Clara shouldn’t have to go to jail just for killing her husband.

                                                                                  By Dave Hamby

              I for one am not surprised Clara Harris was found guilty of murder and sentenced to twenty years in prison for running over her husband.   I knew she was going to jail for a long time as soon as I read about her defense.   Her attorneys promised they would prove it was all an accident triggered by her distress in finding out her loving hubby was cheating on her.  

             I can just imagine what she was trying to sell the jury.   “Oh, I didn’t mean to kill him, I was all upset and crying and accidentally ran over him with my two ton Mercedes.   When I realized what I had done I was so upset.   I tried making things right by backing up and un-running over him.   I guess I just made things worse.   Please don’t send me to jail.   I’m a single parent.   Who’ll take care of my babies?”

              She could have gotten off scott-free if she had a smarter lawyer.   I mean what kind of dummy would try to evoke sympathy in a jury for a dentist in a new Mercedes?   I mean if she was a librarian in a Toyota maybe, but someone who does root canals for a living?

              Now if she’d hired Johnny Cochran things would be different.   He would have convinced the jury her husband really needed killing and that poor Clara was just providing the community with a much-needed service.   He was after all, also a dentist and he was a cheating scoundrel who was breaking poor little Clara’s heart.

               Johnny would also have presented the theory that Clara really wasn’t who killed her husband.   He died when all of those dumb Houston Cops who were there investigating the accident ran over him.   It was an evil detective with bad teeth who hated dentists who planted the tire tracks matching her Mercedes’ tires all over the nasty, cheating husband’s skull.  

              Clara wouldn’t be in jail now; she’d be on a celebrity game show. "Give me Clara Harris fof the win please."

              If Johnny wasn’t available she could have hired Melinda Ballard’s lawyers and tried to get her trial moved to Hays County.   They would have convinced the jury he needed killing because he welshed on a contract and that the jury should send a message to all of the cheating husbands in the world by not only setting Clara free, but by awarding her 32 billion dollars for emotional distress.   The deceased husband’s insurance company could pick up the tab.

              Barring that possibility she could have gotten the trial moved to right here in Williamson County.   If she could get a jury made up of Round Rock citizens she could have gone for the “self defense” plea.   All she would have to do is convince the Round Rocker’s her husband was lighting up a cigarette and that she feared for her life from the ill effects from second hand smoke.   The reason she ran over him four times was because she wanted to be certain the cigarette was out.   She extinguished his butt so that Houston could be a better place for everyone.   There’s no crime in that, now is there?

              When I first heard of her arrest I said, “This is one gal that’s gonna walk.”   I hate being wrong.   I’ll bet she does too.   The good news she’s got twenty years to think about it.   This will only bother me for a day or so.    

This article originally appeared in the Round Rock Leader