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Robert Alton Harris' 1992 execution...
Robert Alton Harris' 1992 execution...
Item # 724523
April 22, 1992
LOS ANGELS TIMES, April 22, 1992
* Robert Alton Harris execution
* San Quentin State Prison gas chamber
* 1st in California in 25 years
* Years of debate for "Capital Punishment"
The front page has a nice banner headline: "Harris Dies After Judicial Duel; 4 Stays Quashed; 'I'm Sorry,' Murderer Says" with subheads and related photo. Much more inside, loads of text.
Complete with all sections (80+ pages), very light toning along the central fold, very nice condition.
background: The execution of Robert Alton Harris on April 21, 1992, at San Quentin State Prison, served as a grim conclusion to a decade-long legal odyssey and marked the end of California's 25-year hiatus from capital punishment. Convicted for the 1978 cold-blooded murders of two 16-year-old boys in San Diego, Harris became the center of a chaotic procedural battle that saw the U.S. Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals trade four separate stays of execution in a single night. This "legal ping-pong" culminated in a rare, preemptive order from the Supreme Court forbidding lower courts from further delaying the sentence, highlighting an era of increasing judicial impatience with death penalty appeals. Harris was ultimately executed in the gas chamber—one of the final times that method was used before being deemed unconstitutional in California—leaving behind a legacy defined by his somber final quote regarding the "Grim Reaper" and a permanent shift toward more streamlined, albeit controversial, execution protocols in the United States.
Category: The 20th Century
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$68.00
