Trial - Ross Harris #9

[RANCH]

I disagree.

In no way has the State proven that Ross did not forget Cooper, like all of the hundreds of parents before him.

Having difficulty understanding how a parent can forget a child does not equate to proof of murder beyond a reasonable doubt.

You guys are shifting the entire burden on the defense to DISPROVE intentional murder. That is not how it works.

That's how a lot of members here feel I'm afraid. It's impossible for a parent to forget their child in a hot car so the defense has to prove otherwise.

Guilty until proven innocent. JMO.

 

[GA_Peach]

That's how a lot of members here feel I'm afraid. It's impossible for a parent to forget their child in a hot car so the defense has to prove otherwise.

Guilty until proven innocent. JMO.

I don't feel that way at all. In fact, I have nothing but sympathy for parents who forget their children. I can imagine no worse pain than the knowledge that you were responsible for the death of your child. I have read Lyn Balfour's story hundreds of times, and my sobbing doesn't lessen with any subsequent reading. It's truly heartbreaking.

However, the facts of this case don't support forgetting. The State has entered evidence to show that.

 

[RANCH]

I don't feel that way at all. In fact, I have nothing but sympathy for parents who forget their children. I can imagine no worse pain than the knowledge that you were responsible for the death of your child. I have read Lyn Balfour's story hundreds of times, and my sobbing doesn't lessen with any subsequent reading. It's truly heartbreaking.

However, the facts of this case don't support forgetting. The State has entered evidence to show that.

I think that the State has tried to convince the jury and the public that RH didn't forget Cooper in the car and intentionally killed him. They haven't convinced me though. JMO

 

[Gardenista]

I am sorry that I cannot figure out how to include your quoted text in my reply. There are two things that struck me regarding what you posted about Dr. Brewer. He said that there was nothing unique about Ross's situation. That is flat out not true. No other parent was sexting with minors on the day their child died. No other parent forgot in the same short time span as Ross did. And no other parent claimed it was his biggest fear!

That brings me to my next point. I am not sure if you watched Dr. Brewer's testimony, but he had an exchange with Chuck Boring about Ross's awareness of children dying in hot cars. Dr. Brewer stated that Ross was aware, like every other parent; he's seen the stories on the news. But he did not really know the risks. We know from the evidence that is not true. It was Ross's biggest fear. It was Leanna's biggest fear. They talked about it at home. Ross was aware of the Look Again campaign. He watched a video about the risks of leaving a pet in a hot car five days before Cooper's death. Ross wasn't simply aware of the the possibility of leaving a child in the car; he knew the risks and the consequences.

How do you know how long it took for the other parents to forget?

 

[GA_Peach]

I think that the State has tried to convince the jury and the public that RH didn't forget Cooper in the car and intentionally killed him. They haven't convinced me though. JMO

Fair enough. I think that the jury is really going to struggle with the malice murder charge. I don't expect a conviction, but I won't be surprised if he is. It only takes one juror to firmly believe that Ross did not intentionally leave Cooper in the car to hang a jury.

I also reserve the right to change my opinion after I hear closing arguments. :winko:

 

[gitana1]

I don't feel that way at all. In fact, I have nothing but sympathy for parents who forget their children. I can imagine no worse pain than the knowledge that you were responsible for the death of your child. I have read Lyn Balfour's story hundreds of times, and my sobbing doesn't lessen with any subsequent reading. It's truly heartbreaking.

However, the facts of this case don't support forgetting. The State has entered evidence to show that.

Im with you. I think there are legitimate cases. The facts of this one convince me this is not one of those.

How do you know how long it took for the other parents to forget?

The stories describe longer drives. None describe a decision to turn that occurred 40 seconds after leaving where the parent was parked.

 

[Gardenista]

Im with you. I think there are legitimate cases. The facts of this one convince me this is not one of those.



The stories describe longer drives. None describe a decision to turn that occurred 40 seconds after leaving where the parent was parked.

Longer drives don't matter. Other parents could have immediately forgotten as well.

 

[GA_Peach]

How do you know how long it took for the other parents to forget?

You are correct. I was not precise with my words. It should have read, "No other parent missed the turn (lane) to take their child to day care in less than 40 seconds." Is that sufficiently accurate now?

ETA - My comment was in regard to how this case was different. The other drives were longer. The length of the drive is one difference, and I will let the jury determine whether that is significant.

 

[RANCH]

Fair enough. I think that the jury is really going to struggle with the malice murder charge. I don't expect a conviction, but I won't be surprised if he is. It only takes one juror to firmly believe that Ross did not intentionally leave Cooper in the car to hang a jury.

I also reserve the right to change my opinion after I hear closing arguments. :winko:

I predicted the jury will convict on all counts but I always seem to get it wrong when trying to predict a jury. We will have to wait and see.

A hung jury is possible. If it's only one juror holding out I can see the State retrying. If it's more maybe not. JMO.

 

[Gardenista]

You are correct. I was not precise with my words. It should have read, "No other parent missed the turn (lane) to take their child to day care in less than 40 seconds." Is that sufficiently accurate now?

Sure, but I still think it's meaningless. I constantly forget what I was going to do immediately after I thought about doing it.

 

[GA_Peach]

Sure, but I still think it's meaningless. I constantly forget what I was going to do immediately after I thought about doing it.

But how often do you forget what you just did? And to be clear, I am not talking about forgetting about a thought. How often do you forget an activity, one that requires you to interact with your environment, that you just completed?

Let's take the refrigerator example that Dr. Brewer used. You get off the couch, walk over to the refrigerator, and open the door. You are staring at the refrigerator and cannot remember what you need. However, do you also forget that you were just sitting on the couch watching television? That's what Ross did. Not only did he forget to take Cooper to day care, but he also forgot that he just ate breakfast with Cooper. He forgot two separate items within 40 seconds. Am I supposed to believe that Ross had two (nearly?) simultaneous memory failures? It's just not reasonable to me.

 

[JudyBolton]

Someone earlier suggested the youngest juror (19?) single man/no children - might be less likely to convict as he didn't have the experience of being a parent. They also stated he might be more lenient with respect to issues of sexting.

If he is the only one, do you believe he would stand up to the majority of older jurors? I somehow do not believe he would. He might express his opinion, but if he were the only one, I think he would be convinced by the others to vote guilty.

 

[Rayemonde]

You are correct. I was not precise with my words. It should have read, "No other parent missed the turn (lane) to take their child to day care in less than 40 seconds." Is that sufficiently accurate now?

ETA - My comment was in regard to how this case was different. The other drives were longer. The length of the drive is one difference, and I will let the jury determine whether that is significant.

I had a look through the news reports of some of the other cases, and in most it wasn't clear how long the drive was. There have been hundreds and hundreds of other cases, how can you know how long the drive was in each case? Dr Diamond in his article about RH didn't seem to think it was surprising or unusual that RH forgot in such a short time.

On this site there is a list of names of kids who died in hot cars each year. I went through and googled dozens of the names and usually there is little information in the media articles about the exact circumstances, eg how long the drive was.

http://noheatstroke.org

 

[Gardenista]

But how often do you forget what you just did? And to be clear, I am not talking about forgetting about a thought. How often do you forget an activity, one that requires you to interact with your environment, that you just completed?

Let's take the refrigerator example that Dr. Brewer used. You get of the couch, walk over the refrigerator, and open the door. You are staring at the refrigerator and cannot remember what you need. However, do you also forget that you were just sitting on the couch watching television? That's what Ross did. Not only he did forget to take Cooper to day care, but he also forget that he just took Cooper to breakfast. He forgot those two separate items within 40 seconds. He had two near simultaneous memory failures. It's just not reasonable to me.

I'm can be very forgetful, so I can completely see how he could forget both of those things--actually, 40 seconds seems to be a long time in terms of quickness of forgetting. It can be a split second for me.

then add to that the blood to his brain was shunted to his crotch due to the sexting and it seems that much more possible.

 

[RANCH]

Expert says Harris’ lapse not unusual compared to other hot-car cases

Memory failures can occur during the window of a minute or two, Brewer said. This includes in the amount of time it took Harris to decide whether to take a left turn toward Cooper’s daycare at Little Apron Academy or continue straight on Cumberland Parkway to his work.


“This type of memory failure can happen on the order of seconds,” Brewer said.

I believe that it makes more sense that a "memory failure" would take place in a matter of seconds rather than over an extended period of time. JMO.

http://www.ajc.com/news/local/exper...d-other-hot-car-cases/sRVQsB8zRfOd4V6A1IOHoJ/

 

[RANCH]

Sure, but I still think it's meaningless. I constantly forget what I was going to do immediately after I thought about doing it.

I think that's what Dr Brewer was trying to explain, that it can be seconds to have the memory problem.

Makes sense to me. JMO

 

[Hope4More]

Im with you. I think there are legitimate cases. The facts of this one convince me this is not one of those.



The stories describe longer drives. None describe a decision to turn that occurred 40 seconds after leaving where the parent was parked.

Here's the thing about those other stories, imo, and what DOES make RH's case unique.

Unlike any other case I'm aware of, RH's window of opportunity for forgetting can be narrowed down to those specific few minutes between leaving CFA and the intersection, at the latest.

We don't know how quickly other parents forgot their kids, precisely because their drives from home to work, etc WERE longer than RH's. Those other parents forgot, went to work or wherever, and didn't " remember " until hours later.

We have no way of knowing when and how quickly they forgot, because THEY had no way of knowing.

BTW...the fact that RH's window of forgetting was so short is not evidence to me that he couldn't have had FBS, it's evidence to me that he either did, or that he plain vanilla forgot. I simply do not believe the man planned to murder Cooper and feign FBS, then chose a route that would record his every move and would document his forgetting within minutes and seconds, making that forgetting seem impossible to many, and implausible to others.

Nothing could have been simpler than driving Cooper straight to work, parking where Cooper couldn't have been seen, and waiting until he left work to "discover" him. IMO, one has to turn things pretty much inside out to think RH premeditated killing Cooper, and it flat out is unbelievable that Ross knew of FBS and yet chose a scenario that was completely unlikely to be viewed as such.

 

[RANCH]

Someone earlier suggested the youngest juror (19?) single man/no children - might be less likely to convict as he didn't have the experience of being a parent. They also stated he might be more lenient with respect to issues of sexting.

If he is the only one, do you believe he would stand up to the majority of older jurors? I somehow do not believe he would. He might express his opinion, but if he were the only one, I think he would be convinced by the others to vote guilty.

That 19 year old juror will most likely follow the herd in my opinion. I base that on what I see at work with the young men we have and how I remember myself as a 19 year old guy. JMO.

 

[Rayemonde]

But how often do you forget what you just did? And to be clear, I am not talking about forgetting about a thought. How often do you forget an activity, one that requires you to interact with your environment, that you just completed?

Let's take the refrigerator example that Dr. Brewer used. You get off the couch, walk over to the refrigerator, and open the door. You are staring at the refrigerator and cannot remember what you need. However, do you also forget that you were just sitting on the couch watching television? That's what Ross did. Not only did he forget to take Cooper to day care, but he also forgot that he just ate breakfast with Cooper. He forgot two separate items within 40 seconds. Am I supposed to believe that Ross had two (nearly?) simultaneous memory failures? It's just not reasonable to me.

What about this LEO. He remembered to drop his first kid off at daycare, and remembered to take the baby out of the car whilst he dropped the first kid off. Then he forgot that he'd just done that, forgot to drop the baby off at a different daycare and left the baby in the car to die.

When Fanfarillo arrived at his older son's day care in Whitesboro around 8 a.m., he checked in Brandon, 7. His 4 1/2-month-old son was sleeping, but the father did not leave him in the car.

He picked up the baby's car seat and carried Michael into the center. Several day care workers gathered around the baby, remarking on how cute he looked.

That small act - carrying his sleeping infant into the center rather than leaving him in the car for the two minutes - made a huge impression on McNamara. It helped show the district attorney that Fanfarillo was a responsible father who cared about his son.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.syra...d_in_hot_car.amp?client=ms-android-sonymobile

 

[katydid23]

Hello. I absolutely DO believe it was a coincidence, and Dr. Diamond knew on June 30 the video wasn't about children, it was about pets (way before most anyone knew the difference) , and IMO one of the DT's best supported points was that Ross the researcher clicked on anything and everything that popped up on his screen, as the trending 2 million views vet video did.

The video was not 'about' pets. It was about HOT CARS and the danger they present to any living thing trapped inside. Which is why Ross went right to the thought of his son being in the hot car, which he posted about below the video. The vet knows many more people leave pets in the car when they go do errands, then they do leave their children. So he figured he needed to do a pSA, jmo.