Man sentenced to life in prison for hot car death will NOT be tried again after conviction overturned
A Georgia father will not be tried again for the death of his toddler in a hot car, prosecutors said Thursday, after Georgia’s Supreme Court reversed his convictions for murder and child abuse last year.
The Supreme Court upheld the convictions of 42-year-old Justin Ross Harris for three sex offenses committed against a 16-year-old girl, against which Harris had not appealed.
He received a total of 12 years in prison for those crimes, and he will continue to serve that sentence, the district attorney’s office said.
Georgia Supreme Court justices all agreed that there was sufficient evidence to support Harris’s convictions.
But the majority view was that much of the evidence related to his sexual activities should not have been allowed at trial and may have improperly influenced the jury.
Justin Ross Harris (pictured), a Georgia father, will not face trial again over the death of his toddler in a hot car, prosecutors said Thursday, after the Georgia Supreme Court reversed his murder and child abuse convictions last year
Harris was found guilty of eight charges in November 2016, including murder with intent in the June 2014 death of his 22-month-old son Cooper.
A judge sentenced him to life without parole, as well as an additional 32 years in prison for other crimes.
Cooper was almost two years old when he died in his father’s hot car
But the state Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 last June to overturn his murder and child abuse convictions, saying the jury saw evidence that was “extremely and unfairly prejudicial.”
The Cobb County District Attorney’s office, which was prosecuting the case, said in a statement that it disagreed with the majority’s decision.
But because of that ruling, prosecutors said crucial evidence about Harris’ motive is no longer available to use.
After a thorough review of the entire case, prosecutors said they decided not to try Harris again based on the reversed counts.
A judge on Thursday agreed to dismiss those charges.
Harris’ lawyers – Maddox Kilgore, Carlos Rodriguez and Bryan Lumpkin – have maintained from the outset that Harris was a loving father and that the boy’s death was a tragic accident.
“Ross has always accepted moral responsibility for Cooper’s death,” they said in a statement after the charges were dismissed.
“But after all these years of investigation and review, this dismissal of charges confirms that Cooper’s death was accidental and therefore not a crime.”
Cooper’s mother, Leanna Taylor, always maintained that Cooper’s death was an accident.
Taylor said last year that the court had made the right decision, calling it “big news for Ross and his family.” She added, “I know they are grateful for this turn of events.”
Justin Ross Harris, 41, is pictured in court in July 2014 – a month after Cooper’s death
Cooper, aged 22 months, was left in the back seat of Harris’ car for more than seven hours in June 2014
Harris was described by his ex-wife, Cooper’s mother, as a devoted and loving father
The ex-wife, whose divorce from Harris was finalized in March 2016, said: “It would be my wish that this would help change the way Cooper was remembered.”
Taylor now lives in Alabama and said she felt justified by the Supreme Court decision.
While this won’t change my day-to-day life, I hope it shows people what those closest to the cause have said from the start: Ross was a loving and proud father to Cooper.
At the same time, Ross was a terrible husband.
“These two things can and have existed at the same time.”
Harris had moved from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to the Atlanta area in 2012 for work. He told police that on the morning of June 18, 2014, he forgot to drop Cooper off at daycare and drove straight to his job as a web developer for Home. Depot and leave the child in his car seat.
Happier times: Harris is pictured with his son and then-wife Leanna Taylor
Harris is seen in court in October 2015. His murder trial began in September 2016
Taylor testifies at the murder trial after being subpoenaed to testify
Cooper died after sitting in the backseat of the Hyundai Tucson SUV for about seven hours outside his father’s office in suburban Atlanta, where temperatures reached at least the high 80s that day.
At trial, prosecutors advanced a theory that Harris was miserable in his marriage and killed his son so he could be free.
In support of that claim, they presented evidence of his extramarital sexual activities, which included exchanging sexually explicit messages and graphic photos with women and girls and meeting some of them for sex.
The Supreme Court ruled that they also “presented a significant amount of evidence to lead the jury to answer a different and more legally problematic question: What kind of man is (Harris)?”
A dissenting opinion held that the state was entitled to provide detailed evidence of “the nature, scope and scope of the truly sinister motive it attributed to Harris” and held that the court was not wrong to allow the jury the challenged evidence.
She broke into court while giving evidence, while her son’s photo was held back
On the morning of June 18, 2014, Harris reportedly told police he forgot to drop his son off at daycare before driving to his job at Home Depot in Atlanta.
Harris’ lawyers said the case “tragically fits the pattern of how children are unintentionally left in cars.”
“Suing a grieving parent for accidental amnesia does not help prevent the tragedy from happening to another,” their statement said. “In fact, the number of child deaths from hot cars increased after Ross’ trial in 2016.”
Harris’s case drew extraordinary attention, garnering significant attention in the Atlanta area and making national headlines and sparking debates online and on cable news programs.
After nearly three weeks of jury selection determining that pre-trial publicity had made it too difficult to find a fair jury in suburban Atlanta’s Cobb County, the presiding judge agreed to move the trial to Brunswick on the coast of Georgia.