Witness To An Execution -- `Surreal' Scene That Reporter Felt Obligation To Cover

Dan Morain, a Los Angeles Times reporter, was one of 49 witnesses to California's execution of convicted double-murderer Robert Alton Harris yesterday. His reason for covering the execution: "I had taken the assignment because I was convinced that in a state where political careers rise and fall on the death penalty issue, and where almost everyone has an opinion about it, newspapers have an obligation to report on it completely. That means this last, violent, grim step. I still hold fast to that view. That said, I won't view another." Following is his account of what he said was a "macabre and surreal scene." -------------------------------

SAN QUENTIN, Calif. - The hiss of flowing liquid was our sign that the execution of Robert Alton Harris had begun.

Sulfuric acid filled the two vats beneath his seat. He peered down, between his knees, into his personal abyss. In seconds, he knew, cyanide pellets would drop, react with the acid, and the gas would rise. This was it; he was a dead man.

Then, a phone beside the gas chamber rang, twice. The sound was loud enough that Harris must have heard it.

"Oh, God," a voice said from over where the family of Harris' murder victims stand. It took me a minute to figure out what was happening. It was a stay - the fourth of this long night and early morning, on which the state of California was to resume executions after a 25-year break.

We, the 49 official witnesses to the execution of Robert Harris, knew what the delay was about. But inside the gas chamber, the anti-hero of this drama seemed puzzled. He sat in the metal chair, facing away from us, but aware that all eyes were trained on him.

He looked around, the picture of confusion and nerves. His arms were strapped down, but he tried to motion with his hands and seemed to mouth a plea: "Let's pull it."

Time seemed to slow, even for the witnesses. My mouth turned dry, a symptom of stress. Air could be heard blowing through ducts in this turn-of-the-century building inside San Quentin. North Block, downstairs from death row.

There were the sounds of an old prison: the clanging of keys, the opening of doors, footsteps on the dark green, waxed tile floor.

The prison describes the color of the gas chamber as "apple green." In truth, it's the green of an apple no one on this earth has tasted. Early yesterday morning, with the lights inside shining brightly on Robert Harris, the green looked almost fluorescent.

The scene was all the more striking because the three bulbs above us in the witness area were so dim and the walls so drab.

FIRST TO EXIT ALIVE

By all rights, Harris surely realized, this contraption installed 52 years ago should have done its business by now. A sad smile came over his face. He looked up and down, wrinkled his brow, and glanced over his left shoulder to where his older brother, Randy, stood. He looked then at a friend, a guard, who stood braced against the waist-high rail that keeps the witnesses a step back from this riveted death chamber.

As we watched, Harris raised his brow quizzically, as if to ask: What gives? He then rolled his eyes and swiveled his head to look out the window to the right, toward a friendly face. With a look of futility, he said, "I can't move."

Finally, the sounds of flushing and machinery whirring were heard again. The vat of sulfuric acid beneath Harris was being pumped empty - made safe against an accidental triggering of the gas.

That done, guards opened the chamber door. Harris was back from the dead.

The guards unleashed Harris and walked him back to a nearby cell, to wait for his death to start all over again.

In the ghoulish history of the San Quentin gas chamber, no one had ever been removed alive.

Sharron Mankins, the mother of one of the teenage boys Harris murdered 14 years ago, held a tissue and wept, without a sound.

3 A.M.: `KEEP GOING'

Finally, Tip Kindel, the California Department of Corrections spokesman, turned solemn and announced to us that all stays had been lifted. A few minutes past 3 a.m., the journalists piled into aging prison buses and rode through the inner gates back to the gas chamber. One bus rammed against a post.

"Keep going! Keep going!" the senior officer directed. The damaged state property would wait. The premium is on speed - before a new stay can be issued.

We were hustled into an employee lounge and searched. Each of us was handed a single No. 2 pencil and a pad of white legal sized paper - the only note-taking tools allowed.

As we filed into the room that contains the gas chamber, we saw the witnesses invited by the condemned against one wall. His older brother, Randy, close friend Michael Kroll, and three other friends.

Against another wall stood the mother and sister of murder victim Michael Baker, and the sister of victim John Mayeski. Stephen Baker, the police officer who arrested Harris after the crime - without knowing his suspect was the killer of his son - stood at the rail separating the witnesses by inches from the glass.

One group was there for closure, finality, revenge. The other was there to let the murderer know that no matter what he did, someone loved him. Neither side seemed to look at one another.

At 3:48 a.m., the gas chamber door opened with a clank. One guard appeared, then Harris, walking quickly, flanked by two more guards, all of them burly. Harris sat in the seat on the left. He put up no fight.

In a matter of seconds, his arms and chest were strapped by black restraints that looked like seat belts. One officer stood behind, his thick arms clasped loosely around Harris' chest, as the other two strapped his legs. Should Harris move, the officer's clasp would turn to painful grip.

Harris' death uniform was a blue work shirt, open at the collar, blue jeans, and a stethoscope, though that was not visible.

Immediately, he strained to look back at the witnesses. Over his left shoulder he found his friends and brother, nodded and gave a thumbs-up. Harris said something to the last departing guard and smiled.

The look on Harris' face was puzzling, a look of embarrassment, resignation, acknowledgement that of all the ways to die, death at the hands of the People for crimes against the People, in full view of strangers, was most ignoble. It was a look of a man who was nervous and scared, but was trying to seem brave.

The hatch-like door shut with a thud. The chamber was sealed.

Harris looked over his shoulder at his people, then to where the reporters stood. Our eyes met, his gaze lingered briefly, then he continued to slowly pan these strangers who would share his final moments.

His hands moved in a motion that seemed to say he's impatient. "Pull the lever," he mouthed. "It's all right," he seemed to say.

The women who came to exact justice for their loved ones held hands and stood tightly shoulder-to-shoulder. Linda Herring, dressed in black, locked her eyes on Harris. Mankins' look was soft and sad. Marilyn Clark, the sister of victim Mayeski, teared up. Detective Baker just stared. He couldn't be any closer to the object of his hatred without being inside.

Against the other wall, Kroll held a hand against his heart. His other hand held the hand of a friend. He looked haunted, horrified, at what he was about to see.

6 A.M.: THUMBS UP

As the moment approached, however, the muffled ring of the telephone stopped the death watch. Prison Spokesman Lt. Vernell Crittendon conferred quietly with his superiors and announced everyone would be moved out "temporarily."

By 4:15 a.m., we were back outside but told to stand close by. Sure enough, at 5:52 a.m. we were hurried back inside.

This time, Randy Harris looked as if he were wearing a straitjacket - he stood with his arms wrapped tightly around himself. In fact, as he relaxed slightly, it became apparent that he was simply holding himself against what now was certain to come.

Herring, step-sister of one of Harris' victims, fixed her hard stare again, as did Detective Baker.

Again, Harris was walked into the gas chamber. This time, his face was blank. His resignation and fear seemed greater. Again, officers swarmed over him, strapping his wrists, arms, chest, legs. The officer's arms again were around Harris chest. But there was no fight.

At 6 a.m. or so, Harris nodded to his officer friend, looked up, blinked, turned to his brother and looked away. After a pause, a thumbs-up again. His cousin, Leon Harris, returned the sign.

Then the moment everyone in the room who saw it will remember: He throws his head back over his left shoulder, and catches the eye of Michael Baker's still-grieving father.

"I'm sorry," he mouths.

Baker, a stoic, bitter and sad man, nods his head sharply at this final confession.

At 6:07, the pellets dropped and the colorless gas began to invade Robert Harris.

He just sat there, looking forward, hang-dog. The first sign of death's beginning was a twitch of his hands, as if the rising gas had stung his skin.

He inhaled and exhaled, four or five times. His head snapped back. His eyes rolled into his head. After 30 seconds, his head dropped, but he strained against the straps. Then his head rose as if by convulsion, then fell forward, slowly.

After a minute, his hands appeared relaxed. A vein that runs the length of his forehead bulged, then looked as if it would burst. His mouth was wide open, his face flushed, then turned almost purple.

Whether he was unconscious, in pain or numb, he seemed oblivious at this point, perhaps two minutes into the execution. But then, as his body seemed to have relaxed, his head rose eerily.

As she watched, Sharron Mankins was crying silently. Marilyn Clark's face was twisted in pain. Steve Baker just stared. Linda Herring, arms crossed, looked as if she wished Harris were dying harder.

Across the room, Michael Kroll's hand covered his mouth, then his heart. Cousin Leon Harris turned his back.

Most of the four prison officers in front of me didn't watch what unfolded. Their job was to focus on the witnesses in case any of them took ill. None did.

At 6:11 a.m., there was a cough, a convulsion, a line of drool.

The red light of a video camera, set up by order of a federal judge who tried to block the execution on the grounds that lethal gas might be cruel and unusual punishment, reflected against the gas chamber glass. The tape will be reviewed many times as society tries to decide if gas is the right way to do this.

By 6:14 a.m., the body no longer moved. We, the living, shifted from foot to foot. Light filtered in through the blinds on three windows that looked out to the east. At 6:21 a.m., the three hanging lights brightened. At 6:22, a note was pushed through the peep hole in the door, and Crittendon read it aloud to us:

"Warden Vasquez declares condemned inmate Harris, B-66883, dead."