The latest: Jury selection continued Wednesday with five more being qualified to serve and at least one declaring Justin Ross Harris guilty. The newly qualified prospective jurors: a Marietta homemaker who is 31 weeks pregnant; a recently licensed private investigator who once investigated homicides as a Massachusetts state trooper; a bartender who graduated from North Cobb High School; a materials handler who works as a team leader in a warehouse; and a nurse practitioner for WellStar who said she, too, thinks Harris is guilty.
The charges: Ross Harris, accused of intentionally leaving his son Cooper inside a hot car to die in June 2014, is charged with malice murder, two counts of felony murder, cruelty to children in the first and second degree, criminal attempt to commit a felony and dissemination of harmful materials to minors.
The tally: Twenty-one jurors have been qualified, with a minimum of 30 needed before prosecutors and defense attorneys exercise the nine "peremptory" challenges afforded to each side. Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley is expected to want additional alternate jurors because the case will last several weeks. This means more than 30 jurors will be needed to be qualified.
Quote of the day: "He's guilty, and I have five grandchildren and I can't deal with that, I can't handle that," said Juror #41, a pharmacist who's been married more than 40 years. "The evidence is going to say he's guilty. That's common sense. I can't believe he's not guilty." She wrote on her questionnaire that she'd vote to give Harris the death penalty. A decision on whether to qualify Juror #41 is likely to come Thursday.
Decision of the day: Harris' lawyer, Maddox Kilgore, moved to strike Juror #26, a nurse practitioner who lives in northeast Cobb. "How does someone forget that his child is in the back seat?" she asked at one point. Later, she said, "I can follow instructions but I'm going into this with a bias." Prosecutor Chuck Boring noted that the woman, who has a psychology degree from the University of Michigan, said her opinions were not so fixed that she couldn't put them aside and decide the case on the evidence and the law. Staley agreed to qualify her as a juror.
What's next: Jury selection continues Thursday and could wrap up sometime next week.
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