Trial - Ross Harris #7

[matou]

Give RH a cellphone and measure how quickly he opens up Whisper to the milisecond. That's relevant here.

 

[JerseyGirl]

and it continues:

Brewer gives an example: you’re sitting in the living room watching TV and you want to get something out of the refrigerator. If you don’t have a cue, then you may quickly forget – walking the short distance from the living room and the kitchen – what you wanted.

“You can’t for the life of you think about what it is you went to the refrigerator to get,” Brewer said. “It’s right there looking at you in the face.”

There have been many studies looking at just how quickly people can forget their intentions.

“If you delay people even as little as 30 seconds, they forget more,” Brewer said.

He did an experiment where not only did they make people delay before they acted but they were then distracted too. People were that much more likely to forget what they had intended to do.

It can happen in a matter of seconds, Brewer said.

 

[Angelonline]

Question- Who pays for all this expert testimony when the defendant is indigent? The state?

 

[matou]

He has a paper on false memory.

 

[JerseyGirl]

He's comparing Cooper to an item in the fridge (and forgetting as to why you got up from the couch while watching TV to come into the kitchen).

SMH

I never forget why I go into the kitchen.

 

[minor4th]

Yes - Surgeons HAVE left tools in patients. So now what happens? They count and recount every single thing used in that OR at the start of the surgery and then they account for all of those objects before they close the body. We do this even when doing tissue recoveries on deceased organ and tissue donors. This is what happens when tragic mistakes happen... people LEARN from them and take steps to prevent them from happening again. RH heard of other car deaths and learned from that other father who lost his own kid. RH LEARNED something from past horrible outcomes but took NO STEPS to prevent his biggest fear from happening.

To me, this is the best and most persuasive argument that Ross' behavior was criminally negligent. Irrespective of the texting or whatever else could have distracted him, if he knows that parents can forget to drop off their kids at day care and it results in children dying in hot cars - should he have done something more to prevent it from happening to him?

In hindsight, we can easily say he should have prevented it. The question is - is this a standard we can reasonably expect and enforce in society? Such that a failure is not just negligence but criminal negligence that results in a life time prison sentence.

 

[Hope4More]

"A person can only hold so many things in memory at the same." So why would Ross text when Cooper is right there? The State has a huge opportunity on cross. They could deliver a dagger.

MK just reinforced the 40 second drive.

Because he had already forgotten Cooper by the time he texted at 9:24. He was already at the intersection, hadn't gotten in left lane after Uturn.

 

[JerseyGirl]

continued:

Brewer said he’s driven Harris’ route from the Chick-fil-A to work, including the light and U-turn.

Can we have this type of memory failure in that short a period of time? Kilgore asked.

“Absolutely,” Brewer said.

We study memory in milliseconds, Brewer said.

Thirty seconds, a minute, one hour … those don’t sound like long periods of time but it is psychologically.

“Try sitting by yourself for one minute, psychologically it’s a lifetime,” Brewer said.

You’ll think of many things, you’ll have many experiences, he said.

 

[minor4th]

Question- Who pays for all this expert testimony when the defendant is indigent? The state?

Typically the county.

 

[matou]

Did RH see Cooper as an inanimate object? if so, than I would believe he forgot Cooper like someone forgot to brush their teeth or their work keys on the table.

 

[EquallyDivided]

I thought a warning went off of some sorts when getting to a certain altitude.

I asked the great and powerful oZ, my DH. Yes, there is an audible, extremely loud warning.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

 

[JerseyGirl]

continued:

Brewer said he’s driven Harris’ route from the Chick-fil-A to work, including the light and U-turn.

Can we have this type of memory failure in that short a period of time? Kilgore asked.

“Absolutely,” Brewer said.

We study memory in milliseconds, Brewer said.

Thirty seconds, a minute, one hour … those don’t sound like long periods of time but it is psychologically.

“Try sitting by yourself for one minute, psychologically it’s a lifetime,” Brewer said.

You’ll think of many things, you’ll have many experiences, he said.

how about sitting in a car for 30 seconds before getting out, locking the door, and leaving your kid behind.

 

[minor4th]

Kilgore seems a little off his game for some reason. Is it just me or does anyone else think this?

 

[matou]

RH had one thing to do. Drop off his one and ONLY kid to daycare. Not drop off multiple kids and mess up the order of things. Out of sight out of mind can't make me believe he forgot him.

 

[JerseyGirl]

Brewer said he also studies false memory.

In these cases (leaving children in cars), “generally, the parents tend to report the experience of believing that the child was taken to daycare,” Brewer said.

If you believe that, then you won’t ask questions about the cues that may pop up, he said.

 

[Hope4More]

The one thing I've heard from him that imo jurors might actually be able to connect with was : "sit for one minute and notice how much is going on in your mind-- it's actually a long time."

Overall, though, imo he isn't a very strong witness. I speak his language, but it still sounds overly abstract and theoretical.

 

[matou]

I wish I could hear Kilgore at all. Mic not working.

 

[JerseyGirl]

and so on:

You may not even think at all about whether you dropped your child at daycare. And then if you did think about it, it may still be hard for you to reason out whether you did it or not, Brewer said.

Think about putting shampoo in your hair or brushing your teeth, you know you did it. But you’ve done it so many times, it’s hard to remember if you did it or not on any particular day.

You don’t think critically about it.

In Harris case, Harris told police that he thought Cooper was at daycare. “It’s not an issue that only happened in Ross’ case,” Brewer said. It happens to many other parents in these circumstances too.

 

[just the facts pls]

I'll say this - Brewer is educated and thinks he knows what he is talking about.

He's talking in circles, though. He says on one hand that goals with consequences take precedence over goals without consequences (like getting ketchup from the fridge). Then he flip flops and says that routine triggers aren't enough. That makes no sense, especially since JRH's "greatest fear" was leaving Cooper in the car. Wouldn't any trigger be sufficient to avoid such a tragedy?

He's also not explaining how JRH "forgot" Cooper while talking about him.

 

[Hope4More]

Kilgore seems a little off his game for some reason. Is it just me or does anyone else think this?

I think it's this witness. Kilgore is best when he can establish repoire with a witness. Questioning this dude must feel like talking back to one's computer screen.