Trial - Ross Harris #3

[kjpaw]

Coming out of the shadows briefly, but if he was such a researcher why didn't he research how to prevent his greatest fear?

Love websleuths and the diverse opinions...always keeps me thinking.

 

[arkansasmimi]

I have to go look again too. The judge seems to be looking at Kilgore when she suggested the case be looked up--but I didn't catch what was being said.


eta---she also said pay attention to pages 61 and 62 but I don't know what that means exactly...lol

They wre talking about how to write up the order for seeing the car. Convo carried over from earlie. She had said she didnt have a lawyer assistant with her to help research, and had told what kind of template she used prior. Mr. Evans was going to help her find what she needed - the example.

 

[katydid23]

Umm. Maybe what to say to make himself sound like a victim of forgotten baby syndrome? Wasn't that one of the critiques of his interview and then exchanges with Leanna? That he didn't say explicitly- well I THOUGHT I dropped him off at daycare?

I don't think this was a long planned, well thought out action. I think it had crossed his mind a few times and he fought against the evil urge. But on this particular morning he was especially stressed, tired and depressed, and he impulsively gave into the impulse.

 

[GA_Peach]

At 11:35, it was 88 degrees at the car seat. That is time when the car seat temp matched the outside temp. At 12:45 the car seat temp was 98 degrees with the outside temp still being 88. The interior got above 100 degrees shortly before 1:00.

On 6/18/2014 the outside heat was 86 at 12:00. 87.8 at 1:00

I am going to be honest. I believe that the car study is terrible science and have discredited the entire study. The witness admitted that he did not know the starting temperature of Ross's car so he just set the A/C temperature to the same level as when the car was impounded on the afternoon on June 18. The witness did not make any adjustments for the fact that Ross's car sat in the unshaded CFA parking lot for 20ish minutes. The starting temperature could have been off as much as 10-15 degrees. That is a significant variation. He also did not account for another major variable - Cooper, a heat source, in the car. I cannot accept the conclusion when the methodology and process is fundamentally flawed. I think that it is unlikely that Cooper was conscious when Ross returned from lunch.

I don't think this was a long planned, well thought out action. I think it had crossed his mind a few times and he fought against the evil urge. But on this particular morning he was especially stressed, tired and depressed, and he impulsively gave into the impulse.

If it was premeditated, I think that this is what happened. It's been well documented that Ross doesn't excel at resisting his urges.

 

[arkansasmimi]

They parked at 9:00 I thought, with the air having been turned to I think 67. I could be remembering wrong

Eta: my apologies, they said the a/c was set to what the car had been set to. No specific temp noted. They drove the car until it was at the full operating temp. They started monitoring temps inside the car at 9:00. It was 65 degrees in the car at 9:00 am

ETA Rodriguez was doing Cross
Yes, at 8:22 parked and air running for 30 min. On Cross witness said it was his idea to run a/c, a/c was on. But no one knows if RH ran the a/c that morning only that afternoon Per Rodriguz Cross. and also the witness understanding.
9:00 it was 65 inside 80 outside and then my notes say go back and look lol had to refresh...

 

[Maisiebelle]

Because Cooper was asleep when peeps walked right by the car.

And the rear windows were tinted.

 

[blue22]

I am going to be honest. I believe that the car study is terrible science and have discredited the entire study. The witness admitted that he did not know the starting temperature of Ross's car so he just set the A/C temperature to the same level as when the car was impounded on the afternoon on June 18. The witness did not make any adjustments for the fact that Ross's car sat in the CFA parking lot for 20ish minutes. The starting temperature could have been off as much as 10-15 degrees. That is a significant variation. He also did not account for another major variable - Cooper, a heat source, in the car. I cannot accept the conclusion when the methodology and process is fundamentally flawed. I think that it is unlikely that Cooper was conscious when Ross returned from lunch.

I personally don't think Cooper would have been a heat source at lunch. In order for his body to have been a heat source, he would have to be a higher temp than inside the car. Since the car was not in the full sun and mostly protected until 2:00, I really don't think ti's possible he would have been creating heat at that time. I don't know how I feel about the heat test conducted, but I cannot be convinced he was deceased or a heat source. JMO

 

[just the facts pls]

Just some thoughts for today:

Whatever questions there are about Detective Stoddard or Detective Murphy may be, it doesn't change the mountain of evidence against JRH. As GA_Peach already mentioned, you could throw out the testimony of law enforcement and still have enough evidence to convict JRH. The size of the car, the positioning of the car seat, JRH's height and width, the conversation he was having on Whisper about escaping his family right before leaving Cooper in the car, his odd behavior during the day including the choice to not drive his car to lunch and telling the door greeter for the first time in his life what his afternoon plans are, the time it takes to get from Chik-Fil-A to the Treehouse, and the very numerous text messages encouraging other people to not have children, how his marriage made him miserable, how expensive raising a child was, how he wished he could leave his family "except for Cooper" all point to JRH making the terrible decision to kill his kid and stage it as an accident. There is also the reddit post that shows he knew the importance of eyewitnesses at the scene of a crime which supports the theory that he deliberately drove away from his job to make a public "discovery."

None of this goes away in the event someone from the State makes a mistake or is found out to have been deceptive. I am also dubious that Kilgore has any grounds to accuse anyone of being deceptive considering his own ability to reframe the evidence as he sees fit no matter how damning, and how he repeatedly called JRH's SUV a "truck" as if to make it sound larger than it really was. No, it's a passenger vehicle probably registered under the designation of a station wagon. There is a different registration for trucks because they have more engine power and can haul things, and whatever state you are in puts limits on how much you can haul depending on the class of your drivers license.

From the beginning I have thought JRH was guilty, and I have yet to see anything to change my opinion. Even the photos of Cooper draped over JRH taking him into day care felt irrelevant. Let's pretend for a moment that the defense is correct and Cooper fell asleep on multiple occasions. Even if that were the case, that would be even more of a reason for JRH to be mindful of Cooper's presence in the car considering that leaving him in a hot car to die was supposedly his GREATEST FEAR.

Not that a four minute drive from Chik-Fil-A or a Whisper conversation where he talks about escaping his family has ever been reasonable circumstances under which to forget a child is in the car. You cannot forget a child if you are talking about that child, because they are immediately in your mind. If JRH's entire defense is that he forgot, then his defense has been blown for a long time.

 

[GA_Peach]

I personally don't think Cooper would have been a heat source at lunch. In order for his body to have been a heat source, he would have to be a higher temp than inside the car. Since the car was not in the full sun and mostly protected until 2:00, I really don't think ti's possible he would have been creating heat at that time. I don't know how I feel about the heat test conducted, but I cannot be convinced he was deceased or a heat source. JMO

I agree that he was not a heat source at lunch. However, I don't think that there is any question that the car was cooler than 98.6 degrees when Ross closed the door around 9:30 that morning. For some period of time, Cooper's body heat was contributing to the overall temperature in the car. I don't know how to quantify that, but I think that the fact that his temperature was simply ignored is shoddy work. The even bigger issue is that the starting temperature was unknown.

 

[minor4th]

According to the heat study conducted in the car, what would the temperature have been at 11:21? Anyone have that handy?

I don't know exactly, but I do know the heat guy claimed it wouldn't get to 100 degrees or higher until after lunch time.

 

[blue22]

I agree that he was not a heat source at lunch. However, I don't think that there is any question that the car was cooler than 98.6 degrees when Ross closed the door around 9:30 that morning. For some period of time, Cooper's body heat was contributing to the overall temperature in the car. I don't know how to quantify that, but I think that the fact that his temperature was simply ignored is shoddy work. The even bigger issue is that the starting temperature was unknown.

In this case, I don't agree that it's shoddy work. There is no way to test that, unfortunately. You can't put a living thing in there and let them bake, to get that temperature. I suppose they could guess, but IMO that would be shoddy.

 

[katydid23]

And the rear windows were tinted.

My rear windows are tinted and no one can see anything in the back when they walk by.

 

[GA_Peach]

In this case, I don't agree that it's shoddy work. There is no way to test that, unfortunately. You can't put a living thing in there and let them bake, to get that temperature. I suppose they could guess, but IMO that would be shoddy.

He should have found a proxy for a human. He should have found something around the same size as Cooper and something that emits heat at the same rate as a human. Like I said, my biggest issue is that he did not even have a clue what the starting temperature in the car should have been. Not attempting to replicate the impact of a small human in the car is secondary.

 

[just the facts pls]

Coming out of the shadows briefly, but if he was such a researcher why didn't he research how to prevent his greatest fear?

Love websleuths and the diverse opinions...always keeps me thinking.

I want to quote this for the sake of this post alone. It is an excellent point, and well put.

It also makes me all the more angry that if this was intentional, JRH knew what kind of a death he condemned Cooper to die.

JRH may not have been googling about hot car deaths, but he also wasn't googling about how to prevent them either.

 

[justkk]

And throwing in- if Cooper in his carseat was so impossible to miss, how was it none of those people walking by saw Cooper?

If I remember correctly the back windows are darkly tinted (?) I think. I have been taking notice lately as I walk through a Parking lot if I am looking in cars and I'm not. But even if - the window tint would make it hard to see in.
RH on the other hand was sitting inside the vehicle inches away from Cooper - I think that is what people who believe he is impossible to miss mean...

JMO



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[arkansasmimi]

Did I miss the discussion about the HD parking lot videos Kilgore showed the jury?

The videos showed people walking very near or right by RH's car (times are my approximates, from memory): 9:35, 9:40, 10:00, and 11:21, may have missed one. The car still seems to be at least partially shaded at 11:21, though the video is pretty blurry.

Early walkby's suggest, imo, Cooper was likely asleep. The 11:21 video doesn't suggest anything good for the defense, imo, unless Cooper died between 11:21 and 12:45.

9:44:47a
10:08:40 man behind car, pauses for few seconds behind rear of car
10:21:20
11:06:38
11:17:35
11:24:30

One thing that the Def was showing was that many people were around that veh prior to RH returning from lunch and no one noticed Cooper. Also that Stoddard/CCPD did not do a thorough investigation trying to locate any of these people. Stoddard testified that they did look for some, but couldn't tell who, or when, or what the building was next door. Testified that it was several they tried to identify. Said gave a list of times to Jeff Pardon(sp?) and Greg Sanders. Kilgore asked him what page of his report was it where he noted giving these times to those individuals and made notes. Stoddard said, he didn't do a report on that or make notes. Testified doesn't put every little detail in a report.

State seems to want to say (from the heat tests) that Cooper passed after lunch time. Defense JMHO leans prior to. Thats just my opinion. Defense may not even be attempting a time frame. But what those time say to me JMHO is that it was in an area multiple people were near and RH was not trying to hide the Cooper in the car -like backing into a spot near woods. JMHO (and on Cross with Greg Sanders, they noted times in the afternoon of people by car)

 

[blue22]

He should have found a proxy for a human. He should have found something around the same size as Cooper and something that emits heat at the same rate as a human. Like I said, my biggest issue is that he did not even have a clue what the starting temperature in the car should have been. Not attempting to replicate the impact of a small human in the car is secondary.

I see what you are saying. I guess we will never know what the jury thinks about it. In many aspects the defense did a job making points against this witness. However, IMO they did a very poor job erasing the possibility, or creating major doubt that Cooper could have been alive. I feel like if I were on a jury, the possibility would really impact me. JMO

 

[arkansasmimi]

How do we know he would have acted differently? He was able to sext minors, go visit prostitutes, sext random women, and none of his coworkers knew.

Fair question. But he was totally different afterwards is all we have to go by. JMHO by testimony.

 

[just the facts pls]

He should have found a proxy for a human. He should have found something around the same size as Cooper and something that emits heat at the same rate as a human. Like I said, my biggest issue is that he did not even have a clue what the starting temperature in the car should have been. Not attempting to replicate the impact of a small human in the car is secondary.

Hi, not meaning to butt in here, but I just want to say that I'm not sure why they needed the expert on thermodynamics. I assume most people have, at one point or another in their lives, been stuck in a car or on a bus in the middle of the heat with the windows rolled down. Everyone knows that warm weather heats a car. People even post pictures of baking cookies in their car on the Internet.

I suppose the prosecution might be trying to cover all their bases, but I think the video with the veterinarian would have been sufficient for the jurors to see what it was probably like in the car. It bothers me to think that Cooper suffered longer than he had to, but I think the medical examiner did a good job explaining why Cooper's time of death could not be determined, and that his death was long and painful.

By the way, I think you are right because human metabolism generates heat to maintain a core body temperature. Cooper would have added to the heat in the car until he eventually passed away. (I assume I am remembering my physiology class correctly.)

 

[lisette]

The judge suggested the attorneys look up Harper vs State, 1981.

I think this is the case but wonder what she is trying to communicate to them:

http://law.justia.com/cases/georgia/supreme-court/1982/38123-1.html

Harper v. State

Annotate this Case
249 Ga. 46 (1982)

287 S.E.2d 211

HARPER v. THE STATE.

38123.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

At approximately 10:30 p. m. on the night of November 22, 1980, Eva Sue Dean, Fay Hall, Horace Hamilton and the defendant, Willie James Harper, left Dean's home in Rome. They drove to the defendant's house where he went in and got a gun, which he gave to Dean to carry in her purse. They then proceeded to the American Legion in Cartersville. There the two women sat at the bar while the two men went into a back room to shoot pool. With the defendant taking side bets, Hamilton played and won consistently. Because Hamilton's winning streak was causing some unpleasantness, after about 30 minutes the defendant came out and got his gun. Hamilton continued to win, causing the other players to get upset. In the last game played, Hamilton won. When Charles Garnigan said he wasn't going to pay, the defendant approached him and shoved him in the neck with the gun. The gun fired, fatally wounding the victim. The defendant and his companions then left; two days later the defendant turned himself in to the police. Subsequently he was convicted by a jury of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

1. The defendant enumerates as error the admission of his statement to police. At a Jackson-Denno hearing the police officer who interrogated the defendant testified that he explained his rights to the defendant and that the defendant signed a waiver form and then made a statement, with the officer taking notes. When the officer then said he wanted to get the statement on tape, the defendant said he wanted an attorney. The officer stopped all interrogation and let the defendant call his attorney. The defendant testified that he asked for an attorney before he gave his statement.

*47 Having heard this conflicting testimony, the trial court ruled that the statement "was voluntarily given after he had his Constitutional Rights explained to him." We find no error. Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368 (84 SC 1774, 12 LE2d 908) (1964); Crawford v. State, 245 Ga. 89 (2) (263 SE2d 131) (1980).

2. In his statement, the defendant described his weapon as a.38 caliber gun and said that after he left the scene of the crime, he threw it out of the car window. On May 18, 1981, Horace Hamilton accompanied the district attorney and an investigator to a point on Highway 92, where they retrieved a .38 caliber automatic pistol from a ditch. Both Horace Hamilton and Eva Sue Dean testified that this gun looked like the defendant's gun. The defendant himself testified that it was not the same gun, but admitted that it was the same model, same color, and same size as his; that it had a clip, a hammer and a safety like his; and that he did not know anything about it that was different from his.

The defendant objected to its admission into evidence because there was no proof it was the same gun as that used in the crime. The trial court admitted it, finding it was shown to be the same gun by circumstantial evidence. We find no error. Moore v. Illinois, 408 U.S. 786, 798-800 (92 SC 2562, 33 LE2d 706) (1972); Herlong v. State, 236 Ga. 326 (2) (223 SE2d 672) (1976); Gunn v. State, 245 Ga. 359 (4) (264 SE2d 862) (1980).

3. Defendant also enumerates as error the trial court's failure to give two charges which he requested. Having examined the evidence and the requested charges, we find that the requested charges were not adjusted to the evidence in this case. Booker v. State, 156 Ga. App. 40 (4) (274 SE2d 84) (1980), revd. on other grounds, 247 Ga. 74 (274 SE2d 334) (1981); Stevens v. State, 247 Ga. 698 (9) (278 SE2d 398) (1981).

Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.[

BBM - I am not a lawyer but there has been some talk of Ross continuing to speak to LE after invoking his right to a lawyer and before said lawyer arrived. Just my guess and I could very well be wrong!

I think she referred to this case in regards to the charge she has to give the jury about viewing the vehicle in which Cooper died. She was saying that this would perhaps be the pattern she would follow...Perhaps the jury in the above case had a viewing of the crime scene?