Appeals court hearing arguments in Clara Harris case
Associated Press
HOUSTON - Attorneys for a woman who ran over her cheating husband outside the hotel where they married a decade earlier want her murder conviction overturned.
Clara Harris was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine last year for killing David Harris in July 2002 after finding him at a suburban Houston hotel with his mistress.
The former dentist's attorneys cite seven trial court errors that they think should overturn the conviction.
Harris is serving her sentence in Gatesville, about 35 miles west of Waco, at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Mountain View Unit. She works as a Braille typist, translating books for the blind.
A three-judge panel from the 1st Court of Appeals in Houston was to hear oral arguments Wednesday. Each side was granted 20 minutes.
Harris' attorneys argue the court erred by not allowing jurors to see a videotape and virtual reality re-creation of the route Harris took in the parking lot on the summer night her husband was killed following a confrontation between his wife and lover.
Harris' attorneys say the exclusion of the tapes prevented Harris from presenting a complete defense.
Additionally, they claim the court kept defense attorneys from impeaching the testimony of David Harris' teenage daughter, Lindsey, who was in the Mercedes-Benz with her stepmother when her father was repeatedly run over. The teenager testified against Clara Harris.
Clara Harris' attorneys also say state District Judge Carol Davies should have allowed jurors to consider reckless driving as a lesser offense and that defense attorneys' should have been able to make opening and closing arguments in the trial's punishment phase.
"The rulings of the trial court, in final analysis, thwarted Clara's right to put on a defense," Harris' appeals attorney, George McCall Secrest, wrote in his brief to the appeals court.
Prosecutors dispute each of the contentions.
The omitted evidence had problems "that created a very high risk of unfair prejudice," Kevin Keating, Harris County assistant district attorney, wrote in his brief.
Proper rules were not followed in attempts to impeach Lindsey Harris' testimony, Keating said, and judges have discretion to determine how closing arguments are presented.
Additionally, "there was no evidence in the record from which the jury could have concluded (Clara Harris) was only guilty of reckless driving" and it was undisputed that she ran over her husband, Keating said.
"There was no evidence to suggest anything but her driving caused his death," Keating wrote.
Clara Harris, 46, will be eligible for parole after serving 10 years. She faced up to life in prison, but drew a lesser penalty because jurors found that she was driven by "sudden passion" to run down her orthodontist husband.
