Robert Alton Harris v. D. Vasquez, Warden of the California State Prison at San Quentin

SUMMARY

Constitutional Law

Granting a certificate of probable cause to appeal from the district court’s denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Judge Noonan of the court of appeals stayed the petitioner’s execution until further action by the court.

Petitioner Robert Alton Harris moved the court for the issuance of a certificate of probable cause to appeal from the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus which was entered on March 28, 1990 and requested the court to issue a stay of his execution pending the resolution of the appeal in this case to the court of appeals.

[1] Harris presented by affidavit the opinions of a reputable clinical psychologist and a reputable psychiatrist that psychiatric help given him at the penalty phase was incompetent. He was entitled to competent assistance. [2] The district court held that the issue should have been raised in one of the two previous petitions for habeas corpus. Harris answered that the State denied him funds for the kind of tests that have now raised the issue of competency of psychiatric help he received from the State in 1979. Only the volunteering of funds by his lawyers after filing of the second federal…