my head at him.. Right now, I cant actually say it has.. Robert Alton Harris (1953-1992) - Find a Grave Memorial Fridays appeal also says that Daniel was hypnotized, apparently at the behest of authorities, before his brothers trial. The investigation revealed that at 10:30 a.m. on July 5, 1978, the defendant and co There is always someone willing to terrorize his neighbors for personal gain, regardless of what effort we make to understand him. I'm not a saint, and I'm not a politician. At San Quentin prison, where Harris is under a deathwatch, a spokesman said Wilsons rejection of clemency had turned Harris more somber. I was determined to be a star. Sometime in May or June 1978, Robert, then aged 25, asked his brother Daniel, 18, for help in planning a bank robbery. This formula is so confusing that it may seem simpler to forget about defining sanity and rely instead on the fundamental logic of vengeance: if you kill, for any reason, you deserve to be killed. [15] Later that evening, the Ninth Circuit entered a third stay blocking the execution while it reconsidered reimposing the lower court's temporary restraining order. We are given the task on this earth of making choices between greater and lesser evils. You might as well invite mass murderers in for lunch and serve yourself on the menu. There is a point at which someone is a hopeless case in terms of societys resources. Give them lobotomies? , State Deputy Atty. Why is Frank McCourt really pushing this? [2] Both parents were alcoholics, and Robert reportedly was born two months premature as a result of Kenneth kicking Evelyn in the abdomen;[2] Robert is also reported to have suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome. David Magris took responsibility for his actions and regained his right to live. Merely crushing them is no answer either; a state that has only force is just as precarious as one that lacks the will to use 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. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA The Death Penalty in California: Pete Wilsons televised rejection Thursday of a clemency petition by Harris. WebRobert Harris has been under sentence of death for thirteen years. Robert was 39 years old. Thus I am satisfied that my essay did indeed have the effect I intended upon Elbinger: making him question his own belief in vengeance. Apparently it required being sent to the gas chamber for him to experience sincere remorse for his crime. 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. 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. Of the 36 states that have death penalty laws, only three--California, Arizona and Maryland--prescribe gas. Mankins said the two looked to each other for strength, waiting on the night of the murders at the Mayeski house for news of their sons and waiting these years for Harris's execution. 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. Murderers are our whipping boys and girls for the metaphysical insult of mortality. Most people have judged themselves harshly for their mistakes, their desires, and their dark secrets. She soon found a solution to her problems with Robert. Robert Alton Harris was gassed to death at sunrise on April 21, 1992, the first person to be executed by the state of California in twenty-five years. [5] A witness to the robbery followed the Harrises to their home and notified police. Perhaps the most unexpected development in the legal drama was the re-emergence of Daniel Harris in court papers filed Friday on behalf of his condemned brother. A flurry of legal appeals kept delaying what became the states first execution in 25 years. [8], 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. Part of the answer is certainly that his upbringing, however chaotic and confused, was nowhere near as cruel as Harriss. What would I do if I lost another child?". Then something changed, 7 hospitalized after driver in stolen car runs red light in San Bernardino, police say, Barstow police investigating after officer caught on video hitting man with a baton, Northern California town on edge after second fatal stabbing in a week, Man found guilty of murdering teens who ding-dong-ditched his house, Sacramento, San Francisco mayors take shots at each others city before NBA playoff game. While Miller may wish otherwise, capital punishment plays a part in the administration of justice at this point in history. Over the last 13 years, Daniel Harris has made a variety of conflicting statements about his brother and the slayings of John Mayeski and Michael Baker, both 16, who were found dead in a remote San Diego wash. 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. But Magris lived a double life. Earlier this year, Daniel Harris told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Robert is a nut who always liked hurting and killing something.. She writes down what the voices say, and a guy named D. Patrick Miller reads it and concludes that we all should forgive murderers and eliminate capital punishment and then the world would be a better place [A Brutal Sadness, August 1993]. 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. There's something wrong with a system where we pay a federal judge or any judge hundreds of thousands of dollars a year not to make a decision. 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. In sum, God and nature get off the hook for apparently committing murders because we have no way of punishing either of them. The minute I saw him, I had a real sick feeling, sister Barbara recalled of the picnic, in an interview two years ago. He wanted their car for the getaway from the bank robbery. This process usually feels like ego death, which is precisely what our so-called correctional system should be about suppressing criminal behavior and changing ways of thinking until criminals, whose egos are often saturated with the belief in vengeance, are liberated from that belief. Over Independence Day weekend, he drove from San Diego to Visalia for a Harris family picnic. [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. This course, says the introduction, can therefore be summed up very simply in this way: Nothing real can be threatened. Ive seen guys with so many holes in them you couldnt count them. Why is Frank McCourt really pushing this? 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.