Mistake or murder? Trial to begin in Justin Ross Harris case

But the prosecution’s case against Harris, 35, is no slam dunk, legal experts say. There is no smoking gun proving that Harris intended to kill his son or any witnesses who will testify that he yearned to be a childless bachelor.

“The prosecution has to get inside his head to prove he did this intentionally but tried to make it look like an accident,” said criminal defense attorney Philip Holloway, a former Cobb prosecutor who has followed the case from the beginning.

Specifically, they’ll have to prove that, in the brief time it took Harris to drive from a Chick-fil-A where he and Cooper had breakfast to his office at Home Depot’s headquarters, Harris decided once and for all to kill his little boy in a most agonizing way. Indeed, less than two minutes after Ross and Cooper Harris left the Chick-fil-A that morning, Harris would come to an intersection and make a fateful decision: either he would turn left and drive to Cooper’s daycare center to drop off his son, or he would go straight toward the office.

He told police he kissed Cooper when he strapped the child into the rear seat of the Hyundai Tucson. Less than two minutes later, he drove straight through the intersection and set in motion the events that would leave Cooper dead by noon.

To prove that Harris intended to kill his son, the state will revisit Harris’ actions in the weeks and months leading up to the toddler’s death — the research into hot car deaths, the visits to a web site promoting a “child-free lifestyle,” the serial philandering and “sexting.”

“Oftentimes, actions speak a lot louder than words,” said Cobb Assistant District Attorney Chuck Boring said during a February hearing. “I think that’s what this case is going to show.”

There’s little arguing that Harris had a boundless appetite for indiscriminate sexual encounters — both real and virtual. The defense, fearing their client’s character would be damaged beyond repair, was unsuccessful in trying to sever charges related to Harris’ sexting, including inappropriate conversations with a 16-year-old girl, from the murder counts.

“You’re not going to make anyone like this guy,” said defense lawyer Steve Sadow, who is not affiliated with the Harris case.

But the state must go further, convincing jurors that Harris was something much worse. Their campaign began at a probable cause hearing based almost exclusively on testimony from lead investigator Phil Stoddard — a hearing that also would begin to lay the foundation for Harris’ defense strategy.

Proving guilt by a thousand cuts

In a courtroom packed with Harris’ family and friends, most from the Tuscaloosa area, Detective Stoddard dropped one bombshell after another:

Stoddard said he never witnessed any “real emotion” from Harris.

“It was all about him: ‘I can’t believe this has happened to me. Why am I being punished for this?’” the detective testified.

But at least one witness offered a different account of Harris’ reaction to Cooper’s death.

“The father, as I got closer, you could hear his cries and his desperation for his son to be revived,” witness Leonard Madden testified at the probable cause hearing. “I heard the desperate cries of a father who lost his son.”

Ex-wife a witness for the defense?

Some key points of Stoddard’s testimony have withered under closer inspection.

He said that when Harris went to his car with the light bulbs he was “all the way inside the frame,” insinuating he would’ve noticed Cooper inside. “He’s in there. He has a clear view,” Stoddard said.

But Home Depot security footage shows Harris tossed the light bulbs into the front seat, his eyes focused above the roof line of the car. Stoddard also testified that Harris appeared preoccupied with a man walking past him in the parking lot and seemed to become worried when another man walked past, heading toward Harris’ car.

“As that person approaches him, he stops,” Stoddard said of Harris. “He kind of stands there for a little bit as the guy walks past him. You can see that man walk up towards the car. He starts a little bit. (Harris) starts a little bit. He stops.”

But the video shows that Harris does stop briefly, but his eyes are on his cell phone. He never looks back at the man who walks past his car and seems oblivious to a second passerby.

Stoddard also testified about “the smell of death” in Harris’ SUV, even hours after Cooper’s body was removed. But former DeKalb County Chief Medical Examiner Joe Burton, now a consultant in forensic pathology, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution such odor-causing decomposition generally takes 24 hours to manifest itself.

“I doubt he would smell anything,” Burton said.

Attacking law enforcement’s credibility, especially in a conservative area like Cobb, can backfire, Sadow said.

“You have to prove these things were presented as facts, not opinions,” he said. “If they were presented under oath as facts but can demonstrated to be false, then you might get somewhere. When you testify under oath, you don’t have any excuses for getting it wrong.”

Leanna: ‘Did you say too much?’

In the early days of their investigation, Cobb police didn’t hide the fact they viewed Leanna Harris, Cooper’s mother and, at the time, Ross’ wife, with some suspicion. Stoddard testified that, like her spouse, Leanna showed no emotion over her son’s death.

The night of Cooper’s death, following her husband’s interview with investigators, Leanna asked Ross, “Did you say too much?”

Her attorney, Lawrence Zimmerman, said that exchange was taken out of context. Though they’ve never come out and said so, it appears prosecutors no longer believe she was in cahoots with her former husband.

She has, however, been subpoenaed by the state, perhaps to augment their contention that Harris killed his son in part because he wanted out of his marriage. But Zimmerman said his client, now going by her maiden name, Leanna Taylor, remains convinced Cooper’s death was an accident.

“She doesn’t think in any way (Ross) had anything to with it,” Zimmerman said.

Taylor is also expected to be called by the defense, which has already used testimony from some of the other women in Harris’ life.

One of those women told police, “He loved that baby more than I’ve ever seen him love anything. Ross always talked about Cooper.” The women said Harris also confided that he would never get divorced from Leanna because “it would mess up Cooper’s life.”

‘I love my son and all, but … ‘

Perhaps the most damning evidence presented against Harris thus far was his response to a social media post from an anonymous mother lamenting her decision to have children.

“I love my son and all,” Harris wrote 10 minutes before he left Cooper in his car. “But we both need escapes.”

Defense lawyer Natalie Woodward said that while that statement is a powerful one for the prosecution it doesn’t constitute motive.

“I fully expect (the state) has more evidence we don’t know about,” she said.

Regardless, Woodward said, she remains puzzled why Cobb District Attorney Vic Reynolds chose not to seek the death penalty.

“You can’t have it both ways,” she said. “If it’s malice murder, as they’re alleging, what’s the explanation for not pursuing the death penalty?”

Reynolds, a former defense attorney, declined to address his reasons for not seeking the ultimate punishment when he announced his decision in September 2014.

But the stakes are still plenty high for Harris. If convicted of the eight felonies brought against him, Harris would spend the rest of his life in prison.

“The prosecution is going to have to prove a nexus between (Harris’) other life and the death of Cooper Harris if they’re to convict on malice murder,” said Holloway, the former prosecutor. “And the defense will have to make the public understand that just because their client has bad moral character, it doesn’t make him a murderer.”