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This father was convicted of killing his son by leaving him in a very hot car. The judges now believe that he was very unfair

2022-06-22T19:06:10.515Z


The Prosecutor's Office presented graphic images and other evidence to try to prove that the man murdered the child in order to maintain extramarital relationships with other women.


By

Minyvonne

Burke

_

The Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the life sentence of a father convicted of murder for leaving his less-than-2-year-old son in a car during hot weather.

Chief Justice David Nahmias wrote in his opinion that "a great deal of evidence was incorrectly admitted" during the Justin Ross Harris trial in 2016, which affected the verdict.

Some of that evidence included

graphic images and details about Harris's extramarital affairs.

“Much of this evidence was, at best, marginally conclusive of the alleged crimes, and much of it was extremely and unfairly damaging.

We cannot say that it is very likely that the improperly admitted evidence did not affect the jury's guilty verdicts," Nahmias wrote.

Harris during his trial in Glynn County on October 3, 2016. Stephen B. Morton / AP

Harris was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and other charges in the June 18, 2014 death of his son Cooper, whom he left inside his Hyundai Tucson

for seven hours in sweltering heat while he was at work.

The case drew national attention when prosecutors argued that Harris left the boy in the car on purpose.

They said Harris, who was married at the time but wanted to ditch the responsibility of being a father so he could pursue sex with prostitutes and women he had met online.

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Prosecutors told the jury that Harris had also sent

several women and underage girls sexually explicit text messages

, including some he sent on the same day Cooper died.

Harris's wife, Leanna Taylor, divorced him.

She has not been charged with any crime.

The day her son died, Harris was supposed to drop him off at daycare before going to work at a Home Depot in suburban Atlanta.

They had breakfast together at a Chick-fil-A fast food restaurant and then Harris left for work.

Justin Ross Harris and his son Cooper.Facebook via WXIA

Harris discovered that her son was still in the car after she left 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 routine that morning.

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In addition to voluntary manslaughter, Harris was also convicted of first degree murder, first and second degree child abuse, sexual exploitation and dissemination of material harmful to minors.

He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The state Supreme Court upheld his convictions for exchanging lewd text messages and images with an underage girl, saying prosecutors "convincingly demonstrated that Appellant was an adulterer, pervert and even a sexual predator."

However, she asserted that those offenses do not "answer the key question of appellant's intent when she left Cooper [in the car]."

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After the decision, Harris will be able to have a new trial for the death of his son.

His lawyer, Carlos J. Rodríguez, celebrated the ruling.

“We are delighted that the Georgia Supreme Court has overturned Ross's murder convictions, but make no mistake: this decision is not a surprise.

Inadmissible evidence can lead juries to wrongfully convict an innocent person.

Today's decision reflects the same arguments we made before the trial judge, and we were right.

I wish the trial court would have listened to us,” he stated in a statement.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2022-06-22

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