A Georgia father has been released from prison 10 years after his son died at one hot cara case that made global headlines after prosecutors charged him with murder.
Justin Ross Harris was released Sunday, Father's Day, from Macon State Prison, Georgia Department of Corrections records show. He began serving his sentence on December 6, 2016.
Harris had moved from Tuscaloosa, Ala., to the Atlanta area for work in 2012. She told police that on the morning of June 18, 2014, she forgot to drop off her 22-month-old son, Cooper, at the nursery school Instead, he went straight to his job as a web developer for The Home Depot and left the child in the car seat, he told investigators.
Cooper died after sitting for about seven hours in the backseat of the Hyundai Tucson SUV outside his father's office in suburban Atlanta, where temperatures that day reached at least the 80s.
Stephen B. Morton, AP
During the trial, prosecutors presented a theory that Harris was miserable in his marriage and killed his son so he could be free. They presented evidence of his extramarital sexual activities, including exchanging sexually explicit messages and graphic photos with women and girls and meeting some of them for sex.
Harris was found guilty in November 2016 of eight charges, including first degree murder. A judge convicted him life without paroleas well as 32 more years in prison for other crimes.
But the Georgia Supreme Court voted 6-3 to overturn his murder and child cruelty convictions in June 2022, saying the jury saw evidence that was “extremely and unfairly prejudicial.”
Prosecutors said at the time that he would not face another trial in Cooper's death. The Cobb County District Attorney's Office, which prosecuted the case, said in a statement that it disagreed with the majority's decision. But because of that ruling, prosecutors said crucial evidence about Harris' motive was no longer available to use.
Harris' lawyers have always maintained that he was a loving father and that the child's death was a tragic accident.
While throwing out the murder conviction, the state Supreme Court upheld Harris' convictions for three sex crimes committed against a 16-year-old girl that Harris had not appealed. He continued to serve time for those crimes until Sunday, when he was released from prison.
Harris' case attracted extraordinary attention, making headlines around the world and sparking debate online and on cable news shows. After determining that pretrial publicity had made it too difficult to find a fair jury in suburban Atlanta's Cobb County, the presiding judge agreed to move the trial to Brunswick on the Georgia coast.
According to data from the advocacy group Kids and Car Safety, on average, 38 children die each year from heatstroke inside a vehicle. Over the past three decades, more than 1,000 children have died in these incidents.
A recent data analysis by CBS News shows 83% of all dead in hot car for the past six years it happened between May and September, at least one death every week during the sweltering summer season. It doesn't just happen in the states with the warmest temperatures. The breakdown reveals a hot car death in nearly every state.
