A 30-year prison sentence speaks to the seriousness of Jason Harris’ crime in 2003.

He knows that.

He was impaired, having consumed a drink on top of going almost a day and a half without sleep, and he caused an accident that killed a Cobb County mother as she was driving five children home from a birthday party.

Harris wants to do at least one thing to help one of the many people whose lives were destroyed when he crashed into Lori Tracy’s minivan.

His father is gravely ill and needs a liver transplant. Harris is a match and wants to give his father part of his liver.

“I love my daddy dearly and would do anything in my power to save his life,” Harris wrote in a letter to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

'The author of his misfortunes'

Live liver transplants are rare and risky, said Dr. Ram Subramanian, medical director of liver transplantation at Emory Healthcare. Subramanian said no one in Georgia does live liver transplants in adults, which would mean the operation would need to be done in New York, where the 72-year-old Paul Harris lives.

“Emory, theoretically, has the expertise but we haven’t done one in adults. Not every liver transplant center does it. Living donor transplants are a select few,” Subramanian said.

Jason Harris, however, cannot leave Georgia unless he is paroled.

“Despite what’s obviously a sympathetic situation for his father … there is absolutely no way this office would agree to any form of parole,” said Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds. “I just don’t think that’s appropriate. My concern would be if (during) any of the time period (he) was unsupervised.”

Reynolds was not district attorney when Tracy was killed. He spoke, however, to the former senior assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, Henry Thompson, who is now a judge.

“This defendant is the author of his misfortunes. It touches not just the victims, but others like his family,” Reynolds said.

Hadn't slept for 33 hours

There was much media attention and emotions were high when the 39-year-old mother was killed.

According to testimony, Harris and his family had moved from Maryland and had only just arrived at their new home in Marietta when Jason Harris went out for food.

On his way home, Harris testified, he got lost and was calling his wife on his cellphone when he made a U-turn and drove his Ford F-350 pickup the wrong way down Roswell Road. He sideswiped one minivan and then collided head-on with Tracy's.

She died at the scene and all five children with her were hurt, two of them critically.

Police initially said Jason Harris was drunk. But his blood-alcohol level, tested 1 1/2 hours after the wreck, was below the legal limit. He told police he drank part of a margarita while he waited for takeout, but that drink was on top of not sleeping for 33 hours.

He was convicted of vehicular homicide and sentenced to 30 years in prison to be followed by 30 years on probation.

Parole date that's a long wait

“When Jason went to prison, my husband took it really bad,” said Judy Harris, Jason Harris’ stepmother. “It affected him physically. Everything went wrong.”

Paul Harris, the father, said he is “not great but OK.”

“I can’t even get out of bed,” he said in a phone interview.

At least once a week, sometimes more frequently, Judy Harris drives her husband to a hosptial in Manhattan, a trip that takes about 90 minutes. At the same time, she is being treated for breast cancer.

After reviewing his case in 2010 and again in 2014, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles told Jason Harris he is scheduled, for now, to be paroled in January 2019. The Harrises have asked the board to reconsider, but spokesman Steve Hayes said no decision has been made to revisit the issue.

'None of it makes sense'

Jennifer Amons, general counsel for the Department of Corrections, said Jason Harris can have the surgery to remove part of his liver, but he cannot leave the state for the operation.

“Taking him to New York is not an option under our policy,” Amons said. “We have let him know if he can find a physician in Georgia who can do the surgery, we will take him anywhere (in this state) he wants to go.”

Also working against Jason Harris are at least two disciplinary reports. In 2011, he wrote in his letter to the AJC, he was caught with a cellphone and a cellphone charger, both items considered contraband. Prison spokeswoman Joan Heath said there were other disciplinary problems noted in his file but she declined to say what they were.

His file also contains a notation that he had some contact with gangs. Harris, now 45, said his cellmate several years ago was a gang member but he was never one.

But the reasons Jason Harris cannot be paroled now — the negative reports in his file — don’t satisfy his family.

“Basically what they are saying is they are condemning my husband to death,” Judy Harris said. “It was a car accident. It wasn’t pre-meditated murder. None of it makes sense.”

Recover, return and resume?

Inmates, as a group, are not usually good candidates for donating organs because their overall health is often compromised by alcohol or drug use or poor health.

There has been only one instance in Georgia of an inmate being a live organ donor. In 1993, death row inmate Wilburn Wiley Dobbs gave one of his kidneys to his mother. The operation was in Georgia.

Jason Harris wrote in his letter to the AJC that his father is roughly No. 17,000 on the waiting list for a liver. If his father gets a transplant, he will have a 90 percent chance of a “good quality of life” within about six months of the surgery, Jason Harris wrote.

“If he does not have the surgery, there is a 90 percent probability he will be dead in two months,” Harris wrote.

Lori Tracy’s death in that fatal crash remains a heavy burden for Harris. “I can never take back what happened, and I will never feel good about it,” he said.

He doesn’t want the added guilt of feeling at fault if his father dies.

“I am the right donor,” Jason Harris wrote. “Can my time serving my prison sentence be stopped so I can go through the donor surgery and recovery, then return and resume? To do something good? To save a man’s life?”