Opinion ID: 1907203
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Joseph Harris (2) (1 death sentence; 3 life sentences)

Text: Defendant, a postal worker, went on a rampage. He first went to his supervisor's house, where, after picking the lock and turning off the phone, he shot and killed the supervisor's sleeping husband with a silenced handgun. Harris then snuck upstairs and woke up the supervisor. The victim begged him not to shoot her, but to no avail. However, the gun jammed. So, instead, Harris drew his twenty-five inch ninja sword and chased her as she ran through the house. He stabbed her more than ten times, killing her, and leaving her with defensive wounds on her hands. Adding a gas mask and a bullet-proof vest to his ninja outfit, Harris headed to the post office. He shot two co-workers at close range with an Uzi machine pistol, lit and threw something at the police when they arrived, and, after the SWAT team raided the building, surrendered. Defendant also booby-trapped his house, but the bomb squad disarmed the device without injury. Upon arrest, defendant confessed, asserting that he had been the victim of racial discrimination while employed at the post office and that he had killed his supervisor in revenge for being fired. Harris admitted to the police that he thought about raping his supervisor, and that his plan was to take hostages, then murder certain people as they arrived for their shifts. He named five individuals that deserved to die. Defendant had a history of psychiatric problems that were never treated. Based on the ninja outfit, the police tied him to the murder of a businessman after the rapes and brutal assaults of his wife and two young daughters. Defendant was capitally tried and convicted. The penalty-phase jurors found aggravating factors c(4)(a) (prior murder), c(4)(f) (escape detection), c(4)(g) (felony murder), and mitigating factor c(5)(h), present. Defendant was sentenced to death for the murder of the first victim, and to life imprisonment for the other three homicides.