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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Jaw-Dropping Details in Hot Car Death Case; Arthur Moves North; Father of Hot-Car Death Toddler Refused Bond

Aired July 4, 2014 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Tears in court, as damning allegations emerge about this suburban father, accused of murdering his own little boy. Police say he was sexting with a half dozen women at the time his 2-year-old son was dying, locked in an SUV, in the blistering Georgia heat. Suspicious internet searches, bewildering comments by the boy's mother. We're going to delve into every angle of this tragic case.

Also this hour on CNN, Arthur, now a Category 1 hurricane, marching up the east coast, after slamming into the North Carolina shores. Thousands of people without power and dangerous rip currents are still a serious threat. Will the storm's remnants ruin your Independence Day?

Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. It's Friday, the 4th of July. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW. We are going to begin with this very troubling story. Shocking detail after shocking detail, sexting, disturbing internet searches and chilling statements in a jaw-dropping pre-trial hearing. Prosecutors yesterday revealed some stunning elements of their case against that man.

That man who was crying in court, Justin Ross Harris. He is accused of murder. After leaving his toddler son in a car for seven hours in the broiling Georgia heat. He has pleaded not guilty to this crime. He says it was all a tragic accident that day. But the prosecutors say it was something else.

It was something like him wanting a child-free life. They found it on his computer. We're going to get into all the disturbing details in just a moment. First, I want to get to some of the new developments in this investigation.

Our CNN's Nick Valencia is following the story. Every so often, you get these court documents that start to bleed out bit by bit and bits and pieces are now following these jaw-dropping developments yesterday. Can you get us up to speed?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We just obtained new search warrants from officials in Cobb County and it lays out some of the same narrative we heard in yesterday's probable cause and bond hearing. These new search warrants talk about the finances of the family, the Harris family, and how Justin Ross Harris had recently overtaken his family's finances. He was now in charge of them, they say, and he had accrued a $4,000 credit card debt, trying to acquire Sky Miles. Also new information that Justin Ross Harris had recently started a new business on the side with his friends. He told police and investigators that he did not have any intention of leaving his job, but wanted to make some, quote, "money on the side." And then, Ashleigh, buried in the search warrants, towards the last pages, there was this.

Through the investigation, it says, Harris had made comments to family members regarding a life insurance policy he has on Cooper and what they need to do in order to file for it. At yesterday's probable cause and bond hearing, we all learned little 22-month-old Cooper had two life insurance policies.

One acquired through Home Depot, the employer of Justin Ross Harris, and the other taken out by the family in 2013. Both those policies totalling $27,000 -- Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So let me just be really clear on that last bit that you said was buried deep inside that search warrant, that he had made various comments during the investigation about how to file the paperwork, I'm paraphrasing, to redeem life insurance on that baby. Is anyone suggesting this was done prior to the death or are they suggesting this was done after the death?

VALENCIA: It's our understanding it was after the death and it says here, through the investigation, meaning after little Cooper Harris had died. It makes his actions suspicious and while his friends and family, many of whom I have spoken to in my trips to Alabama, they would like to believe that this is not in Justin Ross Harris' character. They call him a man of great moral fiber, a Christian man, somebody that wouldn't be capable of doing this.

In these actions laid out by police investigators, including those actions of Leanne Harris and how she reacted to hearing that little Cooper was not at the day care that day she was supposed to pick him up, it certainly paints a very troubling picture for a family and looks really bad on both of them -- Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Where to even begin, as we looked at it yesterday, there are just so many bad facts that came out in that hearing that we didn't expect in the probable cause hearing to say the very least. Nick, stay on it and update us if you get more today. Thank you for that.

I want to get back to some of those shocking details, we were talking about that revealed in what was really a pre-trial hearing. We didn't expect to get as much detail as we did. Our Victor Blackwell explains now the evidence that is mounting up against Harris and how powerful it is and the story that it reveals is nothing short of alarming.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What was Justin Ross Harris allegedly doing while his 22-month-old son, Cooper suffered in the back of this scorching SUV? DETECTIVE PHIL STODDARD, COBB COUNTY, GEORGIA POLICE: He was having up to six different conversations with different women. The most common term would be sexting.

BLACKWELL: Stunning claims of raunchy text messages, suspicious internet searches and a plan to kill his son.

STODDARD: Evidence is showing us he has this whole second life that he's living with alternate personalities and alternate personas.

BLACKWELL: Harris shackled and sullen as Detective Phil Stoddard with the Cobb County Police Department detailed X-rated messages allegedly exchanged the day Cooper died including with a then 16-year-old girl.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: Were photos being sent back and forth between the defendant and these women on that day?

STODDARD: Yes. There were photos of his erect penis being sent and there are also women's breasts being sent back to him.

BLACKWELL: No visible reaction from the 33-year-old wife, Leanna Harris, who sat with her family and supporters in a packed courtroom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was a loving father. He loved his son very much. We went on family vacations together and he was a good dad.

BLACKWELL: But just five days before Cooper's death, Detective Stoddard says internet searches revealed that Harris watched videos online about the dangers of being trapped in a hot car. And that Harris visited a web forum devoted to the child-free lifestyle.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: So you don't have evidence that he typed in a Google search for child-free.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: True.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: We're getting so far afield from the events of June 18th. This has nothing to do with those events whatsoever. The status of his marriage and fantasy life has nothing to do with the events of June 18th. This isn't relevant to anything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Judge, this goes to his state of mind in the two weeks leading up to the death of this child.

UNIDENTIFIED JUDGE: So this occurred within two weeks.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: Yes, Your Honor.

UNIDENTIFIED JUDGE: Overrule the objection.

BLACKWELL: The detective also testified the couple had financial problems and took out life insurance policies on Cooper.

STODDARD: They had two policies on Cooper. The first policy was a $2,000 policy through the Home Depot.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: The second one, was this something back in 2013.

STODDARD: Yes, November 2012 is when he signed up for it.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: Was it something he still had at the time of the child's death?

STODDARD: That's correct.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: And how much was it?

STODDARD: It was a $25,000 policy.

BLACKWELL: Stoddard laid out the strange way he was Harris reacting the day Cooper died.

STODDARD: He started off trying to work himself up. We are watching him on the cameras. He's walking around, rubbing his eyes. Looked like he was trying to hyper ventilate himself. No tears. No real emotion coming out of him except for the huffing.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: And through the time you're talking with him about his son and his son's death, did you ever see any tears coming from him?

STODDARD: No.

BLACKWELL: Even more bizarre how witnesses say Leanna Harris reacted at the day care when she was told that Cooper was never dropped off.

STODDARD: In front of several witnesses, all of a sudden she states, Ross must have left him in the car. They were like, what, there's no other reason -- explanation excuse me, Ross must have left in the car. They try to console her. They're like no. There's a thousand reasons. She's like, no.

BLACKWELL: Then another shocker.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: Were there any injuries to the child's face?

STODDARD: There were.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: What were those?

STODDARD: The way it's explained, there were several marks on the child's face that would have come from the child or a scratch being made while the child was alive. And then not healing, not scabbing over or anything like that and just -- soon after he passed away.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: Were there any injury to the back of the child's head?

STODDARD: Yes.

BLACKWELL: After three hours of stunning testimony, Judge Franks Cox denied Harris bond the defense maintaining.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not criminal negligence. It's horrible. Tragedy and an accident.

BLACKWELL: Victor Blackwell, CNN, Murrieta, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: I want to stick on that word you just heard, "horrible." It's serious for a different reason, for a legal reason. Joining me to talk about this case against Justin Harris is CNN legal analysts, Danny Cevallos and Sunny Hostin along with former Atlanta prosecutor in that county, Philip Holloway, he has worked with the judge. He has worked with the attorneys in this case.

If you read the statute in Georgia, horrible works its way in when it comes to the death penalty. We've all been talking off camera, whether this thing is going to qualify, whether this is going to ultimately be something the prosecutors seek in in case. Sunny, you're a prosecutor. This is what you did for a living. Are they going after the death penalty?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: The judge made it clear that this could be a death penalty case, which is one of the reasons I believe he didn't give him bond. From the very beginning, I said, if there is evidence of motive, evidence of premeditation, even those against the death penalty, in a case like this, where you intentionally bake your child to death, that would be, in my mind, a death penalty case.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Except, and I'll just present sort of the defense view of it, he's charged with felony murder. The predicate felony here is not an intentional crime. It's negligence. All this evidence of intent and motive and everything else is a little inconsistent with the prosecution's theory of the case.

In Georgia, the death penalty is a possibility, however, the aggravating circumstances here are usually reserved for intentional- type crimes. Unless they end up charging him with an intentional malice murder, as Phillip can tell us more about, this -- in this case, I don't think the death penalty, it's going to be a tough hill to climb, only because the law appears to err on the side of life instead of death.

BANFIELD: So I will only counter that, and Phillip, I'll bring you in on this, with a notion that what we're working off here are arrest warrants. We are not working off an indictment from a grand jury yet, and we know a grand jury can do a whole lot more. In this case, given what we've heard at this prelim, they may more than likely will.

And when I looked at the statute, outrageously or wanting on it, vile, horrible or inhuman, torture, depravity of mind, aggravated battery to the victim. If baking a child in a hot car, if this is intentional, charged as first degree murder, premeditated, that sounds like it matches perfectly, am I wrong, Phillip?

PHILIP HOLLOWAY, FORMER ATLANTA PROSECUTOR: I think you got it exactly right. I listened to this in real time and I took very good notes on it and I picked up something that the prosecutor said during the case when he was making his sort of closing argument, he said, judge, I think what we've got, at least here, is criminal negligence.

Reading between the lines, what I saw is they presented a malice murder presentation, however, they only asked the judge to bind over, that is, submit to the grand jury, the charge that is on the warrant now. The district attorney has discretion to change that charge and submit whatever they feel is appropriate to the Cobb County grand jury, once the investigation is complete.

You heard yesterday, also, the detective saying, we have only scratched the surface here. There's a lot more work they've got to do. So if they think that malice murder is appropriate and they think they have the evidence to support it, that's probably what we will see happen.

BANFIELD: You were an ADA with Chuck Boring who's the ADA that presented yesterday. Do you think he's got it in him? Is he the person who's going to do this? Is he the kind guy, you think this is right up his alley?

HOLLOWAY: I've never worked with chuck as an ADA. I've worked with him in other cases. We've actually had trials against one another and what I can tell you is he's a very smart lawyer, very good, very thorough. He's got a whole team. He's in charge the crimes against women and children unit at the DA's office. A whole team of very good people who will try to help him prosecute this case in the best way that they see fit.

BANFIELD: OK, stand by. Hold on to that thought. That is -- you said scratch the surface. We've only just scratched the surface on this as well. Danny Cevallos, Sunny Hostin, stick around, we've got a lot more to talk about, including a look at how the attorneys for Justin Ross Harris are going to start to build their defense of this client.

Because you know what, what you hear that avalanche of evidence against him, bet your bottom dollar, they are working feverishly to fight against it. Our other big story of the day as well, Hurricane Arthur, raining on the 4th of July celebrations all up and down the east coast of the United States. Where's the storm going now and what damage has it done? You might be surprised to find out what a Cat 2 did and didn't do.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: The first hurricane of the Atlantic season kissed the coast, ruined a lot of Fourth of July holiday plans, but now it's spinning out over the ocean once again.

Arthur is still a hurricane, but it's much weaker one. Now it's Category 1. It hit Category 2 yesterday. But it is still expected to dump a lot of rain on the northeast, particularly Cape Cod and parts of Massachusetts, those places that stick out, jut out into the ocean.

Here's the good news, though, and it's really good news. So far, the number of people badly hurt or killed by this hurricane, zero; the amount of serious damage to homes in the Carolinas and Outer Banks, almost none.

At last report, more than 40,000 home, however, still don't have power, but that can be fixed, thank god.

North Carolina National Guardsmen are out in the hardest hit towns on security patrol. They're also out surveying the damage as well.

Chad Myers got the good assignment, the warm and dry one in the CNN Weather Center with all the equipment that tell us what's happening and where it's going. Joe Johns, not so good, he gets the Outer Banks. He's in North Carolina at Nags Head.

I'll start with you, Chad. We were really concerned that this was going to do a whole lot of damage, and it didn't, but what's still ahead?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I think it could have, had it hit really a more populated area. We really got lucky.

Atlantic Beach didn't get lucky. Morehead City didn't get lucky. Neither did Ocracoke. There's damage to the roads. There's damage we haven't seen yet, and there was an awful lot of flooding.

As the sound filled up, the Bogue Sound and also the Pamlico Sound filled up, and then that water had to rush back up.

But a lot of good news is that most of the buildings were up on stilts, and so the water flowed under. So, really, this was a lucky hit, for the best possible scenario for where it would have gone other than Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head, which we now know have some shingle damage and such and such and such.

Ninety-mile-per-hour winds right now, almost to the east of Norfolk, to the east of about Ocean City, Maryland, right there, getting a small eye, about to lose a lot of its integrity here because it's getting into colder water.

Ashleigh, this thing needs warm water to survive and it doesn't have any more warm water. The Gulf Stream has kind of moved on off to the east. This storm doesn't look very good. There's the center of the rain.

But we still have rain now for parts of New York, parts of New Jersey, very rough surf conditions across parts of New Jersey, and also even from Long Island Sound, back to Nantucket, all the way into Boston harbor, could see some very rough weather today, also even into Maine.

There goes the storm right now. It's going to be a quick mover, moved very slow over North Carolina, but it's going to move quickly over here.

There will be tropical storm conditions for the Cape, for Nantucket and the islands there, and also into Halifax, Bay of Fundy might get some water in it, not that it doesn't have a 45-foot tide there anyway --

BANFIELD: Wow.

MYERS: -- one of the greatest tides in the entire world there, the Bay of Fundy. You push some water in it with a tropical storm, that could even get a little bit worse.

What happened yesterday, the big story where Joe Johns is was how the water came out of the sound. Typically, you worry about the water that comes over the ocean, comes over the shore, and then onto the land.

But the water went through the cuts, went through Ocracoke Cut, the inlets there, filled up the water behind the islands, filled this up a couple feet too high, and when the storm went by, all of a sudden, the wind pushed it off shore and the over wash came from the opposite direction we expect.

BANFIELD: Yes, kind of what you're not expecting. That's why, everybody, you tell us, stay off the beaches, even if it looks like it might be nice, it ain't. Joe Johns is on the beach. If the sun comes up -- you're on the south side. If the sun comes out, we still have conditions of the rip currents taking all that surge out, in these underwater rivers. They're like whitewater rapids under the water you can't see.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Ashleigh. It could be very dangerous. They're warning people that you're going to have rip current situations, perhaps for days out here, so to try to stay out of the water.

Look, we're in Nags Head, looking out over the sound. Try to illustrate some of the stuff Chad was talking about. This water came all the way in and pushed out close to the road. Now it's pretty much receded.

If you look all the way across the sound here, there's a causeway. We drove out to that causeway a little while ago. The road leading up to it at that time had silt all over it. We could see splashes coming up out of the water, apparently calming down, even though the winds are still pretty high out here, as we speak.

Further down the coast, of course, a bigger problem around Hatteras Island, engineers are trying to assess a situation on the roads, the structural damage, if any. The early assessments are very good. We're being told things are not as bad as they thought they could have been.

So they're trying to get back to normal here. The question is, when that road's going to be open so people can go back and forth. Because otherwise, you get cut off, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: I think your camera man needs to wipe that rain drop or that little bit -- is it inside the lens? I can tell just --

JOHNS: I completely forgot to reference that, right, this is our condensation spot. It comes from being out in the rain all night long, and we've been doing everything we can to try to get rid of this thing.

But right now, it's just our friend on TV.

MYERS: Hey, Joe --

BANFIELD: You're just such a dear -- go ahead, Chad.

MYERS: Joe, with "Star Trek," that was called soft focus to make the women look better.

Put your head right in that little that spot. It will get rid of the lines along your eye, buddy.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Guys, thank you.

JOHNS: Occupational hazard.

MYERS: Be safe, Joe.

BANFIELD: I hope you get a little time down. Happy fourth of July to the both of you, Chad and Joe, joining us live on this July 4th.

JOHNS: You bet. You too.

BANFIELD: So, as we continue on in this program, I want to take you back into this jaw-dropping story, the father accused of murder after his toddler was left in a hot car.

The details from the initial hearing were gruesome. They were damning. A friend of mine wrote a book about this. It is called, "How Do You Defend Those People."

His name is Mickey Sherman. He wrote the book on how you defend people who seem indefensible.

And guess what? This is America. It's what we do. And you can bet your bottom dollar that those defense attorneys are working hard, starting now.

We're going to tell you what they're up to.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: The evidence against a Georgia father who's accused of murdering his 22-month-old son by just leaving him in a sweltering hot car for seven hours until he died, that evidence may seem overwhelming, and exceptionally upsetting, but it is important to remember, this man has not been convicted.

He has not been convicted yet.

During Justin Ross Harris' pretrial hearing yesterday, his attorneys sketched out, in piece, very small piece, what his defense might actually be.

And it might be clear that a critical part of it will be character evidence, what this guy's just like.

Harris' attorneys called his family members, his friends, and his coworkers to the witness stand to testify that the now murder suspect was a loving father and genuinely a really good guy.

This morning, Harris' college friend told CNN's Michaela Pereira that she's having a difficult time believing Harris could be capable of anything like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": When you look at this situation, what does your gut tell you?

KRISTEN RIKER, FRIEND OF JUSTINE ROSS HARRIS: Like I said, because I -- the great man I knew him to be, I really want to be unbiased and not believe it, but I'm also not sure exactly what the facts are.

BANFIELD: Well, joining me to talk about how Harris' attorneys are going to defend their client most likely are CNN's legal analysts Danny Cevallos and Sunny Hostin and Philip Holloway, who's worked with the judge and attorneys in this case.

All right, Sunny, I'm going to get your prosecutor hat off and your defense hat on.

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Uncomfortable spot for me.

BANFIELD: It sure makes you think hard. You've got to know your enemy. During the break, Sunny confided, which I'm now going to put out there, that you could defend this case.

HOSTIN: Yes, I could, and I will tell you, I've been sort of chatting with a lot of former prosecutors, a lot of country prosecutors, and overwhelmingly, everyone is saying, I just don't want to believe that this is true, and I believe that it's still possible that this was an accident.

That's what I'm hearing, so I think it's very defensible, because we know that so many children die, too many children die, every single year, accidentally, because they're left by distracted parents in a hot car.

Without, let's say, toxicology reports that show Justin Harris somehow drugged his child so the death would be less painful --

BANFIELD: That's coming. Toxicology results will be coming.

HOSTIN: Right, but we don't know the results. But absent a confession, absent something literally tying this in a very intentional way, I think this is a defensible case.

BANFIELD: Danny, I've seen so many circumstantial cases come down so hard on defendants who are either unlikable, unpleasant, or just have too many bad fact coincidence.

We can stomach one, we can handle two, but when you get to three, four, five, throw the book at them.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: But as a defense guy, I'm going to say, no matter how many coincidences, if they're all character evidence, the prosecution really hasn't proven their case in chief.

Everything we heard in the prelim was what the prosecution packaged as motive evidence, but in reality, the defense attorney argued that it was character evidence, which is improper.

So what if he's sexting? So what if he's up to shenanigans?

BANFIELD: So what if he's a nice guy?