Posted 10/06/2004 06:11:00 PM by Douglas

Clara Harris, round two.

A woman who ran over her cheating husband outside the hotel where they married a decade earlier wants her murder conviction overturned, saying evidence that she accidentally struck him was excluded from her trial.

Clara Harris was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine last year for killing David Harris in July 2002 after finding him at a suburban Houston hotel with his mistress. A three-judge panel from the 1st Court of Appeals in Houston heard arguments Wednesday.

I'm not an attorney, and I don't play one on TV, but isn't your appeal process over once Law & Order has produced an episode of your sensationalistic story? Isn't that a right guaranteed in The Constitution? I'm pretty sure it's in the back somewhere. . . .

So why is she appealing her conviction?

Harris' attorneys said the court erred by not allowing jurors to see a videotape and virtual reality re-creation of her car's route in the parking lot that night. They say excluding the tapes prevented Harris from presenting a complete defense.

"Clara did not intentionally strike David and did not run over him repeatedly," her attorney, George McCall Secrest, told the panel. "Her intention was to hit the vehicle. Her intention never was to strike anybody."

See, that's the trouble with videotape. It doesn't record intentions. Since I wasn't a juror, I saw the videotape countless times. As did millions of others in the greater Houston Metro area. We saw her circling her Mercedes Benz over the body of her lifeless husband at least three times. I didn't see her intentions a single time.

But hey, look on the bright side: Even if there is video tape evidence of you killing your spouse, there's still room for an appeal. What a country!