[Azimuth]

"Jun. 23—The Supreme Court of Georgia has thrown out the 2016 murder conviction of Justin Ross Harris, whose 22-month-old son died two years earlier after being left in a hot car.

In a 6-3 vote, the court sided with Harris' and his attorney's argument that prosecutors wrongfully used evidence of Harris' multiple extramarital affairs at trial, claiming he deliberately killed his son Cooper Harris to escape a failed marriage.

Several sex offense convictions stemming from an affair with a minor, meanwhile, were upheld by the court. Harris was serving a life sentence and may now be retried on the murder charges.

A statement from Cobb District Attorney Flynn Broady said his office would file a motion for reconsideration in the decision.

Maddox Kilgore, who served as Harris' attorney at trial, said he wasn't surprised by the overturning of the conviction, "but that doesn't mean we're not delighted."

He added, "We're very happy with the court's opinion. We're happy for Ross Harris. Obviously, we're disappointed that the system broke down the way that it did, and that the judge permitted so much bad character evidence to come in."

Kilgore did not know if attorney Mitch Durham, who led the appeal process, had spoken with Harris Wednesday, but said, "it's a joyous day in the Harris household, I can tell you that."

Harris' case captured national attention after he was first charged with murder in 2014. Harris, 33 at the time, left his home on a June morning with the stated intent of dropping his toddler son at daycare. The two visited a Chick-fil-A together for breakfast, but instead of going to the daycare, Harris drove to work at Home Depot's Vinings headquarters.

While his father worked inside, Cooper Harris was left in the car's backseat for seven hours, as temperatures climbed into the 90s. When Justin Ross Harris left work to see a movie with friends, he discovered his son dead of hyperthermia (overheating), still strapped into the car seat.

Harris told police the death had been purely accidental. Prosecutors, however, argued he felt trapped in his marriage by his son's existence, and had killed him to secure a divorce and freely pursue his affairs with other women.

Harris was convicted in 2016 after a closely-watched and widely-publicized trial, receiving a life sentence for murder and 12 years for exchanging explicit messages with an underage girl.

The high court's decision to overturn the murder conviction comes more than a year after Cobb Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark declined to grant Harris a new trial. Staley Clark presided over the original 2016 trial.

Chief Justice David Nahmias, who authored the 134-page majority opinion, had already given indications he took issue with the state's line of argument. When the court heard Harris' case in January, he took prosecutors to task for deluging jurors with "irrelevant" information about the lewd messages and photos Harris sent to other women.

In one case Nahmias found "highly prejudicial," prosecutors enlarged nine photos of Harris' genitals he had sent to women and introduced those as separate exhibits.

The state, Nahmias wrote in his decision, "convincingly demonstrated that (Harris) was a philanderer, a pervert, and even a sexual predator. This evidence did little if anything to answer the key question of Appellant's intent when he walked away from Cooper."

As Kilgore put it, "Prior to trial and during trial, we objected to the admission of evidence which was clearly improper, and the Court recognized that we were absolutely correct," adding that Judge Staley Clark had wrongly allowed the state to advance its "cockamamie theory" for Harris' motive.

Nahmias further sided with Harris' argument that the sex offenses and the murder case should have been tried separately, and that conflating the counts in a single trial had unjustly prejudiced the jury.

Three of the Supreme Court's nine justices signed onto an opinion from Justice Charlie Bethel arguing the introduction of the affair-related evidence was legitimate.

"In my view, the extraordinary task of proving the nature and allegedly limitless extent of (Harris') desires and the level of depravity asserted by the State gave the trial court the discretion to admit a detailed and wide-ranging body of evidence concerning those issues," Bethel wrote.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vic Reynolds, who served as Cobb district attorney when the case was tried, told the MDJ Wednesday, "I have a great deal of respect for the Georgia Supreme Court, but I disagree with their opinion ... I think they got it wrong."

Acworth Police Chief Jesse Evans, who also prosecuted the case, said, "While we respect the Supreme Court, we strongly disagree with the majority's decision, as did three dissenting justices.

"As noted by even the majority of the court, 'the evidence ... was legally sufficient for a rational jury to conclude that (Harris) maliciously left Cooper to die.' We agree. We trust that the Cobb County District Attorney's Office will continue to seek justice for Cooper."



wtf. I swear I saw cc video of him walking to his car, like to check if the kid was dead yet. And he had looked up 'child hot car death' or similar.

[Azimuth]

I meant to put this in the news section, if anyone wants to move it over there. Sorry.

[Awake47]

i liked this case. thanks for sharing

[shadowplay]

Didn't he get breakfast for the kid as well before going to work? Like, how do you remember your kid is there & buy him food but forget a few minutes later?

[StephyJ83]

Forgetting a kid in a hot car can happen to anyone, and it is tragic. That being said, this case was super suspicious, with the internet searches and going to the car and other things. I think he belongs in prison for this. I hope they retry him.

[kellyhound]

multiple extramarital affairs? him? he looks like some highschool student with a bad haircut. Hard to believe that 33 old fucker didn't notice his dead kid in the backseat. Also weird is that his wife thinks it was an accident.

Surprising claims came to light during a hearing Thursday for a Georgia man whose toddler son died after being left in a hot car, a man prosecutors sought to portray as an unfaithful husband who wanted a child-free life.

Among the most shocking allegations: Justin Ross Harris messaged six women, sending and receiving explicit texts -- some including nude images -- from work while his 22-month-old was dying, a detective testified at the hearing.

Harris' attorney repeatedly objected to Cobb County, Georgia, police Detective Phil Stoddard's testimony claiming that Harris sexted the women -- one of whom was underage at the time -- but the judge allowed it.

Police say Harris, 33, left his toddler, Cooper, strapped into a car seat under a baking sun for seven hours while he went to work June 18.

Records show that the mercury topped 92 that day, and police say the temperature was 88 degrees when the boy was pronounced dead in a parking lot not far from his father's workplace.

In addition to the charges he faces in connection with his son's death, Harris may also be charged with felony sexual exploitation of a minor and misdemeanor illegal contact with a minor, Stoddard said.

The detective also testified about Internet searches that could raise eyebrows given the context of the case.

Before his son's death, Harris had visited a Reddit page called "child-free" and read four articles, Stoddard said. He also allegedly searched how to survive in prison.

Among the other details police have released is that Harris and his wife, Leanna Harris, told them they looked up how hot a car needed to be to kill a child.

Five days before Cooper died, Ross Harris twice viewed a sort of homemade public service announcement in which a veterinarian demonstrates on video the dangers of leaving someone or something inside a hot car.

Leanna Harris told police that she had recently seen a story on a state initiative aimed at reminding people not to leave children in cars and that it was a fear of hers, Stoddard said.

Ross Harris "stated that he recently researched, through the Internet, child deaths inside vehicles and what temperature it needs to be for that to occur," police have said, adding that Harris told investigators "he was fearful that this could happen."

During questioning, Leanna Harris "made similar statements regarding researching in car deaths and how it occurs," according to police.
The time frame for the alleged research remains unclear.

He also allegedly searched how to survive in prison.Yep that's what you search after searching what temps are needed for a kid to die in a car as that's real relevant instead of searching how to prevent such "accidental" deaths.