A decide is set to condemn a Georgia man Monday after a jury
ultimate month observed that he deliberately left his little one son in a hot
SUV to die.
A jury convicted Justin Ross Harris, 36, within the June
2014 death of his 22-month-old son, Cooper.
Police were suspicious from the start and took Harris into
custody inside the strip mall automobile parking space in which he had pulled
over and eliminated his son's lifeless body from the SUV. Harris' protection
legal professionals argued that he was a loving father and that even as he
became answerable for the boy's death, it turned into a sad twist of fate.
Harris' protection crew vowed after the trial to attraction
the decision and to are searching for a brand new trial.
here are some things to recognise before his sentencing:
THE death
Cooper died after sitting for about seven hours within the
again seat of his father's vehicle outdoor the workplace wherein Harris labored
in suburban Atlanta on a day when
temperatures reached as a minimum into the high 80s.
Harris said he forgot to drop his son off at day care that
morning, driving straight to his activity as a web developer for home Depot, no
longer remembering that Cooper turned into nonetheless in his automobile seat.
Investigators located evidence that Harris turned into
accomplishing online flirting and in-person affairs with severa women apart
from his wife, including a prostitute and an underage teen. They concluded that
Harris intentionally killed his son to escape the duties of family lifestyles.
Harris had moved from Tuscaloosa,
Alabama, to Georgia
for paintings in 2012.
THE TRIAL
Harris' case obtained an substantial amount of media
attention from the very beginning. The Atlanta
media marketplace changed into saturated with coverage, and it also made
countrywide headlines and was fodder for online discussions and cable
information indicates.
After determining in the course of almost three weeks of
jury selection in April that pretrial publicity had made it too hard to find a
fair jury in Cobb County,
wherein the boy died, superior courtroom decide Mary Staley Clark granted a
defense request to relocate the trial.
A jury in Glynn County, positioned on the Georgia coast
about 60 miles south of Savannah, spent approximately a month listening to
evidence inside the case and deliberated for 4 days before finding him
responsible ultimate month of all 8 counts against him. similarly to malice
murder and felony murder prices, Harris additionally changed into located
guilty of sending sexual textual content messages to a teenage girl and sending
her nude photos.
lifestyles without or with THE possibility OF PAROLE
Jurors observed Harris responsible of malice homicide, which
means they believed now not simplest that he must be held criminally
responsible for his son's dying, but that he left the young boy die on reason.
Malice homicide contains a sentence of life in jail, which means that the
primary query at sentencing can be whether or no longer he's going to ever have
the possibility to seek parole.
THE SENTENCING
Staley Clark, the choose, is by myself
chargeable for determining Harris' sentence at a hearing Monday in Cobb
County. Prosecutors and protection
legal professionals will each receive the possibility to give evidence on the
hearing. Harris, who did not testify at trial, will also be given the hazard to
address the decide.
