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.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

"And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ... If any man commit adultery with the wife of another, and defile his neighbour's wife: let them be put to death, both the adulterer and the adulteress." (Leviticus 20.1, 10)

Who the heck do you think was at the head of the throng executing the divine sentence but the aggrieved party? There was no "state" and "judiciary" when God gave this law.

"Think not that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one that accuseth you, Moses, in whom you trust. For if you did believe Moses, you would perhaps believe me also: for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5.45-47)

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

I hope your question is answered. It can't be made any clearer

[Ditter]

Obviously you can see that the Bible says you can kill your spouse for being unfaithful. I don't get that from the words of Jesus, but you go for it fella. If it comes to that in my marriage, I will "turn the other cheek".