AUSTIN, Texas – Texas' highest criminal appeals court has refused to consider the case of a woman convicted of killing her cheating husband by driving over him.
Clara Harris is serving 20 years for the slaying of her husband, David Harris, by hitting him with her car outside a suburban Houston hotel in July 2002. She had found him with his mistress.
Harris had asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to overturn her murder conviction and grant her a new trial.
In her appeal, she claimed jurors didn't get to hear evidence that it was an accident. She also said the trial court erred by not allowing jurors to see a videotape and virtual reality re-creation of the path her Mercedes-Benz took. Her lawyer says excluding the tapes led to an incomplete defense.
"He was mauled and he was gasping for air," eyewitness Oscar Torres said of David Harris.
Chris Junco, who had been playing tennis with Torres across the street from the parking lot, testified the two stared in disbelief as they saw Clara Harris drive over her husband's body three times.
The defense says the death was an accident and that Harris, 44, was struck once.