Murder conviction overturned for Justin Ross Harris, Georgia father who left toddler son in hot car
By: Minyvonne Burke (NBC News)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the murder conviction of a Georgia father sentenced to life in prison after leaving his 22-month-old son in a hot car, a stunning turn of events in a case that made international headlines.
Chief Justice David Nahmias wrote in an opinion that an "extensive amount of improperly admitted evidence" presented during Justin Ross Harris' 2016 trial affected the jury's guilty verdict. Some of that evidence included graphic images and details about Harris' extramarital affairs.
"Much of this evidence was at best marginally probative as to the alleged offenses against Cooper, and much of it was extremely and unfairly prejudicial. We cannot say that it is highly probable that the improperly admitted evidence did not affect the guilty verdicts that the jury returned on the counts involving Cooper," Nahmias said.
"If Appellant is to be found guilty of those crimes, it will need to be by a jury not tainted by that sort of evidence. For these reasons, we reverse Appellant's convictions for the counts related to Cooper."
Harris was convicted of malice murder and other charges in the June 18, 2014, death of his toddler son Cooper, who was left in Harris' Hyundai Tucson for seven hours in sweltering heat while the father was at work.
The case and the trial gained international attention as prosecutors argued that Harris purposely left the little boy in the car. They said Harris, who was married at the time, wanted to rid himself of parental responsibility so he could seek out sexual relationships with prostitutes and women he had met online.
Prosecutors told the jury that Harris had also sent sexually explicit text messages to multiple women and underage girls, including some which were sent the day Cooper died. Harris' wife, Leanna Taylor, eventually filed for divorce. She has never been accused of any wrongdoing.
On the day of the child's death, Harris was supposed to drop his son off at day care before he went to work at Home Depot in the suburbs outside Atlanta. The pair grabbed breakfast at Chick-fil-A, according to prosecutors, and then Harris drove to work.
Harris discovered his son was still in the car after leaving work. Cooper's cause of death was listed as hyperthermia.
His attorneys argued during the trial that Harris forgot his son was in the car because he changed his morning routine.
In addition to malice murder, Harris was also convicted of felony murder, cruelty to children in the first and second degree, sexual exploitation of and dissemination of harmful material to minors. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Supreme Court upheld the convictions of exchanging lewd text messages and pictures with an underage girl, noting in the opinion that prosecutors "convincingly demonstrated that Appellant was a philanderer, a pervert, and even a sexual predator." However, it stated that those crimes did not "answer the key question of Appellant's intent when he walked away from Cooper."
Harris is now able to seek a new trial related to the murder of his son. Carlos J. Rodriguez, an attorney for Harris, celebrated the news.
"We are thrilled that the Georgia Supreme Court has reversed Ross's murder convictions, but make no mistake — this decision comes as no surprise. Inadmissible evidence can lead juries to wrongfully convict an innocent person. Today's decision mirrors the very same points that we made to the trial judge, and we were right. I only wish the trial court had listened," he said in a statement.
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I am not sure about this. I though prosecutors did things like that all the time. Dig up wrong doing on people to show character.
I don't think him texting underage girls made him leave his child yet it shows what kind of person he was.
Perhaps they could prove that he had crime on the mind, his thoughts of sexual predation, which is why he wasn't thinking about his own child. I believe causing the death of another, even if not intended, during the course of a crime, could be considered second degree murder.
Maybe when the prison transports him to the courthouse next time they can 'forget' him chained up in the van in the hot parking lot for seven hours...
I don't buy the change in routine crap either.
If someone had to stop at a gas station it could be a change in routine for a regular morning. Millions of people have a change of routine some morning or another and don't leave their kids in a car.