BOBBY LEE HARRIS FREED FROM DEATH ROW

the Supreme Court denied the state’s petition to review an order by Superior Court Judge Wade Barber, who ruled that Bobby Lee Harris had been improperly sentenced.
“He is off death row now, and it means he will never go back,” said defence attorney Mark Edwards. “That means the case is over.”
Harris was featured in clothing company Benetton’s anti-death penalty advertising campaign in 2000. The campaign was executed by photographer Oliviero Toscani with Hands Off Cain’s organisational support.
He is serving 100 years for armed robbery and Edwards said he might become eligible for release in the future. Barber didn’t impose a life sentence when he vacated the death sentence, Edwards said.
In its appeal, the state said Barber didn’t have authority to overturn the death sentence. Barber had ruled that Harris was improperly sentenced by a jury that didn’t hear the guilt phase of his trial. The judge said it was a mandate that the judge and jury that heard the original case hear both the guilt and the sentencing phases of a capital case.
Harris confessed to the 1991 stabbing death of commercial fisherman John Redd in Onslow County, saying he attacked Redd on his boat and stole his truck and about $80.
Bobby Lee Harris is one of 26 death row inmates featured in Toscani’s pictures. Of them one, Jerome Mallet, was executed in July 2001, and another, Jeremy Sheets was freed in June of the same year.