Some Excuse

A hitman offers alibis

Unlike many accused felons, Charles Harrelson did not try to depict himself as an upstanding citizen, even while proclaiming his innocence. On trial in San Antonio since late September for the 1979 assassination of Federal Judge John H. Wood Jr., Harrelson, now serving a 40-year sentence on drug and gun charges, testified last week that he could not possibly be guilty. Reason: on the morning the judge was shot dead in front of his San Antonio town home, said Harrelson, he had been in Dallas, running some extraordinary errands: returning a golf putter he had borrowed to determine how much cocaine he could hide in its shaft for a drug-smuggling scheme, buying a cashier's check to pay for a car he had bought under an assumed name, and collecting some gambling debts. Government prosecutors charge that Harrelson, 44, convicted once of murder for hire (he served five years before a parole in 1978), killed Wood for a $250,000 fee from a Las Vegas gambler and drug smuggler. To demonstrate his prowess as a professional cardsharp, Harrelson offered the court an impromptu exhibition. No thanks, said U.S. District Judge William Sessions.

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