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Ross Harris's Hot Car Toddler Death Conviction Overturned


Howl

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CNNA Georgia father was charged with murder for leaving his toddler in a hot car. The state Supreme Court just overturned that ruling. Here’s how we got here

I vaguely remember this.  Ross Harris left his son to die in his car seat on a hot Georgia day and he was eventually charged and convicted of murder...and sexting with underaged girls. He was also cheating on his wife.  

The state Supreme Court ruled that introducing his extramarital activities at trial  was prejudicial and his conviction has been overturned. 

There was also something a little hinky about the wife, but she was never charged. Both parents searched on the internet for information about child deaths in hot cars. 

A snip from a CNN article, with a phrase that caught my attention: 

“Am I angry with Ross?” she said at the time. “Absolutely not. It has never crossed my mind. Ross is and was and will be, if we have more children, a wonderful father. Ross is a wonderful daddy and leader for our household. Cooper meant the world to him.”

 

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I followed the trial and my sense was that he's guilty. He's a weird dude though, and some of my perception could have been colored by his very strange behavior at the scene after his son's body was found. It was off the wall, but also seemed scripted. I recall him being very cheerful in his police interview also.

He didn't get a fair trial though. The prosecution went to great lengths to connect his sexting with women - some of whom were minors - and visits to sex workers with his son's death.  This probably did unfairly prejudice the jury against him. His wife divorced him, but refused to believe he would have intentionally hurt the baby.

I hope they retry him though. 

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Usually in these cases I err on the side of "likely an accident", but this one definitely sounds hinky what with both parents having looked up how hot it has to be for a child to die when left in a car (not very hot at all) and with him not calling 911 when he discovered the baby.  I do think having one trial for two so different charges was not cool though. Hopefully he'll be retried, fairly this time. 

I think if it was determined it was deliberate the punishment should be pretty strong - there are way too many parents who have this happen accidentally, it only takes one distraction or one small change in the daily routine to cause it to happen, and they sometimes get blamed, shamed, charged with crimes, etc. So the fact anyone would do such a thing deliberately is extra heinous IMO, as it makes grieving parents who made a mistake more likely to be looked at as potential criminals. 

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