Harris Hearing on Clemency to Be Private : Crime: Governor will decide whether to go ahead with murderer’s execution, scheduled for a week from now. A TV station plans to sue to open the process.

SACRAMENTO —  Facing a heavy barrage of public pressure, Gov. Pete Wilson studied the file of Robert Alton Harris on Monday and announced that the clemency hearing for Harris will be held in private.

With Harris scheduled to be executed in San Quentin’s gas chamber a week from today for the murders of two San Diego teen-agers in 1978, Wilson said that he has not prejudged the case for clemency.

“You can believe in the death penalty as I do . . . and still think that there may be, in a particular instance, circumstances that might warrant commutation,” Wilson said.

As Wilson prepares for the clemency hearing Wednesday, calls and letters by the hundreds are deluging his office. More than 3,000 letters and 1,500 phone calls have flooded the Capitol in the last few weeks. Wilson’s spokesmen have not released a breakdown, except to say that “both sides” are represented.

At least one television station, KCRA in Sacramento, planned to file a suit today on behalf of four NBC affiliates in California seeking that the clemency hearing be open. Other news organizations were reviewing the law to determine whether to bring similar actions.

Death penalty opponents say they have been able to generate large numbers of letters urging mercy, largely because they know that Harris appears to have run out of legal appeals, creating a stronger sense of urgency.

In San Francisco on Monday, 50 clergymen of various denominations held a press conference calling for clemency. In a letter to be released today by the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony pleaded with Wilson to “commute the sentence of Mr. Harris to life in prison without the possibility of parole.”

The governor’s power of clemency is a throwback to the time when executions in the San Quentin gas chamber, and earlier the gallows, were commonplace. The governor is not obligated to hold a hearing, and there are no rules on how such hearings should proceed. The state Constitution merely says that a governor may confer clemency “on conditions the governor deems proper.”

Past governors--including Ronald Reagan and Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, the last to hold executions--sometimes granted clemency after hearing evidence of mental illness or mitigating circumstances in a crime.

Brown commuted 23 death sentences, and Reagan reduced to life imprisonment the death sentence of Calvin Thomas, a man who had firebombed the Los Angeles home of his girlfriend, killing her 8-year-old boy. Reagan cited “the mental condition of Thomas.” Brown allowed 36 executions to take place, Reagan only one.

Clemency powers are limited, allowing the governor to commute an inmate’s sentence only to life without possibility of parole. If the prisoner has a previous felony conviction, a majority of the state Supreme Court must concur in the reduced sentence.

Some past administrations, including those of Reagan and Brown, allowed reporters to attend clemency hearings in capital cases. But Wilson decided to keep the proceeding private to protect the privacy of family members who will testify, a spokesman for the governor said.

The mother, father and sister of one of Harris’ victims, Michael Baker, are expected to appear at the hearing in Wilson’s office to urge that the death sentence be carried out. A brother and a sister of his other victim, John Mayeski, also are expected to plead for an end to the case.

The defense wanted an open hearing and hoped to review the material submitted by the prosecution, said Los Angeles lawyer Howard I. Friedman, who will represent Harris. But noting that clemency is “purely discretionary,” Friedman said “there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Friedman intends to bring five speakers, including one of Harris’ sisters. Other speakers will focus on what they contend is brain damage suffered by Harris because of his mother’s drinking while she was pregnant with him, and beatings he suffered at the hands of his father.

The defense submitted hundreds of pages to Wilson last week. The first exhibit is a photo of Harris at age 8. To an unpracticed eye, the photo is of a smiling and innocent boy. According to defense experts, however, the photo reveals telltale facial features proving that Harris suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome. The syndrome leaves its victims unable to learn from mistakes and unable to control some of their actions.

Former state Department of Corrections Director Ray K. Procunier is among those who submitted letters on Harris’ behalf, saying that he is a strong death penalty supporter but feels that fetal alcohol syndrome should be taken into account in this case. A current San Quentin chaplain, the Rev. Earl A. Smith, wrote to Wilson urging that he show “pity on this man who was so savagely abused as a child.”

Wilson’s approach to his clemency role is far different than that of his predecessor, George Deukmejian, who intended to hold a clemency hearing at San Quentin in 1990, when Harris faced his last execution date.

Complying with a request from Harris, Deukmejian agreed to let him testify at the scheduled 1990 hearing. But Deukmejian also announced that a television camera would be allowed to tape the proceeding. That prompted Harris’ defense to cancel the hearing and withdraw the clemency petition. Harris did not ask to attend Wednesday’s hearing.

Reagan was the last governor to consider clemency in a capital case. Shortly after he took office in 1967, he denied a plea for mercy from Aaron Mitchell, who had killed a Sacramento police officer. Mitchell was executed on April 12, 1967, the last time that the gas chamber at San Quentin was used.

Reagan delegated the responsibility of holding the hearing to his clemency secretary, Edwin Meese III. Reagan explained at the time that he did not attend the hearing because, unlike his predecessors, he is not a lawyer.

Morain reported from Sacramento, Baker from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Daniel M. Weintraub in Sacramento and Alan Abrahamson in San Diego also contributed.