Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 31, 1990 TAG: 9003310083
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO LENGTH: Medium
Harris, convicted of shooting to death two teen-age boys in 1978 to use their car in a robbery, may not have had competent psychiatric help at the time of his trial, said Judge John Noonan of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
"It is reasonably arguable, and we cannot determine from this record, whether Harris received competent psychiatric assistance," Noonan said in staying the execution.
His order, issued after a 50-minute hearing, would spare Harris the gas chamber to allow arguments before a three-judge panel of the court on whether Harris should get an evidentiary hearing. That process usually takes several months.
But lawyers for the state said they would ask Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to lift the stay.
"It's . . . possible to get it lifted before Tuesday," said Chief Assistant Attorney General Richard Iglehart. He said state lawyers had lodged papers with the court before the hearing but would consult with Attorney General John Van de Kamp later in the day before deciding whether to seek intervention.
Harris, 37, would be the first person executed in California since 1967. He came within four days of execution once before, in 1982.
Noonan, a conservative appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, said his order was "a vindication of the state and federal interest that no one be put to death without due process of law."
He said U.S. District Judge William Enright of San Diego, who turned down Harris' last-ditch appeal Wednesday, should have held a fact-finding hearing on new psychiatric evidence submitted by the defense.
That evidence includes reports by psychologists who concluded that the psychiatric consultants who assisted Harris' trial lawyer acted incompetently by failing to test for brain damage or other serious mental disorders.
by CNB