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陪审团判了:20年.
20 years for woman who murdered cheating husband
HOUSTON (AP) - A jury sentenced Clara Harris to 20 years in prison Friday - her 11th wedding anniversary - for mowing down her cheating husband with her Mercedes-Benz after catching him with his lover.
The 45-year-old dentist, who could have received a life sentence, drew a lesser penalty after jurors decided she was driven by "sudden passion" to repeatedly run over David Harris in a suburban Houston hotel parking lot July 24.
Harris sobbed, burying her face in her hands, then leaned into the lap of one of her attorneys after the verdict was read. Her attorneys gathered around her to comfort her as she wept.
Harris was convicted Thursday of murdering her orthodontist husband after finding him with his mistress and former receptionist last July at the same hotel where the Harrises wed on Valentine's Day 1992.
Harris' lawyer George Parnham had requested probation, saying the Harrises' twin sons need their mother, whom he described as "a good mother and a good wife."
Prosecutor Mia Magness said Harris was using her sons as a "shield" to gain probation. She urged prison time, though she made no specific recommendation about the length of a sentence.
"She ought not get credit for making herself a single parent," the prosecutor told jurors. "She did that when she made the choice to kill their dad. It's not fair to dangle those two boys out in front of you the way that she has."
Jurors deliberated for six hours before returning with their verdict, which also included a $10,000 fine. The same nine-woman, three-man jury deliberated about eight hours before returning the murder conviction.
Parnham argued that Clara Harris acted out of sudden passion. He suggested that the victim himself would have wanted his wife to receive probation and continue raising their twin 4-year-old sons.
David Harris' father, mother and brother "don't want those boys ripped away from the last parent that they have on this Earth," Parnham said. "What I want you to think about is what, based on all of the evidence in this case, what would David want?"
Lindsey Harris, David Harris' 17-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, was in the passenger seat when he was killed.
Tears welled in the prosecutor's eyes and her voice quavered as she described how Lindsey Harris retrieved her father's clothes from a trash can where her stepmother instructed they be thrown, then took the clothing into her bedroom to "feel like he was there with me."
"Her life is forever changed, and she didn't even get to say goodbye," Magness said.
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2003-02-15 10:17:04
