Georgia: Father Who Left His Toddler In Hot Car To Die In 2014 Released From Prison

June 20, 2024

Justin Ross Harris. (Photo courtesy of Brunswick Police Department)

OAN’s Brooke Mallory
Thursday, June 20, 2024 4:46 PM

Justin Ross Harris was released from prison on Sunday, 10 years after his young son died in 2014 after being left in a hot car.

According to Georgia Department of Corrections records, Harris was released from Macon State Prison on Sunday, Father’s Day.

He resumed serving his sentence on December 6th.^Number2016.

Harris relocated from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to the Atlanta area for a job in 2012. He admitted to authorities that on the morning of June 18, he forgot to drop off his 22-month-old son, Cooper, at daycare.^Number,2014.

Harris told detectives he left Cooper in the car seat and went straight to his job as a web developer at Home Depot.

“Cooper [the toddler son] He died after sitting in the back seat of a Hyundai Tucson SUV for about seven hours outside his father’s office in suburban Atlanta, a day when temperatures reached at least the upper 80s Fahrenheit. CBS News report.

During the trial, prosecutors speculated that Harris deliberately killed his son to end his marriage out of extreme unhappiness, and presented evidence of his infidelity, including cellphone evidence showing he had sex with multiple women and exchanged lewd images and text messages with them and younger women.

Harris was convicted of eight counts, including malice murder, in November 2016. A judge sentenced him to 32 years to life in prison without the possibility of parole on the additional charges.

But in June 2022, the Georgia Supreme Court voted 6-3 to overturn the murder and child abuse convictions, finding that the jury had seen evidence that was “grossly unjustly prejudiced.”

At the time, prosecutors declared he would not be tried again in connection with Cooper’s death.

The Cobb County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, in a statement disagreed with the majority’s ruling and argued that as a result of the ruling, prosecutors can no longer use the same key evidence about Harris’ motive.

Harris’ lawyers have consistently maintained that the boy’s death was simply an accident and that he was a “loving father” who lost track of time.

Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court threw out Harris’ murder conviction, which he had not appealed, but upheld his convictions for three other sex crimes against an unidentified 16-year-old girl that were allegedly discovered after prosecutors previously reviewed the defendant’s cellphone data.

Harris was released on Sunday after serving his sentence for those charges.

The decision to move the trial to Brunswick, on the Georgia coast, was agreed with the presiding judge, who argued that pretrial publicity would make it more difficult to find impartial jurors in a trial in Cobb County, outside Atlanta.

Data from advocacy groups Child and car safety On average, 38 children die each year from heatstroke in hot cars. According to a recent study: CBS News The data analysis found that at least one car heatstroke fatality occurs every week during the hottest summer months, accounting for 83 percent of all car heatstroke fatalities over the past six years, and that this statistic is not limited to the U.S. states with the highest average temperatures.