Likewise, the court rejected arguments regarding alleged penalty- phase errors, including prosecutorial misconduct when he asked the jury to remember the victims in life, thus generating unwarranted emotional sympathy. Lastly, the court refused to find the imposition of the death penalty in this case disproportionate, considering Cox’s “involvement in the offense and his background and character.”
* * *
In the early morning hours of Tuesday, April 21, 1992, Robert Alton Harris sat strapped in the chair inside San Quentin’s gas chamber.
Outside the prison’s east gate a large crowd gathered. Megaphones, poster boards, buttons, and signs broadcast conflicting messages on capital punishment. Biblical verses of vengeance and forgiveness, Old Testament versus New, were exchanged.
A multiagency task force was assigned to ensure order. The Coast Guard responded as a boat approached Point San Quentin blasting death metal music. The prison was on lockdown. This was to be California’s first execution in twenty-five years.
Inside the octagonal green gas chamber, Robert Alton Harris was unstrapped and led from the tank as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit imposed a temporary stay.
In 1978 Harris was convicted of murdering two teenagers in San Diego. He carjacked them in a fast-food parking lot, then shot them in a canyon. After taking their wallets, he parked the car and ate their sandwiches. He later used their car when he robbed a bank. By pure chance, the police officer who arrested Harris for the bank robbery was the father of one of the dead boys. At the time, the officer had no idea that the bank robber had just murdered his son.
In the morning of the day scheduled for execution, Harris said goodbye to his friends, fellow death row inmates, and to the guards who had watched him for the past fifteen years. In the afternoon, he hung out in the prison visiting room with his attorneys and some family and friends. By evening he was moved to the death watch cell, thirteen paces from the gas chamber.
Like many inmates on death row, Harris had had a traumatic childhood. He suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome. He was a premature baby due to beatings his father gave his mother while pregnant. After birth he was routinely abused, on one occasion punched so hard while in a high chair that his head slammed against the wall and blood spurted from his ear.
At 8:15 p.m. Harris was served his last meal: “21 pieces of extra-crispy Kentucky Fried Chicken, two large pizzas without anchovies, a six-pack of Pepsi, some jellybeans and a pack of Camel cigarettes.”
Shortly before midnight the Ninth Circuit issued its third stay, this one claiming that the gas chamber constituted cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
At three in the morning the U.S. Supreme Court overrode this stay, stating: “This claim could have been brought more than a decade ago. There is no good reason for this abusive delay, which has been compounded by last-minute attempts to manipulate the judicial process.”
Two Supreme Court justices dissented. Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens wrote: “In light of all we know today about the extreme and unnecessary pain inflicted by execution by cyanide gas, and in light of the availability of more humane and less violent methods of execution, Harris’s claim has merit.”
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s order, San Quentin staff began the execution protocol: friends and family members of both the condemned and the victims, along with members of the media, were moved into the death chamber.
At 3:49 a.m. Robert Alton Harris was led the thirteen paces from the holding cell to the gas chamber. He was strapped into the chair, at which point he gave “a thumbs-up sign” to the guards. The phone rang and five minutes later Harris was unstrapped and led from the chamber.
Just prior to 4 a.m. the Ninth Circuit granted its fourth stay of execution in the last twelve hours.
The U.S. Supreme Court again reversed the Ninth Circuit, stating: “No further stays . . . shall be entered by the federal courts except upon order of this court.”
At 6 a.m. Harris was again strapped into the chair. Again he gave the thumbs-up symbol. Looking through the glass of the death chamber, Harris saw that his brother was crying. He mouthed the words “it’s all right.” Looking at Detective Steven Baker, whose son he had murdered, he mouthed, “I’m sorry.” Baker nodded, but said the apology was “fourteen years too late.”
As a member of the press described it:
“At 6:05, the gas was released into the chamber. Harris leaned his head back. A short time later his head fell forward, then lifted slowly back. His eyes were closed and his mouth slightly open. Then his head pitched sharply forward. He started to convulse.
“At 6:09, he took two large gulps of air, seemed to gasp, then coughed. He began drooling. His body jerked.
“Two minutes later, he was still drooling, his body was still going through spasms, though the spasms were smaller. They were his last noticeable movements.”
At 6:21 a.m. “a porthole in the door separating the witnesses from prison officials opened and a piece of paper was handed out. A correctional officer read a notice from Warden Daniel Vasquez that Robert Alton Harris, No. B66883, had been legally executed on April 21 and had officially died at 6:21 a.m.”
The warden then read Harris’s final words: “You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the grim reaper.”
* * *
The execution gave Tiequon Cox and every other death row inmate a foretaste of their future.
The execution gave me a preview of what awaited my family.
It was a microcosm of what was to come in California’s death penalty wars: lengthy delays, protests, hand-wringing, last-minute stays, continued legal wrangling over the means by which the condemned would be executed.
The case also highlighted a fundamental issue regarding the right of the state not just to execute, but to punish.
Central to the debate was how to weigh the effects of the brutal background of the condemned with their individual responsibility for the horrors they inflicted upon innocent victims.
As my family and I carefully followed developments in the ongoing saga of capital punishment, I learned how truly hard it was to get the death penalty in California. Of the inmates who would be put to death in the coming decades, guilt was never in question and the facts of each case were extreme. As the district attorney told us, the best argument for the death penalty is the behavior of the killer.
In refusing to grant Harris clemency, Governor Pete Wilson stated, “As great as is my compassion for Robert Harris the child, I cannot excuse or forgive the choice made by Robert Harris the man.”
* * *
One week after the execution of Robert Alton Harris, the streets of South Central Los Angeles exploded. The spark in 1992, as in Watts in 1965, was the stoppage by local law enforcement of an intoxicated black motorist. While the 1965 conflagration was ignited by rumors of police mistreatment of Marquette Frye, the 1992 incident was sparked by the videotaped beating of Rodney King a year before.
On April 29, 1992, when an all-white jury in Simi Valley acquitted the officers of all charges, residents of South Central responded initially with street protests, which quickly devolved into violence, looting, burning, and overall mayhem. When order was finally restored days later, the damage was considerably worse than in ’65. This time, fifty-four were killed, over two thousand injured, and property damage totaled over $2 billion.
As in the Watts Riots of 1965, legitimate grievances were shoved aside as gangsters, vandals, and looters hijacked the protest. Instead of focusing on inequality and underemployment, footage of burning, destruction, and violent assaults streamed into living rooms across the country. Seared into the public mind was the image of gang members pulling Reginald Denny from his truck, crushing his skull with a brick, and then dancing over his body as he bled in the street. Finally, legitimate problems such as underdevelopment were only exacerbated as the community at large suffered from the ruinous acts of a destructive few.
Politicians, police, and residents all feared that these riots, like those of Watts more than twenty-five years before, would unleash a new and more violent wave of crime.
35
THE DREAM
AS L.A. SMOLDERS, and the death penalty machinery grinds on, not a day passes that I don’t replay what should have been.
The date is August 31, and I sit with Madee, as she finishes her cup of coffee.
Her grandsons, Damon and Damani, play in the other room, yelling, roughhousing. Sounds like a pillow fight, actually more like Damon harassing Damani, trying to wake him up.
“Hey, you guys,” I say half jokingly, “you better watch it, you know how Madee is about her house.”
“Uncle Kermit!” Damani protests, pretending to be too old for such horseplay. “I’m not doing anything. He won’t let me sleep.”
Thwack.
“Okay, Uncle Kermit,” Damon laughs, “we’ll calm down,” followed by “take that,” and the sound of a thud, a fall, then more wrestling and laughter.
“I’m serious,” I say. “She’s about to come in there and bust you up with a shoe.”
A door closes. Footsteps approach the kitchen. Madee looks toward the hallway. I follow her gaze.
“Morning,” Dietra says, entering the kitchen.
Madee and I both look at her, don’t even need to say a word. We both know what the other’s thinking. How beautiful she looks. “The baby,” ready to get married and fly the nest. The last of Madee’s brood.
And Madee, she starts to tell me of all those plans she has now that she has finished raising her family. “Kermit,” she says, “I’m going to devote even more of my time—”
The sound of the screen door swinging shut interrupts her.
“Now who’s that?” she says, again peering toward the hallway.
“Just me,” Daphine says. “How’s my baby Damon doing?”
“Fine, just fine,” Madee says.
“No more of them nightmares I hope.”
“Nope, content as can be.”
More sounds of boys thrashing about in the bedroom, thuds, crashes.
“Hey, come on now,” Daphine scolds. “Knock it off in there.”
“Oh no!” Damon yells. “Mama, I don’t have to go home, do I? I’m not going to school. I’m not leaving,” he declares.
“Darn straight you’re not,” Madee says, loud enough for the boys to hear. “He’s with me today, Daphine. I already told you, we’re headed up to the Coliseum to collect pins.”
“Yeah!” Damon cheers.
Daphine laughs, pulling up a chair. “Where are Neal and Ivan?” she asks.
“Oh,” Madee sighs, waving her right hand toward the rear bedroom. “They’ll sleep till noon if nobody wakes ’em. Neal doing them equations all night long.” She shakes her head. “And Ivan, he never turns the TV off. ‘Just one more,’ he always says. And I tell him, ‘Ivan, you’ve watched those same highlights a dozen times.’ And you know what he says? ‘So what.’ ” She laughs. “It’s not like the score is going to change when you watch it for the fifth time.”
We all laugh. Then Daphine’s tone turns serious. “Any more thoughts about moving?” she asks Madee.
Madee shakes her head and purses her lips. “Daphine, when the good Lord tells me it’s time to move, then it’s time to move.”
Daphine looks at me, rolls her eyes.
“Until then,” Madee says, “I’ve got work to do.” She pauses, reaches for her toast. “In fact, you can help me. Grab that peanut butter,” she says, pointing toward the cupboard. “Get that bread.” She motions to the counter. “And start fixing some sandwiches for those kids you know’ll be hanging around here later.”
We all laugh. It’s still real clear who’s in charge.
On the stove, my favorite is cooking. Red beans and rice, southern-style. I can’t wait.
I open up the pot to see how they’re doing. Not too far along.
“Kermit, be patient,” she scolds. “You know better. I just put them on.”
I knew it was coming. I did it just to tease her, get that reaction. It works every time.
“Kermit,” she continues, “I’m so proud of you, going to be on TV again, working for UCLA.”
“That’s right, and—”
“That reminds me,” she interrupts. “I’m going to wear those blue earrings today, show my Bruin pride.” She pauses, then laughs. “Even if we are going to the Coliseum. You know what else—”
The phone interrupts her.
“I wonder who that’ll be?” she says, smiling as she reaches for it.
But it doesn’t stop ringing.
Her kitchen fades away, as does my dream.
The phone is my own, I pick it up.
“Kermit,” the voice on the other end says. “Sterling Norris. Got a minute? Good. Here’s what’s going on.”
Back to reality. Back to the courts, procedures, death row.
36
A SUPERHERO
ON JULY 13, 1994, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a class action lawsuit brought by Darren Charles Williams (CW) and other death row inmates. The suit argued that San Quentin’s policy of refusing the inmates’ conjugal visits violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In dismissing this claim, the Ninth Circuit held that “[c]onjugal visits are inconsistent with the principles of incarceration and isolation from society,” concluding that “. . . there is a valid rational connection between a ban on contact visits and internal security of a detention facility.” The court also rejected the argument that San Quentin’s refusal to provide a means of preserving sperm for purposes of artificial insemination violated the constitutional rights of the condemned.
* * *
On February 23, 1996, William Bonin, the Freeway Killer, was led the thirteen steps to San Quentin’s death chamber. When the curtains were parted, observers looking through the glass saw a man strapped down to a gurney shaped like a crucifix. Needles with tubes were inserted into his arms.
In 1993 a federal court ruled the gas chamber cruel and unusual punishment, referring to execution by gas as “torturous, painful, and cruel,” that lethal injection was “more humane.”
Inmates called it “the Big Jab.”
From behind the execution chamber walls the chemicals were released: sodium thiopental (also called sodium pentothal) put Bonin to sleep and pancuronium bromide ceased his breathing. Finally, potassium chloride stopped his heart.
As reported by the Orange County Register, Bonin “died quietly Friday in the execution chamber . . . without any outward signs of the pain and torture that were hallmarks of his murders.”
In 1980, Bonin in a ten-month crime spree kidnapped, sexually abused, tortured, and then strangled twenty-one boys in Southern California.
Victims’ family members and death penalty opponents drew different lessons from California’s first-ever death by lethal injection.
For family members, Bonin’s death was too easy, failing to provide the measure-for-measure based upon the suffering he had caused his victims. They stated, “He should have gone through a little bit more pain,” and “It was too peaceful.”
Prosecutor Bryan Brown remarked, “He had it easy compared to his victims.” Brown noted none of his victims received a last meal of pizza and ice cream, nor the services of a chaplain.
Other family members made similar comments about the tranquility of Bonin’s passing: “I didn’t get to see the fear in Bonin’s eyes, and he didn’t get to see the hate in mine.” Another, disappointed in the tranquility of the killer’s passing, said, “I will now have to stab him in my dreams.”
Death penalty opponents worried that the antiseptic quality of the proceeding would make it
more palatable to the general public and therefore speed the way for more executions. This in turn, opponents feared, would make executions in California more routine and accepted.
* * *
On August 21, 1997, thirteen years after CW was convicted of orchestrating the murders, the special circumstance finding, required for his death sentence, was reversed.
The California Supreme Court held that the trial court “omitted from the jury instruction the requirement of a finding by the jury that defendant acted with an intent to kill.”
Under the law of special circumstances, without the intent to kill more than one person, the multiple-victim special-circumstance language is eliminated, and therefore there can be no death penalty conviction.
Feeling that the retrial thirteen years after the murder would be too much for the family to endure, Norris chose not to retry Williams on the special circumstances. This meant that Williams would be removed from death row and placed in the general population.
It was a stinging defeat for District Attorney Norris.
He now held out hope that justice would at least be served for the shooter.
* * *
On October 25, 1998, a fight broke out on death row’s exercise Yard Two.
Five members of the Bloods, who had been let onto the yard, acted in concert attacking Cox.
Four 37mm wood rounds were fired before all inmates complied with the orders to get down. Cox and a Rolling Sixties confederate got back up and rushed their assailants.
Four more 37mm rounds were fired, two from the yard gunner and two more from another responding guard.
The Valley of the Shadow of Death Page 25
