It was a lurid case that received national media coverage, and when it was over, Justin Harris of Marietta, Georgia, was sentenced to life without parole for intentionally murdering his 1-year-old son by leaving him in a hot car.
The verdict raised some eyebrows, because most “hot car” deaths are accidental, and even Harris’ wife didn’t believe he murdered their child.
But the prosecutor sold jurors a story that Harris was “a philanderer, a pervert, and … sexual predator” who wanted to get rid of his son. He was, in fact, those things; and also got 12 years for soliciting an underage girl. But on June 22, 2022, the Georgia supreme court threw out his murder conviction and sentence; saying, in effect, the prosecutor went too far, because the evidence didn’t support that narrative.
His wife, to be sure, isn’t happy with him; but she says Harris was “a loving and proud father” and “a terrible husband … at the same time.”
The evidence that Harris was a sexual predator was relevant and admissible for the purpose of convicting him of attempting to commit sexual exploitation of a child and disseminating harmful material to a minor, for which he got the 12 years. He was properly found guilty of that, and that sentence will stand.
That evidence also would be relevant and admissible for the purpose of proving he intentionally murdered his son, too, if in fact he did and the evidence showed that he did. But if he didn’t, and the prosecutor tried to parlay that evidence into a wrongful murder conviction, when all that happened was a terrible accident caused by parental negligence, then the trial went off the rails and the verdict is improper.
The Georgia supreme court meticulously reviewed the trial record and concluded, “Because the properly admitted evidence that Appellant maliciously and intentionally left Cooper to die was far from overwhelming, we cannot say that it is highly probable that the erroneously admitted sexual evidence did not contribute to the jury’s guilty verdicts.”
There are several lessons here about how the law is supposed to work.
One, the prosecutor was overzealous in bringing murder charges and making up a story, however persuasive, to support them when what happened was by all outward appearances an accident.
Two, prosecutors aren’t allowed to inflame juries with irrelevant information, because that taints the verdict and makes the trial unfair. This is why, for example, prosecutors aren’t allowed to tell juries about defendants’ previous convictions for the purpose of proving they’re guilty of the crime they’re being tried for.
Three, because the state has to prove murder beyond a reasonable doubt, the fact the evidence was merely less than “overwhelming” is reason enough to overturn the murder conviction.
And four, again because the state has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the test for whether inflammatory evidence influenced the jury’s verdict is not whether the defendant can show it did, but whether the state can rule it out.
Careless parents who leave their children to die agonizing deaths in hot cars deserve to be punished. But they should be punished for negligence, not murder, unless it happened intentionally; and it’s just a fact that nearly all of these sad incidents are accidents. A South Carolina professor who follows these cases has found that fewer than 10% of them result in homicide charges, and those cases frequently involve drugs or alcohol, i.e. they face elevated charges because their negligence was especially gross and inexcusable.
Some people may think this is splitting hairs, and Harris is a bad guy who deserves whatever he gets. But the difference between life without parole and 12 years is huge; and a fair legal system will punish people for what they did, not for what they didn’t do. That’s why the Georgia supreme court worked so hard to get this case right.
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