The defense in the Justin Ross Harris murder trial filed a last-minute motion for a change of venue Friday afternoon, just as the long and painstaking process of jury selection was beginning to wind down.
Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley said she would hear arguments on the motion on Monday.
The motion said, in part, "In defendant counsel's judgment, an impartial jury cannot be obtained in the county where the crime is alleged to have been committed. From the questioning of potential jurors and answers provided by them, it is apparent that due to pretrial publicity in this matter, an impartial jury cannot be obtained in this county as there is a pervasive and persistent opinion that defendant is guilty of the crimes alleged against him in this indictment."
(Return for updates; we are seeking a copy of the motion now).
Four more people on Friday were qualified to serve on the jury in the hot-car murder case against Justin Ross Harris.
This brings to 41 the number of prospective jurors qualified so far, meaning the jury selection process is nearing an end. If Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley elects to have 12 jurors and four alternate jurors, at least 42 prospective jurors must be qualified.
The four people who were most recently qualified are: a Smyrna woman who, like her husband, works for Home Depot; a technical engineer from East Cobb who mentors teenagers and whose son has been offered football scholarships from more than a dozen colleges; an accountant from North Cobb who said she believed her nephew was wrongly charged with murder for a fatal traffic accident; and a software engineer from Smyrna who loves to watch NBA games on TV with her beloved Yorkshire Terrier.
After the latest round of qualifying, questioning of individual jurors continued. It now appears certain the jury will be selected next week.
Of the first two jurors interviewed Friday morning, one was excused for medical reasons. He suffered congestive heart failure a year ago and continues to feel dizzy and fatigued. He said he was greatly worried about his health if he had to sit on the jury and see the “brutal” material expected to be presented at trial.
“I don’t want to have some condition where I drop down dead,” he said.
As Juror #84 began discussing his medical maladies in great detail, the lawyers asked him to pause so they could talk to the judge. Both sides agreed he should be excused. “It’s the decent and prudent thing to do,” Staley said.
Also questioned was a retiree from Kennesaw with 11 grandchildren. She said she has strong feelings about what happened and believes Harris is guilty.
“He left his son in the car and went to work and the child died,” she said, when asked to describe what she knew about the case from media reports. “He was having an affair, just wanted to get rid of the kid.”
She said it would be difficult for her to put her thoughts aside when hearing the evidence, and she also said she would probably hold it against Harris if he didn’t testify in his defense.
“To intentionally kill a child is totally despicable,” she said. “Technically, he’s innocent.”
She was among those who were later struck for cause on grounds she couldn’t be impartial. Both the state and the defense were in agreement on that outcome.
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