Carlyle Harris

{{Short description|American convicted murderer}}

{{Infobox criminal

| name = Carlyle Harris

| image = Carlyle Harris.png

| birth_date = September 1868

| birth_place = Glens Falls, New York, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date|1893|05|08}} (age 24)

| death_place = Sing Sing Prison, New York, U.S.

| conviction = First degree murder

| conviction_penalty = Death by electrocution

| conviction_status = Executed

| occupation = Medical student

| spouse = Mary Helen Potts

}}

Carlyle Harris (September 1868 – May 8, 1893) was a medical student who was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his wife.

A student at New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, Harris murdered his wife, Mary Helen Potts, whom he had married on February 8, 1890, with an overdose of morphine in the form of sleeping pills. Although Potts' death was first attributed to a stroke, the murder was discovered by physicians only because she displayed severely contracted pupils, a characteristic symptom of morphine poisoning.

Prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Charles E. Simms Jr., the witnesses against Harris included Dr. Rudolph Witthaus.{{cite book|last=Wilkes|first=Roger|title=The Mammoth Book of Murder and Science|location=New York|publisher=Carroll & Graf Publishers|year=2000|isbn=0-7867-0789-5|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/mammothbookofmur0000unse}} Harris was represented by prominent defense attorney William F. Howe.{{cite book|last=Trager|first=James|title=The New York Chronology: A Compendium of Events, People, and Anecdotes from the Dutch to the Present|location=New York|publisher=HarperCollins Publishers|year=2003|isbn=0-06-074062-0}} He was found guilty of first degree murder, on February 8, 1892, the second anniversary of his marriage to Helen Potts and was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison on May 8, 1893.