August 12, 2017 • 31 mins
In Part 2 we talk to the defense team for Justin Ross Harris. Mixed by: ResonateRecordings.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The case being discussed in the next couple of episodes
of Sworn was an emotional case. It was a horrific case.
It was a highly publicized and emotional case. But the
purpose of this podcast is not to relitigate guilt or innocence,
and nothing that I say should be interpreted as an
expression of my opinion about the guilt or innocence of anybody.
(00:24):
Neither I nor this podcast is intended to relitigate the
issues at trial. The jury has spoken. This is about
what the case looks like from the inside looking out.
The case was extensively litigated by very good lawyers on
both sides. A jury reached a verdict, and it's not
our place to relitigate those issues. But we do want
(00:46):
to bring you inside the case for an insider's look
at the case of the State of Georgia versus Justin
Ross Harris. Place your left hand on the bay of
Bible and raise your right hand and repeat after me,
(01:07):
I you solemnly swear the jury trying it. Defendant not
scared of continuing this weekend that ferguson and around the country.
It makes no sense. If it doesn't fit, you must
equit judge you are the last line of reason in
this case. Every one of us took at all the
spots and we're sworn to uphold the Constitution. From Tenderfoot
(01:32):
TV in Atlanta, this is sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway.
The first thing in a jury foleis jury selection. We've
accomplished that each of you has been selected, chosen, and
sworn to serve as a juror in this particular case.
(01:54):
M last time on sworn we enter is to you
to the Ross Harris hot car death case. A complicated,
an emotional case overrun with media attention to recap. The
case covers the death of twenty two month old Cooper Harris,
who died of hyperthermia in the back of a sweltering
(02:16):
hot car in Cobb County, Georgia, on June eighth. Later,
justin Ross Harris, Cooper's father, was charged with murder. Media
outlets sprung on the case, broadcasting salacious details of what
was alleged to be Mr Harris's double life, namely his
(02:37):
sexting with about a half a dozen women, none of
whom were his wife. We already heard from the prosecution,
so today we're going to be hearing from Maddox Killboard,
Justin Ross Harris's defense attorney. But first let's take you
inside the trial the State of Georgia versus Justin Ross Harris.
(03:00):
M On October sixteen, the opening statements began for the
State of Georgia versus Justin Ross Harris at the Glenn
County Courthouse in Brentswick, Georgia. The trial would last roughly
five weeks. Pleas gonna see it. The first thing I
(03:23):
want to tell you is that the state is right
about one very important that and that is Ross Harris's response. First,
Charles death. This is Harris's defense attorney, Maddox Kilgore. It's
his fault forty, no doubt about. From the moment he
(03:45):
drove down the road, look back over his shoulder and
caught a glimpse of Cooper in the back, he knew
what you had done, he knew you'd forgotten him, and
he whipped his car over into a parking lot and
pulled him out, desperately looking into a little boy. And
(04:10):
you're gonna hear that he tried to do CPR. Which
is gonna hear is that he was too overwhelmed and
he couldn't concentrate, but he never blamed anybody but himself
kind of words. Did he use it? The thing? My god,
what have I done? I killed my boy? I'm so
(04:31):
sorry Cooper, I'm so sorry y And what he did
wasn't willful. Kilgore goes on to prep the jury for
what they will experience during this trial. He addresses the
issues that the state will present as evidence against Harris,
especially his sexual exploits. You're going to hear that Ross
(04:53):
used social media apps to exchange very gross and graphic,
filthy sexual talk with people. You're gonna hear about all
kinds of nasty internet chats. You're not gonna hear ever
molested child. You're not gonna hear he ever had sex
(05:13):
with anybody under age. He's certainly not going to hear
the ever forced anybody need to do anything that they
want to do. You're going to hear about infidelity. You
canna hear about adultery, and that is Ross was unfaithful
to his wife, and you're going to hear about that
sexual liaison sometimes in cars. You're going to hear about
(05:36):
very um embarrassing graphic sexual matters and vulgar language. And
he's earned every bit of that shame. But Ross's sex life,
no matter how perverse and nasty and wrong, it doesn't
(05:58):
have a thing in the world to do with the
fact that he forgot that little boy. Ross looks stunned
during this trial, pale, uncomfortable, nervously swallowing every few minutes,
very completely under got nothing to do with each other.
(06:30):
I've known you to be a great defense attorney for
many years, and so is that even even including the
time when you kick my mask and trial when you
were the prosecutor. You you needed to lose that case,
and so I'm okay with that. But h I'm happy
to I'm happy to do this and be part of
this podcast. This is Maddox Kilgore, Justin Ross Harris's lead
defense counsel, and as you can tell, he along with
(06:54):
Mr Boring, the lead prosecutor, he's a longtime colleague of mine.
He agreed to do an interview for the podcast. I
asked him how he got involved in this case in
the first place. The morning after Cooper's death, my wife
and I were getting ready for work and the story
came on the news on the television and we both
(07:19):
literally froze. The story was so gripping, you know, a
child found in a car left by the father. All day,
I mean both of us literally just froze and uh,
I had no idea that hours later about a dozen
(07:39):
family members from Tuscaloosa, Alabama would be in my office
to talk about me representing Ross. I had been recommended
by several other lawyers who were associated with the church
that Ross and Leanna went to. Everybody involved was as
devastated as you can imagine. Well, when the family came
(08:00):
into my office, they were like shells. They were physically there,
but they were so distraught and so devastated by Cooper's
death that it was like talking to zombies. They were
that devastated. I went out to the jail for a
(08:23):
first appearance hearing and met Ross several hours later that evening.
He was really the same way. His body was there,
but he he wasn't. It was just just a shell
of human. He was so distraught and so shocked um
at what he had done. I mean, he left his
(08:46):
child in the car. I would like to point out
that the defense team did a great public service that
most people really aren't aware of. Sure, they got paid
from public funds to do their sworn duty, which was
to be zealous advocates for the client. But these are
also business owners who took a financial hit because essentially
they had to close down their office during this trial.
(09:07):
They could not take on any new cases. If lawyers
can't take on new cases, their practices suffer severely. But
these guys have never once complained because they know that
the justice system would collapse if there isn't a truly
vigorous adversarial process. We were, quite frankly bufuddled. We didn't
(09:28):
understand why he had been arrested and charged with murder.
The more we looked into it and investigated it over
the next couple of weeks, and the more we found
out about it, and the more we talked to Ross
and family members and co workers, we became even more
befuddled why he had why he had been charged. I
believe that the hardest thing about Maddox's job as Justin
(09:50):
Ross Harris's defense counsel was to fight through the strong
public opinion, the public outrage that so many people felt
towards his client. A great many people publicly perceived him
as a complete monster. Now, Maddox truly believes in harrass
his innocence. There's a difference between Maddox as a human
(10:12):
being and Maddox as a lawyer, and as a human being,
when you feel this way, it's a really hard thing
to deal with. He believed strongly in Harass his actual innocence,
but as his lawyer, he had to be very careful
with what he presented to the public. How did he
deal with that emotionally as a lawyer, How did he
(10:32):
deal with that emotionally as a human being, as a father,
as a spouse. How did he deal with this is
something he had to take home with him every single day.
There was never any question that Ross was responsible for
his child's death. I mean from the very beginning he
understood that he was responsible. And of course when I
(10:52):
saw him at the jail that very first meeting, in
every subsequent meeting for the next two plus years, he
carried with him that hurt, that burden of that pain
of not just the loss of his little boy, but
the realization that it was by his own hand. What
(11:15):
we do is defend people who were charged with crimes.
And it's rare that someone who has charged with crime
and that crime is reported. Uh, It's rare that they
would be Um a favored personality in social media. So
we're certainly accustomed to our clients being looked at as
the bad guys and being assumed that they're guilty. But
(11:39):
this case was different. I mean, Ross was absolutely just
slaughtered in social media, in print media, talking heads, on
the television. We realized that he was not guilty of
what he was charged with, and so regardless of what
was being how he was being portrayed aid in media
(12:00):
and social media, it created an enormous amount of anxiety
on our part to try to make sure that he
was not convicted. Sleepless nights, that's that's that's absolutely part
of the job, and in this case, Um, it was
more than two years of sleepless nights and anxiety and
(12:22):
stress over getting ready to defend Ross. The media was
a huge part of this case. There was such an
inundation of media, especially in Cobb County, that it was
hard not to have an opinion of some sort on
Justin Ross Harris, and even harder not to have a
negative one. When someone's arrested, there's an enormous amount of
(12:44):
information that gets pumped into the public arena, and that
could be on the news television, news, radio, print media,
but more so than ever, social media, Facebook, Twitter, whatever.
And when someone's arrested for a serious case, primarily I'm
(13:04):
talking about cases involving children, they're immediately deemed a monster,
and so you're you're really starting with two strikes against you.
There is an absolute assumption of guilt in in the
in the public eye, no doubt about it. This wasn't
entirely the case at first. At first, there was a
tremendous amount of support for Ross Harris. There were go
(13:27):
fund me accounts, public pleased to have the charges dismissed.
And then suddenly all of that took a turn and
a turn for the worst for Mr Harris. The media
started reporting on information that was located in search warrants
or search warrant applications that have been filed by the
Cobb County Police Department. We discovered at the probable cause hearing,
(13:49):
and subsequently when we received recordings of Ross's interview and
other pieces of evidence, we discovered that there was a
lot of very um false information that was that was
in those search warrant applications. And once the media reported
that information, then it certainly uh it had its desired effect,
(14:12):
which was to make Uh make Ross look like a killer,
make it look like he had planned Uh to kill
his child. That's when the public perception really turned against him.
And then, of course that was exacerbated after the probable
cause hearing, where there was a lot of very damning
(14:33):
sounding testimony that came out during that hearing. Of course,
over the next two years we discovered that a lot
of the testimony was absolutely misleading and faults. But at
that point, the damage had been done. The public had
already heard exactly what law enforcement wanted them to hear
and um and so we were swimming upstream from there.
(14:57):
I sat in the courtroom in Cobb County for the
better part of two weeks while we watched the lawyers
and the court do their damned best to try to
find an impartial jury in Cobb County. I think in
the end, it was the right thing to do for
the case to be moved outside of the Atlanta media market,
because while people have heard about this case, the feelings
(15:18):
were not so strong and so strongly held as the
feelings that we heard expressed by the potential jurors when
they were questioned in Cobb County. Before the case was moved.
Juries are really hard creatures to understand. You do your
best to try to weed out people that may lean
one way or may lean another way, may be supportive
(15:39):
of the other side's case, but it's kind of like
reading tea leaves. You really can't quite know until it's
all over and done with what people are really thinking.
We like to hope that most of the time it
all works out right in the end, but we also
know that sometimes it doesn't. You sort of have to
(16:05):
pay attention to not getting caught up in the spin
and looking at what is actually presented at trial. But
I think for the jury in this case, emotion did
really lead the way because at the end of the day,
a lot of people just couldn't imagine that somebody could
forget their kid. And in either case, and in any case,
I think a lot of people thought, even if you
were distracted, no matter what you were doing, you still
(16:28):
have to pay the price for leaving your kid in
the car. This is Veronica Waters, the reporter from w
s B Radio who we heard from in the last episode. Well,
you don't reporters don't like anything that's saying. Keep out media.
The media lawyers were quick to be hired for that
and argue in court for why the open court process
was a valuable thing. An invaluable thing really for people
(16:50):
to know what was happening, and we shouldn't be shut
out of that. I do understand that the defense was like,
we don't care if they come for the trial once
we decide to, you know, pick a jury and all
that kind of stuff, but right now we are afraid
that we're going to taint the jury pool because there
is so much coverage on this. According to Veronica, there's
two sides to that coin. We had people who were saying,
(17:13):
I get it, I've been distracted, I've forgotten stuff, And
in quiet moments, there are some people who will actually
tell you I have forgotten my kid in the car.
Didn't happen for eight hours on a summer day, but
I've walked away from the car for X number of
seconds or minutes and forgotten that I had a kid
in the car. Then you have other people like the
guy that we first saw the first time that they
tried to pick a jury in Cobb County. And this
(17:33):
guy said, I don't even like subway sandwiches, but I
wouldn't forget my lunch on the seat, you know, let
alone my kid. So a lot of people were super angry.
They were shocked, and they were furious, and they thought
even if he was distracted, he needed to pay for that. Yes,
you have emotions about this case, and of course we
think it's horrible and you feel as if you sort
of have an opinion about it. But if you had
(17:54):
to listen to the facts before you made a decision,
could you do that? And I think people are put
in that position. You don't want to say, like, no,
there's no way that I could ever And although we
did have some people say no, there's no way that
I could ever ignore what I feel about this right now,
but a lot of people said, well, yeah, I guess
I could, because we want to do what we feel
is the right thing, and we don't want to see
(18:16):
seem I think, super closed minded, so we're gonna say, yeah,
I think we could. I think I could maybe sort
of hear everything out before I levy a decision um.
And so we had a lot of people in the
jury pool who were like that, and the defense carefully
took notes for those three weeks and then said this
is how many we have who have been okayed to
(18:37):
go through for potential striking later and look how many
of them said, I've got an opinion on this case.
You can't force anybody to not be biased basically about
the case. And they met the standard of whatever that
statute is, that law, and the judge said, okay, we're
moving the trial. So the trial has moved due to
what seemed like the promise of a heavily biased theory.
(18:59):
Not everyone increased with that motion. Vinnie Politan, the former
prosecutor and eleven Alive anchor who we spoke to last episode,
shared his thoughts with us. During my entire career at
Court TV hl N now at eleven Alive, I have
covered dozens and dozens of high profile cases. At court TV,
(19:21):
we didn't we didn't cover cases that weren't high profile
because once Court TV showed up, it became high profile.
This one was no different. This one was, yes, a
national story, everybody was talking about it, but this case
was not higher profile than Casey Anthony O. J. Simpson,
(19:42):
Michael Jackson. So the reports are out there and they're
going to be out there, but our system is set
up that, hey, you can overcome pre trial publicity and
give defendants fair trials, and in history has shown us
this Casey Anthony was found not guilty of murder, Michael
Jackson was not guilty of sexually assaulting that child. O. J.
(20:03):
Simpson was found not guilty of murder. So clearly, in
three cases that are incredibly high profile criminal defendants got
fair trials. So it gets done. Our system works. In
this case, there was an incredible concentration of coverage of
this case, especially in Cobb County where it happened. So
(20:25):
during the jury selection process, it seemed like everybody had
been exposed and a lot of people had made preconceived
notions of guilt or innocence and a view of what
it meant in terms of what Ross Harris did. And
as a result, you listen to these jurors during the selection,
the initial selection process, and you're like, I don't know
if we'll be able to get a jury. But the
(20:47):
judge was able to qualify because the test is can
you or can you not take whatever you know about
this case ahead of time, put it aside and base
your verdict just on what you hear in the courtroom.
And that's what juries do. Ask O. J. Simpson as
Casey Anthony. So people throw that aside. The role of
the media and the impact that the media can have
(21:08):
on on jury selection, to me is a non issue.
It's something that just gets completely thrown out of whack
by defense attorneys. And the reason being is ultimately everyone
gets a fair trial, whether you pick the jury from
the county where it happened, or if you move it
to a different part of the state. Eventually you will
(21:30):
find twelve people who can put anything that they heard
about the case or may have heard about the case
aside and and give a true verdict based upon the
evidence inside the courtroom as instructed by the judge. Now
back to the trial. During the trial, the prosecution played
(22:02):
for the jury a dash camp video from one of
the first officers who arrived on the scene. Gross Harris
can be heard in the background screaming. Upon their arrival,
(22:29):
an officer asked Mr Harris for his I D. And
he lashed out towards the officer with some obscene language.
Not too long after the police arrived, Harris was placed
in handcuffs and put in the back of a squad card.
The dash camp continued rolling. Prosecution paused the video to
ask Officer Jacqueline Piper while she was on the stand
in the courtroom, are you Officer Piper um Stead there
(22:52):
that you said I turned all the windows down, It's okay,
all the way up? What have you said right before that?
Was it not captured on the audio since he was
in the back that it was hot in the vehicle.
Ross Harris had asked for the windows to be rolled
down because it was too hot in the cop car.
(23:18):
In this case, the advantage prosecutors had was that Ross
Harris didn't testify. This jury, did not hear, did not
have the defendant get up on the witness stand, look
the jury in the eyes and say, listen, I didn't
(23:39):
do this. I loved my son. I don't know why
the defense didn't put him on the witness stand, and
maybe because of that double life he had, But that
double life was already in front of this jury and
it was basically there without any sort of explanation, and
there was no heart felt apology from Ross Harris to
(24:02):
his son for letting him down. There was no Ross
Harris talking to this jury and telling them that it
was an accident. And to me, the new evidence that
I would have feared most as a prosecutor would have
been a defendant, a father who got up on that
witness stand and was genuine. Ross Harris had been sexting
(24:27):
with multiple women, including an underage girl on June eight,
all this as Cooper was dying of hyperthermia in the
back of a boiling hot car. One woman who was
a part of Ross Harris's other life, named Caitlin Floyd,
was called to testify during the trial. Did he ever
(24:47):
inform you that during these times, uh, that he may
have been messaging you some mornings that there was a
child in the backseat and you asked him how long
they did marry? And how does he respond? And how
do you respond? Asked him happy? How does he respond
arry minus sex? What does he say about it? That
is too much of a sexual frank? Does he ask
(25:08):
you to perform some type of sex act? And does
he want to do that in public? Yes? Okay? What
was your response? I said, I don't want to get rested?
And did you send him a photograph after that? What
was his response? UMM? Asked him if you wanted to
play with him? And how did he respond? Because it
says yes I do and did you respond, I did
(25:32):
What'd you say? Well, good things come to those who
won't and how did he respond? Ultimately, at trial, some
of the most damning and compelling evidence presented by the
prosecution were the graphic details of Ross Harris's extramarital sex
life and the notion that his baby boy, Cooper Harris,
(25:53):
was in the way of his pursuit of other women,
and he was in the way of Ross Harris is
being able to lead this different life in the spirit
got County, State of Georgia's State of Georgia, Earth and
dustin law scares and base number nine three Lange here four.
Any time of verdicts coming down, you are supertense, So
(26:16):
you know, everybody wants to be first with it. Everybody's fascinated, fascinated,
you want to know, you know what the what? What
are the jury see And a lot of times that's
why we like to watch their faces and see how
they look at Ross Harris. Do they seem compassionate? And
then when they're walking in the courtroom, you're trying to
look at them and see are they looking at the
defendant or are they not making eye contact with him?
(26:37):
And a lot of times if they are not looking
at them, then you if they have sort of this
stony looking face and they won't make eye contact with
the defendant, you can kind of tell. So when we
were waiting, you know, every you know, the the era
is electric find as follows cow, one mouse or still
(26:58):
be more container. I remember that when malice murder was
that was the very first count, and when they said
guilty on that, I was like, he's going down. If
they convicted him on malice murder, they're convicting him on everything.
(27:22):
Riss Harris was found guilty of all eight charges, including
malice murder, even after tremendous efforts made by the defense.
Even though Maddox killed Gore and the defense team believed
in his innocence and did the very best that they
possibly could to defend him, the jury could not be
convinced otherwise. Their decision may have had to do with
(27:44):
the idea that Ross did in fact want to be
freed from his predictable and domestic lifestyle, which the States
supported with the evidence of his own line sexual exploits
and affairs. Their decision may have had to do with
the extensive media coverage, Even though the took extraordinary measures
to prevent the media's influence. It may have had to
(28:05):
do with what seemed like Ross's abnormal reactions as a
grieving father. Regardless, Ross Harris was found guilty. Very disappointing,
very surprising, very disappointing. We were surprised. We were very
(28:26):
very surprised when we got the verdict that we were
not expecting. We were surprised, but we had already had
lots of conversations with with Ross as we do, as
you do any client, you know what could happen and
what it means. In January, Maddox Kilgore filed a motion
for new trial. After that, new appellate council was appointed
(28:49):
to represent Mr Harris through his appeals. I talked with
his appellate lawyer just the other day in the courthouse,
and he told me that because of the length of
this case, the length of the trial, it may very
well be early before there's even a transcript that can
be prepared that he can look at to review for
potential error so that there could be an appeal. Until then,
(29:13):
Ross Harris remains behind bars in Valdosta State Prison, sentenced
to life without parole for the murder of his twenty
two month old son Cooper Harris may he rest in peace.
(29:52):
Sworn is produced by Tenderfoot TV Atlant Story production and
sound design by Payne Lindsay. Executive produce us Donald Albright
and Payne Lindsay, and if you have it yet, please
check out our sister podcast, Up and Vantage, that follows
the investigation into the disappearance of Georgia High school teacher
and beauty queen Tera Brinstead. Up and Vantage is available
(30:14):
now on ethel Podcasts. Sworn is mixed and mastered by
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(30:37):
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Sworn podcast on Twitter and Instagram, and you can follow
me your host, Philip Holloway at phil holloway e s
Q on Twitter. Eat Your Last Eat Seed I Seed,
(31:08):
Blood in the Fro jam Jamney, Blood in the Water
The case being discussed in the next couple of episodes
of Sworn was an emotional case. It was a horrific case.
It was a highly publicized and emotional case. But the
purpose of this podcast is not to relitigate guilt or innocence,
and nothing that I say should be interpreted as an
expression of my opinion about the guilt or innocence of anybody.
(00:24):
Neither I nor this podcast is intended to relitigate the
issues at trial. The jury has spoken. This is about
what the case looks like from the inside looking out.
The case was extensively litigated by very good lawyers on
both sides. A jury reached a verdict, and it's not
our place to relitigate those issues. But we do want
(00:46):
to bring you inside the case for an insider's look
at the case of the State of Georgia versus Justin
Ross Harris. Place your left hand on the bay of
Bible and raise your right hand and repeat after me,
(01:07):
I you solemnly swear the jury trying it. Defendant not
scared of continuing this weekend that ferguson and around the country.
It makes no sense. If it doesn't fit, you must
equit judge you are the last line of reason in
this case. Every one of us took at all the
spots and we're sworn to uphold the Constitution. From Tenderfoot
(01:32):
TV in Atlanta, this is sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway.
The first thing in a jury foleis jury selection. We've
accomplished that each of you has been selected, chosen, and
sworn to serve as a juror in this particular case.
(01:54):
M last time on sworn we enter is to you
to the Ross Harris hot car death case. A complicated,
an emotional case overrun with media attention to recap. The
case covers the death of twenty two month old Cooper Harris,
who died of hyperthermia in the back of a sweltering
(02:16):
hot car in Cobb County, Georgia, on June eighth. Later,
justin Ross Harris, Cooper's father, was charged with murder. Media
outlets sprung on the case, broadcasting salacious details of what
was alleged to be Mr Harris's double life, namely his
(02:37):
sexting with about a half a dozen women, none of
whom were his wife. We already heard from the prosecution,
so today we're going to be hearing from Maddox Killboard,
Justin Ross Harris's defense attorney. But first let's take you
inside the trial the State of Georgia versus Justin Ross Harris.
(03:00):
M On October sixteen, the opening statements began for the
State of Georgia versus Justin Ross Harris at the Glenn
County Courthouse in Brentswick, Georgia. The trial would last roughly
five weeks. Pleas gonna see it. The first thing I
(03:23):
want to tell you is that the state is right
about one very important that and that is Ross Harris's response. First,
Charles death. This is Harris's defense attorney, Maddox Kilgore. It's
his fault forty, no doubt about. From the moment he
(03:45):
drove down the road, look back over his shoulder and
caught a glimpse of Cooper in the back, he knew
what you had done, he knew you'd forgotten him, and
he whipped his car over into a parking lot and
pulled him out, desperately looking into a little boy. And
(04:10):
you're gonna hear that he tried to do CPR. Which
is gonna hear is that he was too overwhelmed and
he couldn't concentrate, but he never blamed anybody but himself
kind of words. Did he use it? The thing? My god,
what have I done? I killed my boy? I'm so
(04:31):
sorry Cooper, I'm so sorry y And what he did
wasn't willful. Kilgore goes on to prep the jury for
what they will experience during this trial. He addresses the
issues that the state will present as evidence against Harris,
especially his sexual exploits. You're going to hear that Ross
(04:53):
used social media apps to exchange very gross and graphic,
filthy sexual talk with people. You're gonna hear about all
kinds of nasty internet chats. You're not gonna hear ever
molested child. You're not gonna hear he ever had sex
(05:13):
with anybody under age. He's certainly not going to hear
the ever forced anybody need to do anything that they
want to do. You're going to hear about infidelity. You
canna hear about adultery, and that is Ross was unfaithful
to his wife, and you're going to hear about that
sexual liaison sometimes in cars. You're going to hear about
(05:36):
very um embarrassing graphic sexual matters and vulgar language. And
he's earned every bit of that shame. But Ross's sex life,
no matter how perverse and nasty and wrong, it doesn't
(05:58):
have a thing in the world to do with the
fact that he forgot that little boy. Ross looks stunned
during this trial, pale, uncomfortable, nervously swallowing every few minutes,
very completely under got nothing to do with each other.
(06:30):
I've known you to be a great defense attorney for
many years, and so is that even even including the
time when you kick my mask and trial when you
were the prosecutor. You you needed to lose that case,
and so I'm okay with that. But h I'm happy
to I'm happy to do this and be part of
this podcast. This is Maddox Kilgore, Justin Ross Harris's lead
defense counsel, and as you can tell, he along with
(06:54):
Mr Boring, the lead prosecutor, he's a longtime colleague of mine.
He agreed to do an interview for the podcast. I
asked him how he got involved in this case in
the first place. The morning after Cooper's death, my wife
and I were getting ready for work and the story
came on the news on the television and we both
(07:19):
literally froze. The story was so gripping, you know, a
child found in a car left by the father. All day,
I mean both of us literally just froze and uh,
I had no idea that hours later about a dozen
(07:39):
family members from Tuscaloosa, Alabama would be in my office
to talk about me representing Ross. I had been recommended
by several other lawyers who were associated with the church
that Ross and Leanna went to. Everybody involved was as
devastated as you can imagine. Well, when the family came
(08:00):
into my office, they were like shells. They were physically there,
but they were so distraught and so devastated by Cooper's
death that it was like talking to zombies. They were
that devastated. I went out to the jail for a
(08:23):
first appearance hearing and met Ross several hours later that evening.
He was really the same way. His body was there,
but he he wasn't. It was just just a shell
of human. He was so distraught and so shocked um
at what he had done. I mean, he left his
(08:46):
child in the car. I would like to point out
that the defense team did a great public service that
most people really aren't aware of. Sure, they got paid
from public funds to do their sworn duty, which was
to be zealous advocates for the client. But these are
also business owners who took a financial hit because essentially
they had to close down their office during this trial.
(09:07):
They could not take on any new cases. If lawyers
can't take on new cases, their practices suffer severely. But
these guys have never once complained because they know that
the justice system would collapse if there isn't a truly
vigorous adversarial process. We were, quite frankly bufuddled. We didn't
(09:28):
understand why he had been arrested and charged with murder.
The more we looked into it and investigated it over
the next couple of weeks, and the more we found
out about it, and the more we talked to Ross
and family members and co workers, we became even more
befuddled why he had why he had been charged. I
believe that the hardest thing about Maddox's job as Justin
(09:50):
Ross Harris's defense counsel was to fight through the strong
public opinion, the public outrage that so many people felt
towards his client. A great many people publicly perceived him
as a complete monster. Now, Maddox truly believes in harrass
his innocence. There's a difference between Maddox as a human
(10:12):
being and Maddox as a lawyer, and as a human being,
when you feel this way, it's a really hard thing
to deal with. He believed strongly in Harass his actual innocence,
but as his lawyer, he had to be very careful
with what he presented to the public. How did he
deal with that emotionally as a lawyer, How did he
(10:32):
deal with that emotionally as a human being, as a father,
as a spouse. How did he deal with this is
something he had to take home with him every single day.
There was never any question that Ross was responsible for
his child's death. I mean from the very beginning he
understood that he was responsible. And of course when I
(10:52):
saw him at the jail that very first meeting, in
every subsequent meeting for the next two plus years, he
carried with him that hurt, that burden of that pain
of not just the loss of his little boy, but
the realization that it was by his own hand. What
(11:15):
we do is defend people who were charged with crimes.
And it's rare that someone who has charged with crime
and that crime is reported. Uh, It's rare that they
would be Um a favored personality in social media. So
we're certainly accustomed to our clients being looked at as
the bad guys and being assumed that they're guilty. But
(11:39):
this case was different. I mean, Ross was absolutely just
slaughtered in social media, in print media, talking heads, on
the television. We realized that he was not guilty of
what he was charged with, and so regardless of what
was being how he was being portrayed aid in media
(12:00):
and social media, it created an enormous amount of anxiety
on our part to try to make sure that he
was not convicted. Sleepless nights, that's that's that's absolutely part
of the job, and in this case, Um, it was
more than two years of sleepless nights and anxiety and
(12:22):
stress over getting ready to defend Ross. The media was
a huge part of this case. There was such an
inundation of media, especially in Cobb County, that it was
hard not to have an opinion of some sort on
Justin Ross Harris, and even harder not to have a
negative one. When someone's arrested, there's an enormous amount of
(12:44):
information that gets pumped into the public arena, and that
could be on the news television, news, radio, print media,
but more so than ever, social media, Facebook, Twitter, whatever.
And when someone's arrested for a serious case, primarily I'm
(13:04):
talking about cases involving children, they're immediately deemed a monster,
and so you're you're really starting with two strikes against you.
There is an absolute assumption of guilt in in the
in the public eye, no doubt about it. This wasn't
entirely the case at first. At first, there was a
tremendous amount of support for Ross Harris. There were go
(13:27):
fund me accounts, public pleased to have the charges dismissed.
And then suddenly all of that took a turn and
a turn for the worst for Mr Harris. The media
started reporting on information that was located in search warrants
or search warrant applications that have been filed by the
Cobb County Police Department. We discovered at the probable cause hearing,
(13:49):
and subsequently when we received recordings of Ross's interview and
other pieces of evidence, we discovered that there was a
lot of very um false information that was that was
in those search warrant applications. And once the media reported
that information, then it certainly uh it had its desired effect,
(14:12):
which was to make Uh make Ross look like a killer,
make it look like he had planned Uh to kill
his child. That's when the public perception really turned against him.
And then, of course that was exacerbated after the probable
cause hearing, where there was a lot of very damning
(14:33):
sounding testimony that came out during that hearing. Of course,
over the next two years we discovered that a lot
of the testimony was absolutely misleading and faults. But at
that point, the damage had been done. The public had
already heard exactly what law enforcement wanted them to hear
and um and so we were swimming upstream from there.
(14:57):
I sat in the courtroom in Cobb County for the
better part of two weeks while we watched the lawyers
and the court do their damned best to try to
find an impartial jury in Cobb County. I think in
the end, it was the right thing to do for
the case to be moved outside of the Atlanta media market,
because while people have heard about this case, the feelings
(15:18):
were not so strong and so strongly held as the
feelings that we heard expressed by the potential jurors when
they were questioned in Cobb County. Before the case was moved.
Juries are really hard creatures to understand. You do your
best to try to weed out people that may lean
one way or may lean another way, may be supportive
(15:39):
of the other side's case, but it's kind of like
reading tea leaves. You really can't quite know until it's
all over and done with what people are really thinking.
We like to hope that most of the time it
all works out right in the end, but we also
know that sometimes it doesn't. You sort of have to
(16:05):
pay attention to not getting caught up in the spin
and looking at what is actually presented at trial. But
I think for the jury in this case, emotion did
really lead the way because at the end of the day,
a lot of people just couldn't imagine that somebody could
forget their kid. And in either case, and in any case,
I think a lot of people thought, even if you
were distracted, no matter what you were doing, you still
(16:28):
have to pay the price for leaving your kid in
the car. This is Veronica Waters, the reporter from w
s B Radio who we heard from in the last episode. Well,
you don't reporters don't like anything that's saying. Keep out media.
The media lawyers were quick to be hired for that
and argue in court for why the open court process
was a valuable thing. An invaluable thing really for people
(16:50):
to know what was happening, and we shouldn't be shut
out of that. I do understand that the defense was like,
we don't care if they come for the trial once
we decide to, you know, pick a jury and all
that kind of stuff, but right now we are afraid
that we're going to taint the jury pool because there
is so much coverage on this. According to Veronica, there's
two sides to that coin. We had people who were saying,
(17:13):
I get it, I've been distracted, I've forgotten stuff, And
in quiet moments, there are some people who will actually
tell you I have forgotten my kid in the car.
Didn't happen for eight hours on a summer day, but
I've walked away from the car for X number of
seconds or minutes and forgotten that I had a kid
in the car. Then you have other people like the
guy that we first saw the first time that they
tried to pick a jury in Cobb County. And this
(17:33):
guy said, I don't even like subway sandwiches, but I
wouldn't forget my lunch on the seat, you know, let
alone my kid. So a lot of people were super angry.
They were shocked, and they were furious, and they thought
even if he was distracted, he needed to pay for that. Yes,
you have emotions about this case, and of course we
think it's horrible and you feel as if you sort
of have an opinion about it. But if you had
(17:54):
to listen to the facts before you made a decision,
could you do that? And I think people are put
in that position. You don't want to say, like, no,
there's no way that I could ever And although we
did have some people say no, there's no way that
I could ever ignore what I feel about this right now,
but a lot of people said, well, yeah, I guess
I could, because we want to do what we feel
is the right thing, and we don't want to see
(18:16):
seem I think, super closed minded, so we're gonna say, yeah,
I think we could. I think I could maybe sort
of hear everything out before I levy a decision um.
And so we had a lot of people in the
jury pool who were like that, and the defense carefully
took notes for those three weeks and then said this
is how many we have who have been okayed to
(18:37):
go through for potential striking later and look how many
of them said, I've got an opinion on this case.
You can't force anybody to not be biased basically about
the case. And they met the standard of whatever that
statute is, that law, and the judge said, okay, we're
moving the trial. So the trial has moved due to
what seemed like the promise of a heavily biased theory.
(18:59):
Not everyone increased with that motion. Vinnie Politan, the former
prosecutor and eleven Alive anchor who we spoke to last episode,
shared his thoughts with us. During my entire career at
Court TV hl N now at eleven Alive, I have
covered dozens and dozens of high profile cases. At court TV,
(19:21):
we didn't we didn't cover cases that weren't high profile
because once Court TV showed up, it became high profile.
This one was no different. This one was, yes, a
national story, everybody was talking about it, but this case
was not higher profile than Casey Anthony O. J. Simpson,
(19:42):
Michael Jackson. So the reports are out there and they're
going to be out there, but our system is set
up that, hey, you can overcome pre trial publicity and
give defendants fair trials, and in history has shown us
this Casey Anthony was found not guilty of murder, Michael
Jackson was not guilty of sexually assaulting that child. O. J.
(20:03):
Simpson was found not guilty of murder. So clearly, in
three cases that are incredibly high profile criminal defendants got
fair trials. So it gets done. Our system works. In
this case, there was an incredible concentration of coverage of
this case, especially in Cobb County where it happened. So
(20:25):
during the jury selection process, it seemed like everybody had
been exposed and a lot of people had made preconceived
notions of guilt or innocence and a view of what
it meant in terms of what Ross Harris did. And
as a result, you listen to these jurors during the selection,
the initial selection process, and you're like, I don't know
if we'll be able to get a jury. But the
(20:47):
judge was able to qualify because the test is can
you or can you not take whatever you know about
this case ahead of time, put it aside and base
your verdict just on what you hear in the courtroom.
And that's what juries do. Ask O. J. Simpson as
Casey Anthony. So people throw that aside. The role of
the media and the impact that the media can have
(21:08):
on on jury selection, to me is a non issue.
It's something that just gets completely thrown out of whack
by defense attorneys. And the reason being is ultimately everyone
gets a fair trial, whether you pick the jury from
the county where it happened, or if you move it
to a different part of the state. Eventually you will
(21:30):
find twelve people who can put anything that they heard
about the case or may have heard about the case
aside and and give a true verdict based upon the
evidence inside the courtroom as instructed by the judge. Now
back to the trial. During the trial, the prosecution played
(22:02):
for the jury a dash camp video from one of
the first officers who arrived on the scene. Gross Harris
can be heard in the background screaming. Upon their arrival,
(22:29):
an officer asked Mr Harris for his I D. And
he lashed out towards the officer with some obscene language.
Not too long after the police arrived, Harris was placed
in handcuffs and put in the back of a squad card.
The dash camp continued rolling. Prosecution paused the video to
ask Officer Jacqueline Piper while she was on the stand
in the courtroom, are you Officer Piper um Stead there
(22:52):
that you said I turned all the windows down, It's okay,
all the way up? What have you said right before that?
Was it not captured on the audio since he was
in the back that it was hot in the vehicle.
Ross Harris had asked for the windows to be rolled
down because it was too hot in the cop car.
(23:18):
In this case, the advantage prosecutors had was that Ross
Harris didn't testify. This jury, did not hear, did not
have the defendant get up on the witness stand, look
the jury in the eyes and say, listen, I didn't
(23:39):
do this. I loved my son. I don't know why
the defense didn't put him on the witness stand, and
maybe because of that double life he had, But that
double life was already in front of this jury and
it was basically there without any sort of explanation, and
there was no heart felt apology from Ross Harris to
(24:02):
his son for letting him down. There was no Ross
Harris talking to this jury and telling them that it
was an accident. And to me, the new evidence that
I would have feared most as a prosecutor would have
been a defendant, a father who got up on that
witness stand and was genuine. Ross Harris had been sexting
(24:27):
with multiple women, including an underage girl on June eight,
all this as Cooper was dying of hyperthermia in the
back of a boiling hot car. One woman who was
a part of Ross Harris's other life, named Caitlin Floyd,
was called to testify during the trial. Did he ever
(24:47):
inform you that during these times, uh, that he may
have been messaging you some mornings that there was a
child in the backseat and you asked him how long
they did marry? And how does he respond? And how
do you respond? Asked him happy? How does he respond
arry minus sex? What does he say about it? That
is too much of a sexual frank? Does he ask
(25:08):
you to perform some type of sex act? And does
he want to do that in public? Yes? Okay? What
was your response? I said, I don't want to get rested?
And did you send him a photograph after that? What
was his response? UMM? Asked him if you wanted to
play with him? And how did he respond? Because it
says yes I do and did you respond, I did
(25:32):
What'd you say? Well, good things come to those who
won't and how did he respond? Ultimately, at trial, some
of the most damning and compelling evidence presented by the
prosecution were the graphic details of Ross Harris's extramarital sex
life and the notion that his baby boy, Cooper Harris,
(25:53):
was in the way of his pursuit of other women,
and he was in the way of Ross Harris is
being able to lead this different life in the spirit
got County, State of Georgia's State of Georgia, Earth and
dustin law scares and base number nine three Lange here four.
Any time of verdicts coming down, you are supertense, So
(26:16):
you know, everybody wants to be first with it. Everybody's fascinated, fascinated,
you want to know, you know what the what? What
are the jury see And a lot of times that's
why we like to watch their faces and see how
they look at Ross Harris. Do they seem compassionate? And
then when they're walking in the courtroom, you're trying to
look at them and see are they looking at the
defendant or are they not making eye contact with him?
(26:37):
And a lot of times if they are not looking
at them, then you if they have sort of this
stony looking face and they won't make eye contact with
the defendant, you can kind of tell. So when we
were waiting, you know, every you know, the the era
is electric find as follows cow, one mouse or still
(26:58):
be more container. I remember that when malice murder was
that was the very first count, and when they said
guilty on that, I was like, he's going down. If
they convicted him on malice murder, they're convicting him on everything.
(27:22):
Riss Harris was found guilty of all eight charges, including
malice murder, even after tremendous efforts made by the defense.
Even though Maddox killed Gore and the defense team believed
in his innocence and did the very best that they
possibly could to defend him, the jury could not be
convinced otherwise. Their decision may have had to do with
(27:44):
the idea that Ross did in fact want to be
freed from his predictable and domestic lifestyle, which the States
supported with the evidence of his own line sexual exploits
and affairs. Their decision may have had to do with
the extensive media coverage, Even though the took extraordinary measures
to prevent the media's influence. It may have had to
(28:05):
do with what seemed like Ross's abnormal reactions as a
grieving father. Regardless, Ross Harris was found guilty. Very disappointing,
very surprising, very disappointing. We were surprised. We were very
(28:26):
very surprised when we got the verdict that we were
not expecting. We were surprised, but we had already had
lots of conversations with with Ross as we do, as
you do any client, you know what could happen and
what it means. In January, Maddox Kilgore filed a motion
for new trial. After that, new appellate council was appointed
(28:49):
to represent Mr Harris through his appeals. I talked with
his appellate lawyer just the other day in the courthouse,
and he told me that because of the length of
this case, the length of the trial, it may very
well be early before there's even a transcript that can
be prepared that he can look at to review for
potential error so that there could be an appeal. Until then,
(29:13):
Ross Harris remains behind bars in Valdosta State Prison, sentenced
to life without parole for the murder of his twenty
two month old son Cooper Harris may he rest in peace.
(29:52):
Sworn is produced by Tenderfoot TV Atlant Story production and
sound design by Payne Lindsay. Executive produce us Donald Albright
and Payne Lindsay, and if you have it yet, please
check out our sister podcast, Up and Vantage, that follows
the investigation into the disappearance of Georgia High school teacher
and beauty queen Tera Brinstead. Up and Vantage is available
(30:14):
now on ethel Podcasts. Sworn is mixed and mastered by
Resonate Recordings. If you're in the market for podcast production,
go to Resonate Recordings dot com to get your first
episode produced for free. If you haven't already, please head
over to iTunes now to subscribe, rate, and review Sworn
and make sure you check us out online at Sworn
(30:37):
podcast dot com and follow us on social media at
Sworn podcast on Twitter and Instagram, and you can follow
me your host, Philip Holloway at phil holloway e s
Q on Twitter. Eat Your Last Eat Seed I Seed,
(31:08):
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