Judge says jury can convict Clara Harris of something less than murder

Houston Chronicle ^ | February 12, 2003 | Houston Chronicle Staff

[MeekOneGOP]

HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Top Story

Feb. 12, 2003, 12:27PM

Judge says jury can convict Clara Harris of something less than murder

Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

RESOURCES

Clara Harris is accused of running over her husband after catching him with his former receptionist at a hotel.

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• From the arrest to the trial

Video:
Private investigator catches incident on tape
(Video courtesy of KHOU, Ch. 11. Video requires Real Player)

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The trial:
• The indictment
• What we know about them
• The experts: Why they're split over jurors
Preparing for the trial: Video report from Jan. 19.

The testimony:
• Day 1: Hotel employees tell what they saw
• Day 2: Grainy videotape reveals little
• Day 3: What the private eye learned
• Day 4: Defendant's sobs halt trial twice
• Day 5: Stepdaughter says Clara Harris 'went straight for him'
• Day 6: Defense expert says Mercedes only hit him once
• Day 7: Physical evidence vs. eyewitnesses
• Day 8: David Harris' employees say affair disrupted workplace
• Day 9: Mistress testifies of 'open marriage'
• Day 10: Clara Harris takes the stand
• Day 11: She doesn't remember hitting her husband
• Day 12: David Harris' mom says marriage "made in heaven"
• Day 13: Witnesses say car hit victim three times

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From the Chronicle's archives:
• The story of Clara and David Harris: They epitomized success and happiness, but underneath the facade... - Jan. 19
• The wife: Mother of twins kept to herself - Aug. 4
• The mistress: Mistress not a stranger to the spotlight - Aug. 4
• The married couple: Victim wanted to end marriage - July 27

Jurors in the Clara Harris trial began deliberations today after prosecutors warned that sympathy is irrelevant to her guilt and the defense argued that the Friendswood dentist would never have let her teen-age stepdaughter in her car if her intent had been to run over her philandering husband.

Judge Carol Davies opened today's proceedings by telling jurors they can find her guilty of something less than murder for running over her husband after catching him at a Clear Lake hotel with the receptionist she'd fired just days earlier.

In her instructions to the jury, Davies said jurors can acquit the 45-year-old mother of two if they have a reasonable doubt, or they can convict her of murder, which can bring a life sentence. The two other options jurors received today are convicting her of manslaughter, which can mean two to 20 years in prison, or criminally negligent homicide, which carries as little as 180 days in jail or as much as 10 years in prison, depending on whether the jury finds she used the car as a deadly weapon. Any punishment less than 10 years means probation is possible.

Clara Harris was charged with murder July 24 after she drove her Mercedes-Benz into David Harris outside the Nassau Bay Hilton Inn on Nasa Road 1.

In their closing arguments, prosecutors attempted to convince jurors Clara Harris intended to murder her husband by running over her husband repeatedly with her 4,000 pound Mercedes-Benz.

Prosecutor Mia Magness acknowledged that some jurors' hearts may go out to Harris, who was lied to and cheated on. Sympathy, however, is irrelevant to deciding guilt, she said.

"You can't help but feel sympathy," she said, "But you know? The solution is to get a divorce. David's bad judgment, his bad choices, shouldn't result in his death.

"For heaven's sake, a man is cheating on you, you do what every wife in this county does: Take him to the cleaners.... You can make him wish he were dead, but you don't get to kill him."

Magness told jurors that since the main facts of the case are not in dispute, "The question is her intent: What did she mean to do?"

"Was it intentional and knowing, or was it all just an accident, reckless?"

Magness tried to show that David Harris' death could not have been an accident because eyewitness after eyewitness testified that Clara Harris ran over him again and again. Some saw her circle around and run right over his body at least twice, and most testified it was at least three times.

She recalled testimony by her star witness, David Harris' daughter, who said her stepmother had said, "I'm going to hit him," then stomped on the gas. Lindsey Harris, who had been struggling to get out of the Mercedes, testified she could feel the difference between going over the curb and her father's body.

Magness also brought up testimony by an accident investigator who contradicted the defense's expert, saying tire marks and blood on the Mercedes' undercarriage showed that David Harris was run over at least twice. A medical examiner also testified that his injuries confirmed that.

For the past two weeks, however, defense attorney George Parnham has been arguing Clara Harris was a devoted but mistreated wife who was only trying to damage the other woman's SUV when she accidentally hit her husband just once. She testified she doesn't even remember striking him.

As Harris intermittently cried silently at the defense table, Parnham told jurors today that it was "homewrecker" receptionist Gail Bridges who put a tragic chain events into motion and even David Harris himself. Bridges "enticed and seduced him into a relationship that shouldn't happen." David Harris broke his vows and arranged secret trysts with his lover while his wife visited her family in Columbia, then neglected his family, Parnham said.

Humiliated and devastated, Clara Harris nonethless attempted to fix their marriage by dying her hair, making an appointment for liposuction and vowing to pay more attention to her husband, Parnham said.

On July 24, the attorney said, Harris believed that her husband was breaking off the affair, and she was shaken when private investigators told her he was at the Hilton with his mistress.

Parnham argued that it's key to consider that Clara Harris did not rush to the hotel alone: She took her stepdaughter with her. That shows murder was not on her mind, he said.

"Do you really think she would have her daughter in her car if that was her intent?" Parnham said.

Parnham reviewed testimony by an accident reconstructionist who said tire marks and blood on Harris' Mercedes suggested that Clara Harris only hit her husband once. He noted that the expert said that Harris had been driving so fast that she would have had only a split second to turn the car away from her husband as she approached the vehicle she said she had been aiming for.

Considering that she had just seen her smiling husband strolling out of the hotel hand and hand with mistress, Parnham asked, could Clara Harris have been in the right frame of mind to make a split-second maneuver?

In trying to show that Harris acted out of character while her mind was confused, Parnham also made a point of recalling testimony by David Harris' parents. Mildred Harris testified that she still considers her daughter-in-law more like a daughter and the marriage was "a match made in heaven." Mildred and Gerald Harris both testified she was a law-abiding citizen, and they have often accompanied the defendant to court and expressed their continued support for her.

Earlier this morning, Magness went over the judge's instructions step by step. The state does not have to prove that Clara Harris went to the hotel with the intent to kill in order to prove murder, she said. Magness told jurors they could find Harris guilty of murder even if they just believe she killed him knowing that what she was doing was dangerous to human life, such as firing a gun into a crowd.

The lesser charge of manslaughter can't be considered unless the jury decides Harris is not guilty of murder. Magness said recklessness was the key to manslaughter, such as firing a gun into an apartment wall, knowing that people lived next door.

Magness declined to discuss the least serious charge of criminally negligent homicide -- an option only if manslaughter is ruled out -- saying she didn't want the jury to get that far.

The judge, however, defined criminally negligent homicide as a death that was the "result of conduct with substantial and unjustifiable risk." One example of criminally negligent homicide would be spooning rat poison into a sugar bowl and putting it back on a shelf.

[isthisnickcool]

Sympathy, however, is irrelevant to deciding guilt, she said.

One thing applies no matter if the prosecution or judge don't like it. Sometimes it is relevant. Jury nullification.

[big bad easter bunny]

When I heard he read a list of things about his mistress he liked, too his wife, I thought the guy was committing suicide!

[Ciexyz]

I think she snapped when she saw hubby and the receptionist walk out of the hotel hand in hand. Yeah, she's guilty, but take into account extenuating circumstances.

IMO, this is similar to a man snapping when he comes home and finds wifey in bed with another guy. Temporary insanity.

[Ciexyz]

Why did the witness not pull him out of the way after he was run over the first time....

Good point! All those people just stood around watching him getting run over between three and five times?!

[thetruckster]

"I thought "He needed killun'" was a valid defense in Texas?"

It is. What is your point? It was just a Texan crime of passion, messy and old-fashioned.

[MeekOneGOP]

Deliberations begin in Houston murder case

02/12/2003

Associated Press

HOUSTON - Clara Harris simply could have divorced her cheating husband and "taken him to the cleaners," but the prosecutor in her murder trial told jurors Wednesday the dentist chose to kill him instead.

"Make him wish he was dead, but you don't get to kill him," Magness said during her closing argument. "She ran over him again and again and again. No doubt she was sorry when she was done, but she knew what she was doing.

"It is time for you to call her what she is, and that is a murderer."

Jurors began deliberating shortly after noon Wednesday. Clara Harris faced anywhere from probation to a life sentence if convicted of murder, though the jury also could consider the lesser offenses of manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide .

Defense attorney George Parnham pointed to David Harris' mother's description of the his union with Clara Harris on Valentine's Day 1992 as a "marriage made in heaven."

"Until somebody knocks on the door of that home and the heart of that family," Parnham said. "(Extramarital lover) Gail Thompson Bridges is a homewrecker. She was after David. She was after his heart."

Parnham told jurors they needed to consider the mindset of Clara Harris as she watched her orthodontist husband come off a suburban hotel elevator hand-in-hand with Bridges the evening of July 24. She ran over him in the parking lot minutes later.

During her testimony in her own defense, Clara Harris detailed for jurors how she scheduled breast enhancement and liposuction surgeries, joined a gym, quit her job, cooked her husband's favorite meals and had sex with him three times a night in the week leading up to his death.

Parnham called it a frantic attempt to save a marriage.

"There is a level of desperation there that I know touches you and you feel sorry for her because of it," Magness told jurors. But "you cannot excuse what she did intentionally and knowingly because she was hurt."

Parnham asked that jurors acquit his client, who he says accidentally hit her husband.

"You saw Clara Harris on the stand," he said. "You saw Clara Harris during the course of this trial. Do you think those are rehearsed tears? ... Do you believe if for one moment Clara Harris intended to kill David Harris she would have had his daughter in the car?"

Clara Harris, who has been emotional and often cried throughout the four-week trial, wiped tears from her eyes Wednesday. Her stepdaughter Lindsey Harris, who was a passenger in the car as her father was killed, also cried during the final remarks.

The victim's father, Gerald Harris Sr., gave Clara Harris a hug during a brief break between arguments and sat in an area of the courtroom reserved for the defendant's family.

Defense attorneys say Clara Harris, 45, ran over her 44-year-old orthodontist husband just once, while prosecutors say David Harris was hit numerous times.

A number of prosecution witnesses testified David Harris was run over three times -- one said he saw the orthodontist hit as many as five times. A defense expert testified David Harris was hit once, carried atop the sedan and then run over.

"Why are the number of run-overs important?" Parnham asked the panel. "I guess if you have a number of run-overs, you show a person in the rage of her life."

Magness recalled the several witnesses who gave similar accounts, except for minor conflicting details, that Clara Harris appeared to intentionally hit her husband.

"Each of them was consistent that it was at least two, and most of them told you it was three," Magness said.

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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/021203dntexharris.8ba2b8.html

[Ditter]

I'm glad I am not on that jury but if I was I'd have to find her guilty of murder. You can't kill someone because they hurt your feelings, even if they hurt them real bad.

[Johnny Crab]

Agreed!!

How many more deaths will follow once it is "not murder" to delete one's unfaithful spouse with a motor vehicle?

I have to put this one in:"How would this case look if a "man" had run over a "woman"?".....

[ambrose]

If this woman walks, she gets to decide whether they ever see their grandkids again.

[Johnny Crab]

OOPS! I forgot to mention that I've BEEN in the same EXACT situation as this man-killer but I did NOT run over anyone.....I was in a late '60's very heavy car and THERE THEY WERE....

Can't say I was happy....

[exhaustedmomma]

I think she snapped when she saw hubby and the receptionist walk out of the hotel hand in hand.

I think she snapped when hubby grapped her off the mistress with his hand gripped on her face... ripping her off the floor (via the hand grip on the face), bending her head as far back as he could to the point a witness became worried her neck would snap--- all the while wifey kept firm hold of mistress' hair... slung wife to the floor and slapped her around... THEN went over to mistress and walked her ever-so-lovingly out to her car. SNAP. (e.g., postal snap)

[Hermann the Cherusker]

I don't see anything wrong with killing an adulterous spouse in flagrante delicto, especially one who assaults you before that. My wife is aware of that too. And I certainly know that I'd be hunted down by her three brothers if I ever did anything myself.

I guess marriage vows don't mean so much to you?

[Ditter]

>>>> I guess marriage vows don't mean so much to you>>>>

Well, I took my marriage vows a long time ago, 44 years to be exact. We have loved & cherished & been faithful to each other all that time. No where do I remember the vow that said I could kill him if he didn't hold up his end. That clause says divorce, not murder. I would have divorced Harris & taken every dime he would ever earn.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Till death do us part.

Nothing in there at all about divorce.

You ask, "Why does he not?" Because the LORD was witness to the covenant between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Has not the one God made and sustained for us the spirit of life? And what does he desire? Godly offspring. So take heed to yourselves, and let none be faithless to the wife of his youth. "For I hate divorce, says the LORD the God of Israel, and covering one's garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless." You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, "How have we wearied him?" By saying, "Every one who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them." Or by asking, "Where is the God of justice?" (Malachi 2.14-17, RSV)

[Ditter]

What does the Lord say about murder?

[Hermann the Cherusker]

He says don't murder the innocent. And He says execute the adulterers.

[Ditter]

Show me where Jesus Christ said we should kill anyone.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

When He handed down all those laws to Moses He said exactly that in numerous places for various crimes.

[Ditter]

I am a Christian, I follow the teaching of Jesus Christ. Where did HE say I can murder my husband if he is unfaithful?

[sinkspur]

And He says execute the adulterers.

Caesar says "no."

You are perfectly free to execute an adulterer, but you will have to live with the punishment imposed upon you by civilized society.