Speaker 1: The case being discussed in the next couple of episodes
Speaker 1: of Sworn was an emotional case. It was a horrific case.
Speaker 1: It was a highly publicized and emotional case. But the
Speaker 1: purpose of this podcast is not to relitigate guilt or innocence,
Speaker 1: and nothing that I say should be interpreted as an
Speaker 1: expression of my opinion about the guilt or innocence of anybody.
Speaker 1: Neither I nor this podcast is intended to relitigate the
Speaker 1: issues at trial. The jury has spoken. This is about
Speaker 1: what the case looks like from the inside looking out.
Speaker 1: The case was extensively litigated by very good lawyers on
Speaker 1: both sides. A jury reached a verdict, and it's not
Speaker 1: our place to relitigate those issues. But we do want
Speaker 1: to bring you inside the case for an insider's look
Speaker 1: at the case of the State of Georgia versus Justin
Speaker 1: Ross Harris. Place your left hand on the bay of
Speaker 1: Bible and raise your right hand and repeat after me.
Speaker 1: I do solemnly swear the jury trying it. Attendant not
Speaker 1: scared this weekend and around the country. It makes no sense.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't fit, you must have quit. Judge, you
Speaker 1: are the last line of reason in this case, very
Speaker 1: one of us took out all the shuffles, and we're
Speaker 1: sworn to uphold the Constitution. From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: this is sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: worst case scenario, it's a really bad accident gone wrong.
Speaker 1: But then as I sat there and I listened to
Speaker 1: the evidence, I was like, Oh, my goodness, have you
Speaker 1: ever won of what it's like to be a lawyer
Speaker 1: who has to represent someone who is accused of something horrific,
Speaker 1: who is seen as a monster and a reprehensible human being.
Speaker 1: What would it be like if you were the lawyer
Speaker 1: and you believe in your heart and your soul that
Speaker 1: that supposed monster is innocent. On the Atlantic community tragically
Speaker 1: lost a beautiful soul with the horrifying death of twenty
Speaker 1: two month old Cooper Harris. Little. Cooper's death was traumatic news,
Speaker 1: distressing to everyone who heard it as it made its
Speaker 1: way around the entire nation and in fact, the world.
Speaker 1: This case had widespread media attention from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: Everyone has strong feelings about Cooper's death, and everyone seemed
Speaker 1: to have their own opinions on the case. The Baby
Speaker 1: on the ground stand where in your con Okay, okay, ma'am,
Speaker 1: We're not to sing like a no where I think
Speaker 1: babee anybody around them? You're in, daddy? Can you see
Speaker 1: the baby from when you are? From where you are
Speaker 1: on your baby appear to be? Can you you're forced
Speaker 1: me about your phole and can you see him? Bring
Speaker 1: me hi? I'm married A Stedman, a producer on sword.
Speaker 1: On the afternoon of June eighteen, two fourteen, cob County
Speaker 1: Police received one call from a woman witnessing a baby
Speaker 1: who appeared to be having a seizure being pulled from
Speaker 1: a car in the parking lot of a shopping center.
Speaker 1: Due to the screams coming from the father, twenty two
Speaker 1: month old Cooper Harris was quickly surrounded by onlookers. A
Speaker 1: few people tried to help. CPR was attempted. M Cooper
Speaker 1: Harris was pronounced dead at the scene. Cooper Harris was
Speaker 1: the son of Justin Ross Harris, known as Ross and
Speaker 1: Leanna Harris. They lived together and married Atta, Georgia, a
Speaker 1: suburb north of Atlanta. Ross Harris was a thirty three
Speaker 1: year old web developer for home Depot and the lead
Speaker 1: guitar player at his church. Leanna Harris was a thirty
Speaker 1: year old dietitian. They met in Alabama, and at the
Speaker 1: time of the incident, the two had been married for
Speaker 1: roughly eight years. By all accounts, Ross and Leanna were
Speaker 1: kind people, active churchgoers, and a happy family. Around nine
Speaker 1: am on the morning of June eighteen, Ross Harris and
Speaker 1: his son, Cooper went to Chick fil A on Cumberland
Speaker 1: Parkway in Cobb County. After breakfast, he placed his son
Speaker 1: back into the rear facing car seat and his henday
Speaker 1: two son and headed off to drop Cooper at daycare.
Speaker 1: Around four pm, Ross left his work and his wife, Leanna,
Speaker 1: headed to pick up her son from day care. Glanna's surprise,
Speaker 1: Cooper wasn't at the Little Apron Academy where he was
Speaker 1: supposed to be. After driving for about seven minutes, Ross
Speaker 1: pulled over at the Acres Mill Square Mall, screaming Cooper
Speaker 1: had been in the car all day. The Acres Mill
Speaker 1: Square Mall in Cobb County, Georgia is a busy place
Speaker 1: with many different shops and restaurants. When Ross Harris pulled
Speaker 1: his twenty two month old son out from the back
Speaker 1: of the car seat, there were dozens of witnesses and
Speaker 1: working lot. Early Wednesday morning, exactly one week ago, justin Ross,
Speaker 1: Harris was seen at this Atlanta area Chick fil A.
Speaker 1: Harris was seen strapping his twenty two month old son, Cooper,
Speaker 1: into his car seat. He drove less than a mile
Speaker 1: away to this home depot store support center where he
Speaker 1: works as a web designer. Normally, Harris takes Cooper to
Speaker 1: a daycare center on site, but not on this day. Instead,
Speaker 1: Harris headed inside the office and left his toddler in
Speaker 1: his rear facing car seat in the back in the
Speaker 1: blazing Georgia's His twenty two month old son was dead,
Speaker 1: probably long before he tried to resuscitate him. It was tough.
Speaker 1: It's it's tough to see anyone pass, but especially a
Speaker 1: small child and made it especially tough. I don't know.
Speaker 1: He kept saying, what have I done? What have I done?
Speaker 1: And but that's all I could entertained that he was said,
Speaker 1: kind of emotions go through your mind seeing something like that.
Speaker 1: You know, I just hope it's not the obvious. Hopefully
Speaker 1: he didn't do anything to to harm the child. Um,
Speaker 1: but I guess we'll know momentarily. It was an extremely
Speaker 1: tragic accident resulting in the death of a young child.
Speaker 1: No one could conceive the pain and the guilt apparent
Speaker 1: must feel after such a devastating lapse in memory. But
Speaker 1: at ten pm that same night, Ross Harris was arrested
Speaker 1: for murder. After searching his office, police arrested the grieving
Speaker 1: father and charged him with felony murder and child endangerment.
Speaker 1: He's pleaded not guilty. Father's arrest is causing outrage, some
Speaker 1: agreeing with police and shocked at what happened, many saying
Speaker 1: the father has suffered enough. The justice system can't punish
Speaker 1: Ross worse than he is punishing himself, and it will
Speaker 1: only cause more pain for a grieving family. Harris Is
Speaker 1: supporters online have raised more than eighteen dollars for his defense.
Speaker 1: I remember that day very clearly. I was in my
Speaker 1: car on my way back from my law office and Marietta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of traffic way, more than usual.
Speaker 1: I heard the traffic reporter, who's a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: say on the radio that it was due to police
Speaker 1: activity in the area and that they were investigating the
Speaker 1: death of a child left strapped in the back of
Speaker 1: a hot car. On this very hot summer day. That
Speaker 1: precious child was Cooper Harris. The heartache that I felt
Speaker 1: is indescribable, and it was a media and I turned
Speaker 1: around to look at the empty car seat in the
Speaker 1: back of my own car, where my own son sometimes sits.
Speaker 1: I thought, what a tragic accident this had to be.
Speaker 1: But later that night it was eventually reported that the
Speaker 1: father of this child, Justin Ross Harris, was accused of murder.
Speaker 1: I was stunned. How could this man be charged with murder?
Speaker 1: Based on the information provided to me at that time,
Speaker 1: I was not convinced that Ross Harris was a killer
Speaker 1: of any kind. I even chimed in on a couple
Speaker 1: of news stations about it. Justin Ross Harris thirty three
Speaker 1: years old, now indicted on eight counts, including malice murder
Speaker 1: for the death of his twenty two month old son,
Speaker 1: Cooper journey and now was Philip Halloway, a criminal defense
Speaker 1: attorney and former Atlanta prosecutor. Defense attorney Philip Halloway joins us.
Speaker 1: Now I want to bring in Phil Holloway. Phil give
Speaker 1: us a sense of what's going on right now. Malice
Speaker 1: murderer is something that is an intentional death that it
Speaker 1: indicates premeditation. It indicates deliberation, something that was planned in
Speaker 1: advanced and particularly cruel. An abandoned and malignant heart is
Speaker 1: what Georgia Code calls mal The arrest of Justin Ross
Speaker 1: Harris and the death of Cooper Harris sparked lots of
Speaker 1: national interests and awareness about the issue of leaving children
Speaker 1: in hot cars. As time went on, people basically split
Speaker 1: into two camps, those who were absolutely convinced that he
Speaker 1: was guilty of murder and those who believed that it
Speaker 1: had to be a tragic accident. Nonetheless, the story was
Speaker 1: out and people were talking. Many people had doubts about
Speaker 1: Ross Harris's guilt. To gather some additional perspective on this case,
Speaker 1: I talked to a friend and colleague of mine named
Speaker 1: Vinny Polton. Vinny is an anchor at eleven Live News
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, and he's a former correspondent for Court
Speaker 1: TV and at HLN. Vinny and I literally sat together
Speaker 1: during the probable cause hearing for this case with a
Speaker 1: CNN news crew right outside the courthouse. Leading up to
Speaker 1: the probable cause hearing, I was not convinced that this
Speaker 1: was really a murder case. I'm thinking worst case scenario,
Speaker 1: it's a really bad accident gone wrong. There's no way
Speaker 1: I could have even considered that a father would intentionally
Speaker 1: leave his son there. But then as I sat there
Speaker 1: and I listened to the evidence that was going to
Speaker 1: be part of this case and the evidence against Ross Harris,
Speaker 1: what they uncovered in his searches and everything else, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, my goodness. First, you look at that
Speaker 1: day that morning, and you watch all the videotapes because
Speaker 1: you can track all of his motions and things that
Speaker 1: he did through surveillance. And there's two parts of it
Speaker 1: that are to me very revealing. The one part that
Speaker 1: everyone was talking about where he's dropped off by his
Speaker 1: friends and he goes to put the lightbulb into his suv.
Speaker 1: He opens the door of his suv in the middle
Speaker 1: of the day at lunchtime and is able to put
Speaker 1: those light bulbs in, but never looks inside the car.
Speaker 1: To me, that was so unusual, awkward, counterintuitive that you
Speaker 1: have light bulbs in your hand, you're placing him in
Speaker 1: your car, and you open the door, don't look inside,
Speaker 1: and toss the light bulbs in and close the door
Speaker 1: and then turn around and walk away. But the most
Speaker 1: revealing part of the surveillance video comes after that moment
Speaker 1: as he's walking back to his office from his car
Speaker 1: where his son is dying or is already dead, and
Speaker 1: he passes someone. And as he passes that person, that
Speaker 1: person is walking towards the vehicle where Cooper is. As
Speaker 1: the person who passes Ross Harris starts to pass Ross
Speaker 1: harris suv, you can see Ross Harris stop and peek
Speaker 1: over his shoulder to take a look at that guy.
Speaker 1: Why why is he looking? Is he is turning and
Speaker 1: looking over his shoulder to see if that person sees
Speaker 1: inside the window you can see the little Cooper's inside
Speaker 1: his SUV. To me, very revealing at that probable cause
Speaker 1: hearing the testimony was that Mr Harris went to his
Speaker 1: car multiple times throughout the day, and the idea at
Speaker 1: the time that he could not have possibly been aware
Speaker 1: of what was happening in the back of his car
Speaker 1: seemed particularly questionable. The part of the evidence to me,
Speaker 1: that is so real for a juror to understand and
Speaker 1: so simple for a juror to understand. We've talked always
Speaker 1: about Ross Harris's SUV. SUV SUV. It's not a Chevy suburban.
Speaker 1: This is not some super stretch suv. This is a
Speaker 1: compact suv. I wouldn't even call it an suv because
Speaker 1: that think that's so misleading. This car is tiny. And
Speaker 1: when you take a look inside and you see the
Speaker 1: photos that were presented by the prosecution of the interior
Speaker 1: of Ross Harris's vehicle, you can see how close that
Speaker 1: car seat is to the driver's seat. It is virtually
Speaker 1: inconceivable that you could sit in the driver's seat of
Speaker 1: that vehicle and not notice or understand that there's a
Speaker 1: child seat right next to you. Because remember it's it's
Speaker 1: rear facing, so it is right there, within inches of
Speaker 1: the driver's seat. And if you're leaning over to grab
Speaker 1: your bag, if you're turning forty degrees to your right,
Speaker 1: there's no way you don't notice that child's seat. It's
Speaker 1: right there. So how on earth could he drive for
Speaker 1: more than ten seconds and not remember that there's a
Speaker 1: child seat there. He didn't have a rear facing care
Speaker 1: He's got to take a peek over his shoulder, and
Speaker 1: as soon as you turn the slightest bit over your
Speaker 1: right shoulder inside, there's no way on earth you don't
Speaker 1: see the car seat. One of the big issues in
Speaker 1: the case was Mr Harris's physical size and the small
Speaker 1: size of the suv. How could he have not noticed
Speaker 1: the child in the back of the car when he
Speaker 1: left work that day? In other words, was this just
Speaker 1: a freak accident or did Ross Harris intentionally leave his
Speaker 1: son to bake to death in the back of a
Speaker 1: hot car. One thing that was constant from the beginning
Speaker 1: of the case all the way through the conclusion of
Speaker 1: the trial is that Justin Ross Harris maintained his innocence.
Speaker 1: On the day he was arrested. He expressed those exact
Speaker 1: feelings to his wife while he was in the interrogation
Speaker 1: room at the Cobb Police headquarters. Right you got my
Speaker 1: card and right do my poll out? I try to something.
Speaker 1: I try to just seek good news comes post. I
Speaker 1: don't know what a ring well most out her baby
Speaker 1: hat over her? It never Oh well, pet, can we
Speaker 1: talk to him? It's the co he has. They're coming.
Speaker 1: You're gonna charge me. My curls and child curld him.
Speaker 1: That's where they put it up there as count the
Speaker 1: cheese to a bolt. That's all I purpose I feel.
Speaker 1: I don't want as a general practice, the cameras inside
Speaker 1: police interview rooms or interrogation rooms are always running. This
Speaker 1: interrogation video, along with several others, later became a key
Speaker 1: piece of evidence in the trial, and one thing that
Speaker 1: in particular really stood out to the investigators. Leanna, mr
Speaker 1: Harris's wife, asked him in the interview room, among other things,
Speaker 1: did you say too much? Two investigators? That was an
Speaker 1: odd us and the demeanor of Mr Harris and his
Speaker 1: wife didn't add up in the eyes of the investigators.
Speaker 1: The tears and the emotion that was displayed during that
Speaker 1: interaction between Leanna and Ross Harris was not genuine, and
Speaker 1: that was a source of much debate both before the
Speaker 1: trial and during the trial. The bus shocking part of
Speaker 1: this case for me was finding out who justin Ross
Speaker 1: Harris really was. More to come after the break, It's
Speaker 1: still really hard to get your head wrapped around why
Speaker 1: would a person intentionally leave their son to die in
Speaker 1: one of the worst ways possible? What could possibly be
Speaker 1: the motive. When it first happened, people sort of forget
Speaker 1: the initial reaction. You know, you had an aggressive prosecution
Speaker 1: team who's charging this father, apparently not giving him time
Speaker 1: to grieve. It's the way in the media and publicly
Speaker 1: initially was that this father was almost being victimized by
Speaker 1: the system, by the prosecution, who had jumped to a
Speaker 1: conclusion and was being overly aggressive and and was was
Speaker 1: trying to turn this into something that it wasn't. And
Speaker 1: then that got turned around very quickly because of the
Speaker 1: shocking revelation of who Ross Harris was and the life
Speaker 1: that he was leading and and what his true focus was.
Speaker 1: This was not a guy who was living anything close
Speaker 1: to a traditional life. It was absolutely a shocking moment
Speaker 1: because you learned so much more about who he was
Speaker 1: and this this double life that he had, and there
Speaker 1: was something that that I would consider a motive, and
Speaker 1: you know, you think about a father and as something
Speaker 1: why would a father kill his son? And to me,
Speaker 1: that's a question that had to be addressed before you
Speaker 1: could even think about this being in an intentional murder.
Speaker 1: Behind the scenes, police were uncovering information that would begin
Speaker 1: to paint Justin Ross Harris in a completely different light.
Speaker 1: The Cop County father accused of intentionally leaving his twenty
Speaker 1: two month old son, Cooper, had a hot car to die.
Speaker 1: Just two weeks before Cooper died, Harris started an online
Speaker 1: sexual relationship with a woman, and it continued during the
Speaker 1: day that the toddler died yet again, another woman met
Speaker 1: randomly first threw an app from a phone called Whisper.
Speaker 1: During the police investigation, law enforcement discovered that Justin Ross
Speaker 1: Harris was not only engaging in explicit sexual conversations and
Speaker 1: sexting with multiple women, some of the miners, he was
Speaker 1: also having extramarital affairs, including sex with prostitutes. There's a
Speaker 1: difference between and being a bad father and being a
Speaker 1: bad husband. Being an adulterer, a philanderer, a cheater, and
Speaker 1: even sexting with underage girls doesn't necessarily mean that you're
Speaker 1: a murderer, does it. It was apparent to everybody, at
Speaker 1: least those in the legal community following this case, that
Speaker 1: this information, if it made its way into an indictment,
Speaker 1: would most certainly cause a jury to hate Justin Ross
Speaker 1: Harris at a minimum. Yeah, there are husbands who cheat
Speaker 1: on their wives, there are husbands who have mistresses. But
Speaker 1: this is a man who became so obsessed with sex
Speaker 1: and his pursuit of women. It was like it was
Speaker 1: like seven, this was the most important thing in his life,
Speaker 1: and for me, that's the shocking part that a father
Speaker 1: of a young child like that could be overtaken in
Speaker 1: his mind with with something other than the well being
Speaker 1: of his own child. And and the most important thing
Speaker 1: in Ross Harris's life on the day his child died
Speaker 1: was again pursuing sex with random women that he's meeting.
Speaker 1: And it was that obsession to me, that was the
Speaker 1: most shocking part of this. That was the big revelation.
Speaker 1: Once you find out what was going on in his
Speaker 1: life and what he was doing and what he was
Speaker 1: up to, and this secret double life that he had,
Speaker 1: you could understand that in his mind there somehow you
Speaker 1: could form a reason why I would want to get
Speaker 1: out of that life and take the life of my
Speaker 1: own son. It reminded me of Scott Peterson. Scott Peterson
Speaker 1: was a husband and assumed to be father who killed
Speaker 1: his nine month pregnant wife out in California. He's sitting
Speaker 1: on death row right now. I saw that the similarities
Speaker 1: between the two cases and that Scott Peterson wanted to
Speaker 1: live a life if that he could not live as
Speaker 1: a husband and father, And for Ross Harris, same thing.
Speaker 1: There was a life that he wanted to lead that
Speaker 1: was so different than being a responsible husband, so different
Speaker 1: than being a responsible father. That the way to get there,
Speaker 1: it's it's sick, I know, but the way to get
Speaker 1: there would be to take the life of his own child.
Speaker 1: This guy, this father, intentionally left his son inside that car.
Speaker 1: During the investigation, a few unsavory details came out about
Speaker 1: Ross Harris and the events of that day. Firstly, Harris
Speaker 1: claimed to forget his son was in the car during
Speaker 1: the drive from breakfast to his workplace. However, that drive
Speaker 1: was only point five miles, maybe five minutes, conceivably less. Secondly,
Speaker 1: Harris had gone to his car that day once in
Speaker 1: between breakfast and leaving work. He had lunch with some
Speaker 1: coworkers that day, and after lunch he had gone to
Speaker 1: his car to put some light bulbs inside, but even
Speaker 1: then he said he didn't see Cooper. Thirdly, and maybe
Speaker 1: most disturbingly, Harris had been sexting with multiple women that day,
Speaker 1: including one underage girl. Chuck Boring, the lead prosecutor in
Speaker 1: the case of the State of Georgia versus Justin Ross Harris,
Speaker 1: agreed to talk with me about his part in the trial.
Speaker 1: As a prosecutor, I think you have a higher duty
Speaker 1: and a higher burden on your shoulders. We have a
Speaker 1: our oath and our duty is not just too to
Speaker 1: try to seek convictions, but to do justice, whatever that
Speaker 1: may be. I think we have an ethical obligation to
Speaker 1: both the state bar and the general bar, but also
Speaker 1: our duties as a prosecutor to make sure that justice
Speaker 1: is done. Whereas with a you know, a criminal defense
Speaker 1: attorney or a civil litigant, you know, their duty is
Speaker 1: to their client to represent them to the utmost within
Speaker 1: the confines of the state bar rules and the law.
Speaker 1: But their duty is to their client. Our duty is too,
Speaker 1: I guess, more of a general cause of trying to
Speaker 1: do what is right. Is there one particular case that is, say,
Speaker 1: the most high profile that you've ever tried. I mean
Speaker 1: that's probably as of recent times. It was the Justin
Speaker 1: Ross Harris case that we tried last fall, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure that was probably it garnered the most media attention,
Speaker 1: no doubt. Would you consider this to be an unusual case, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think this is obviously it was a
Speaker 1: case that we haven't seen this exact circumstance. But in
Speaker 1: a lot of the uh, the cases that involved deaths
Speaker 1: of children, none of them are the exact same, but
Speaker 1: this was definitely something that was out of the norm
Speaker 1: I would say generally doing child crimes. One of the
Speaker 1: particular hurdles that we have that we have to get
Speaker 1: over is general Society's not like you and I who
Speaker 1: see this stuff on a daily basis. But you know,
Speaker 1: general society doesn't understand the things that we see, and
Speaker 1: I don't think they want to believe the evil that
Speaker 1: exists out there and the terrible things that go on
Speaker 1: in our community, you know, every day. And so that's
Speaker 1: one of the hurdles we have to look at and
Speaker 1: have to take into consideration. Uh, not so much in
Speaker 1: charging a lot of times, but in how we're going
Speaker 1: to approach the argument. How how are we going to
Speaker 1: get through to the jury that you know, evil does
Speaker 1: exist and this person was capable of it. In most
Speaker 1: cases you see in the media, Uh, there are times
Speaker 1: where there are things that may be accurate, inaccurate, half accurate,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's tough sometimes to sit back and
Speaker 1: and just let it happen, but that's what you have
Speaker 1: to do. You know. As a prosecutor, we we couldn't
Speaker 1: come up and say, you know what we see this
Speaker 1: sentence here in the the newspaper on TV, and we
Speaker 1: want to say that we need to correct that. We
Speaker 1: we can't do that at the time. We have to
Speaker 1: let it come out in the courtroom. Well, I think
Speaker 1: you know that one thing is you don't want to
Speaker 1: attain a jury. That's one of the big problems when
Speaker 1: you have a case with media attention and publicity. One
Speaker 1: of the biggest problems is when, as far as you know,
Speaker 1: the appellate decisions have held. Is if a prosecutor or
Speaker 1: defense attorney comes out and puts out intentionally or maybe
Speaker 1: not intentionally, but a statement outside of the courtroom that
Speaker 1: turns out not to be correct. If a court finds
Speaker 1: that that was done and it was done to influence
Speaker 1: the jury and properly, you know, that could affect the
Speaker 1: prosecution of the case. So you have you have to
Speaker 1: be very careful and we have ethical obligations as well
Speaker 1: about what we should or shouldn't say, uh in the
Speaker 1: media outside of a courtroom before the trial has had
Speaker 1: to a jury. Let's talk about the attempt that you
Speaker 1: mentioned at picking a jury in Cobb County. What extraordinary
Speaker 1: measures were undertaken to attempt to pick a jury in
Speaker 1: Cobb Kill. Well, I think the first thing that was
Speaker 1: done that was, you know, everyone agreed on trying to
Speaker 1: that would help accomplish it was bringing in an extraordinary
Speaker 1: amount of jurors, hundreds of jurors, as opposed to you know,
Speaker 1: for one case, you may have a general jury pool
Speaker 1: and the judge calls forty two jurors up. You know,
Speaker 1: we had hundreds of jurors just called in for this case.
Speaker 1: Another thing we had done we thought that may expedite
Speaker 1: some of the situations and fairt out people that there
Speaker 1: was just absolutely no way that could be on the
Speaker 1: jury was to do jury questionnaires regarding pre trial publicity
Speaker 1: and a myriad of other subjects related to the case.
Speaker 1: So that's another tool that we tried to utilize, should
Speaker 1: try to actually see if we could get a fair
Speaker 1: and impartial jury in this county. Extensive efforts were made
Speaker 1: to find an impartial jury in Cobb County, Georgia. Defendants
Speaker 1: have a constitutional right to be tried in the county
Speaker 1: where the crime is alleged to have occurred. But in
Speaker 1: the end, after much effort and much deliberation by the judge,
Speaker 1: it was decided that the venue of the trial needed
Speaker 1: to be changed, particularly because of pervasive negative media. What
Speaker 1: went through your head when you realize that this show
Speaker 1: was about to go on the road. I tried to
Speaker 1: make sure that my main thought process was what is
Speaker 1: the best thing legally and the best thing for this case?
Speaker 1: You know, what is the best thing to do justice
Speaker 1: for the victim of this crime? You know, so for
Speaker 1: good or ill, whatever happened extraneously, not saying that wasn't
Speaker 1: in the back of our minds, I'm sure, but you
Speaker 1: have to be cognizant and make sure that your decision
Speaker 1: is based upon what is the most legally appropriate thing
Speaker 1: to do and what is the best thing for the case.
Speaker 1: After we got done injury venue had been changed, that's
Speaker 1: when the kind of reality of it washes over you,
Speaker 1: and then you start thinking about how are we going
Speaker 1: to live? Where are we going to go? You know,
Speaker 1: and and as as when you when a case, when
Speaker 1: you change venue like that and you move hundreds of
Speaker 1: miles away. Just as the months go towards trial, there
Speaker 1: are things you haven't thought of before, like, oh, great,
Speaker 1: how am I gonna get this? How am I get that?
Speaker 1: I've got to find a dry cleaner? Wherever this is
Speaker 1: gonna go big and small, it starts to wash over
Speaker 1: you once that actually the triggers pulled. How was it
Speaker 1: decided upon Glenn County, Georgia and Brunswick. Well, the way
Speaker 1: that the suggestions are made to the judge in a
Speaker 1: case like this, the parties can defense and stake can
Speaker 1: make suggestions about different counties that they may want to
Speaker 1: try the case in, and you know, it's up to
Speaker 1: the judge ultimately to make a determination. She can pick
Speaker 1: one of the counties suggested by the parties, or she
Speaker 1: can independently decide on a county. Um, what you have
Speaker 1: to do is look at the demographics of the county
Speaker 1: involved that you're trying to move venue to. The goal
Speaker 1: is to find something that's demographically similar to the county
Speaker 1: that you're already you know, the the original county the
Speaker 1: venue is in. And so Glen County actually, over the
Speaker 1: years has been a county where in cases where venue
Speaker 1: has been changed, both from Glenn County to another county
Speaker 1: and from Cobb to Glenn. It's it's gone back and
Speaker 1: forth a little bit because the demographics of both counties
Speaker 1: they kind of mirror each other, and so it was
Speaker 1: a natural fit for One other thing that I think
Speaker 1: had to be taken into consideration was that when it's
Speaker 1: got the venue is being changed. Because of the aspect
Speaker 1: of media attention, it probably would be most wise to
Speaker 1: switch venue to somewhere that may have a different media
Speaker 1: hub and most of the news and things of that
Speaker 1: nature down in Brunswick St. Simon's. They're actually in the
Speaker 1: Jacksonville media market, not Atlanta, So uh, you have to
Speaker 1: move it far enough away to at least numb some
Speaker 1: of the pre trial publicity. I want to speak briefly
Speaker 1: about the the car that Cooper died in. It was
Speaker 1: transported to Brunswick for the trial. Correct, How was it transported?
Speaker 1: As far as the vehicle getting it, getting it down there,
Speaker 1: I'll say, you know it, it was costly to do it,
Speaker 1: to make sure it got down there in a manner
Speaker 1: that it preserved it. There were nothing, you know, because
Speaker 1: you wanted to make sure nothing was done incorrectly. So
Speaker 1: it was it was a task to get the car
Speaker 1: transported down there. And how's it? How many times have
Speaker 1: you try a case where there was no one in
Speaker 1: the courtroom who represented the victim in the case. A
Speaker 1: lot of the child homicides that I prosecutor over the years,
Speaker 1: not prosecuted a lot. I'd say, in the majority of them,
Speaker 1: there's no one there because usually you have, I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: a lot of times one of the parents or one
Speaker 1: of the caregivers is the offender, and many of the
Speaker 1: times the non offending caregiver is supportive of the offender,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of times there's nobody there for
Speaker 1: the victim. It's sad. I mean, I still have, you know,
Speaker 1: in life photos of several of the victims of you know,
Speaker 1: child homicides that prosecutor over the years, going back to
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, you know, as a reminder, you
Speaker 1: know they they were, you know, they were victims. And
Speaker 1: even though they don't have family members to go put
Speaker 1: flowers in their graves or you know, they don't have
Speaker 1: you know, memorials, and you know they don't have people
Speaker 1: calling up to our office to touch base with us,
Speaker 1: because they were with us through the trial. You want
Speaker 1: to keep some memory of, you know, that that living
Speaker 1: being whose life was taken from them criminally, And so
Speaker 1: in one regard it it can be sad and another
Speaker 1: is something that you know makes me proud to be
Speaker 1: able to represent that type of victim. You've got a
Speaker 1: jury in the box, you present your case, you cross
Speaker 1: examined witnesses, you examine other witnesses, the defense puts up
Speaker 1: its case, Motions are argued during the middle of a trial,
Speaker 1: and now you're at the end. What does it feel
Speaker 1: like to stand in front of that jury in that moment?
Speaker 1: I was I was pretty worn down by the time
Speaker 1: it got there, but I will say in the eight
Speaker 1: second closed it wasn't so much exhaustion, but it was
Speaker 1: finally like I finally get the this last opportunity and
Speaker 1: complete opportunity to seek justice for the victim in the case.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's what it felt like. This
Speaker 1: is you know, this moment is finally here. Everything is
Speaker 1: out there before the jury, so here. It is. One
Speaker 1: thing that I've learned in my role as a legal
Speaker 1: analyst in the media, both on radio and television, is
Speaker 1: that you can't go by emotions. You've got to put
Speaker 1: those aside. You've got to be neutral. You can't be
Speaker 1: a cheerleader for one side or the other. You have
Speaker 1: to stick to the facts that are being reported. But
Speaker 1: particularly you have to be careful not to draw assumptions
Speaker 1: from those facts, because in a criminal trial, what is
Speaker 1: or is not a fact? It is always a question
Speaker 1: for a jury. I reached out to Veronic Waters, a
Speaker 1: friend of mine and a radio journalist who covers crime
Speaker 1: and who followed this case very closely from the beginning
Speaker 1: all the way to the end. People were feeling so
Speaker 1: sorry for this family and for this young dad who
Speaker 1: seems to have lost his world. But then, very early on,
Speaker 1: talking to one or two of the witnesses out there
Speaker 1: in that parking lot, we started to hear what or
Speaker 1: two rumblings about maybe this dad wasn't quite the grieving
Speaker 1: father that we first thought. He seemed a little stiff,
Speaker 1: he seemed a little not quite all there. Something about
Speaker 1: him seemed a little off. And then, very quickly, as
Speaker 1: we heard from police that there were some suspicions enough
Speaker 1: to hold him behind bars, the sort of focus of
Speaker 1: the story quickly turned from oh, my gosh, how could
Speaker 1: this happen? To oh my gosh, did somebody make this
Speaker 1: happen on purpose? As a journalist, how do you go
Speaker 1: about separating your personal feelings about that question? Uh, could
Speaker 1: somebody have made this happen on purpose? From being objective
Speaker 1: in the way you report about it. Well, you never
Speaker 1: lose sight that somebody lost his life. It's impossible really
Speaker 1: to separate your emotions from noing that somebody died a
Speaker 1: terrible death. I mean, as an adult, have you we've
Speaker 1: all gotten into a hot car in the middle of
Speaker 1: the summertime and maybe you drop the keys before you
Speaker 1: can put them in the addition really quickly and turn
Speaker 1: on the car. But we've all had those few seconds
Speaker 1: of being in a car that was baking in the
Speaker 1: sun for a couple of hours before we got in,
Speaker 1: So you kind of know what that really uncomfortable prickle
Speaker 1: is like when you are in your own hot car,
Speaker 1: but you know you have the power to turn on
Speaker 1: the a C let down the window, and you can
Speaker 1: kind of chill a little bit, literally chill out a
Speaker 1: little bit. But you know that Cooper never had that option,
Speaker 1: and so you don't not know that Cooper died. But
Speaker 1: in a different way, but sort of the same as
Speaker 1: how you are as an attorney. You have to look
Speaker 1: at all sides of everything. Basically just report things straight
Speaker 1: down the middle. And just because the police say I've
Speaker 1: never seen something so horrific in my life, and we
Speaker 1: believe that this was done on purpose, doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: you have to believe it too. And I think the
Speaker 1: way that you keep that in mind means that you
Speaker 1: do your job as a reporter and and not sort
Speaker 1: of try to sway the audience. I mean, my job
Speaker 1: is to go straight down the middle and um, and
Speaker 1: that's what I did. You sort of have to pay
Speaker 1: attention to not getting caught up in the spin and
Speaker 1: looking at what is actually presented at trial. But I
Speaker 1: think for the jury in this case, emotion did really
Speaker 1: lead the way because there was a lot of at
Speaker 1: the at the end of the day, a lot of
Speaker 1: people just couldn't imagine that somebody could forget their kid.
Speaker 1: And in either case, and in any case, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people thought, even if you were distracted,
Speaker 1: no matter what you were doing, you still have to
Speaker 1: pay the price for leaving your kid in the car. Well,
Speaker 1: I think what a lot of people really couldn't separate
Speaker 1: in their mind was the allegation of sexting from the
Speaker 1: question of whether or not he actually purposely left his
Speaker 1: child in the car die. People were horrified by that.
Speaker 1: How could you be sexty six different ladies on the
Speaker 1: day that your son is dying in a hot car
Speaker 1: in June, it was just unfathomable. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people were saying, I don't want to believe he
Speaker 1: did it, but if he did it, he should fry.
Speaker 1: I think at that point it was still hard for people,
Speaker 1: a lot of people to believe that he had actually
Speaker 1: done it, but people were furious with him at the
Speaker 1: at the thought of it. Even though we live in
Speaker 1: a country where you're innocent until proven guilty, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people tend to think that if you
Speaker 1: are ever put in handcuffs, you probably did it. And
Speaker 1: of course, as you know as a defense attorney, this
Speaker 1: is why the way that your client is presented in
Speaker 1: front of a jury is so important, and that goes
Speaker 1: for even pre trial hearings, motions hearings where they might
Speaker 1: be coming to court. We don't want them seen in
Speaker 1: an orange jumpsuit, say the defense attorneys, because we don't
Speaker 1: want to prejudice the jury pool against our client. So
Speaker 1: people are already horrified and shocked at the nature of
Speaker 1: this alleged crime. Do we really want to make it
Speaker 1: work by, you know, parading this guy out in jail blues?
Speaker 1: Or whatever, and in handcuffs, shackled at the ankles and
Speaker 1: wrists to sort of hammer home the image of a
Speaker 1: guy who's, you know, guilty before he's even had a
Speaker 1: chance to go trial. I think I may have said
Speaker 1: to you earlier that we had people who were saying,
Speaker 1: I get it, I've been distracted, I've forgotten stuff, and
Speaker 1: and in quiet moments, there are some people who will
Speaker 1: actually tell you I have forgotten my kid in the car.
Speaker 1: Didn't happen for eight hours on a summer day, But
Speaker 1: I've walked away from the car for X number of
Speaker 1: seconds or minutes and forgotten that I had a kid
Speaker 1: in the car. Veronica was actually in the courtroom when
Speaker 1: the prosecution displayed the horrific and graphic images of the
Speaker 1: deceased body of little Cooper Harris. I asked her what
Speaker 1: was in her mind when she saw those photos. It
Speaker 1: was heartbreaking. I mean I really felt something in my chest.
Speaker 1: I really hurt when we heard about what Cooper probably
Speaker 1: experienced that day was bad. But just looking at the
Speaker 1: pictures of his frozen, little precious body, this beautiful little boy,
Speaker 1: m hm. You just I think, you know, you wish
Speaker 1: you could roll back time. You can't imagine that someone
Speaker 1: could have done that on purpose. Who would wish this
Speaker 1: kind of death on somebody. I do think that the
Speaker 1: verdict against Ross Harris was a condemnation of how he
Speaker 1: spent his married life. Listening to the k is laid
Speaker 1: out by the state and the defense, I was shocked.
Speaker 1: I just think for a lot of people it is
Speaker 1: hard to separate someone who lies and cheats that much,
Speaker 1: or from someone who could be a killer, and I
Speaker 1: certainly think that that was the argument made by the prosecutor. Conversely,
Speaker 1: Mados Kilgore said, this is a guy who has moral failings.
Speaker 1: He's a terrible husband, but he loved his kid more
Speaker 1: than anything. And I think one of the things that
Speaker 1: was very surprising to me was that the prosecution rested
Speaker 1: its case without ever having called a single witness who
Speaker 1: could say that Ross Harris ever even spoke across word
Speaker 1: to Cooper. And that was a shock to me because
Speaker 1: there was not one person whoever said, yeah, he seemed
Speaker 1: like he loved Cooper. But I remember that time he
Speaker 1: that that boy's arm in the grocery store, or I
Speaker 1: remember the time he spanked him, and I just didn't
Speaker 1: think that was right. We never heard one single person
Speaker 1: say that Ross Harris had even frowned at his little
Speaker 1: boy one day. By all accounts, Ross Harris loved Cooper,
Speaker 1: even though the prosecution found what they believed was convincing
Speaker 1: evidence that Justin Ross Harris was cheating on his wife
Speaker 1: with multiple women, and that he was more concerned with
Speaker 1: his extramarital sex life than the safety of his own child.
Speaker 1: On the day little Cooper died. Not everyone was convinced
Speaker 1: yet that this was a murder. Both sides prepared for
Speaker 1: what would be a very drawn out trial several hundred
Speaker 1: miles outside of Atlanta, all the way down to Brunswick, Georgia.
Speaker 1: The question remained, was this murder or was this just
Speaker 1: a horrible accident. Justin Ross Harris was represented by a
Speaker 1: defense team led by a friend of mine named Maddox Kilgore.
Speaker 1: Maddox's job was to convince the jury that Justin Ross
Speaker 1: Harris loved his son Cooper, that he was a good father,
Speaker 1: and as a good father he could never have done
Speaker 1: something like intentionally murdering his child in this horrible way.
Speaker 1: His job was to raise reasonable doubt wherever it may
Speaker 1: have existed, and ultimately it was up to Matos to
Speaker 1: prove to the jury that this was nothing more than
Speaker 1: a tragic accident. From watching Maddox in court and knowing
Speaker 1: him like I do, I know that he really, truly,
Speaker 1: honestly believes that this was a tragic accident. I sat
Speaker 1: down with Maddox Kilgore to talk about the case next
Speaker 1: time on Sworn. Sworn is produced by Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Story production and sound design by Payne Lindsay Executive producers
Speaker 1: Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay, and if you have it yet,
Speaker 1: please check out our sister podcast, Up and Vantage that
Speaker 1: follows the investigation into the disappearance of Georgia High school
Speaker 1: teacher and beauty queen Tera Brinstein. Up and Vantaged is
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