BETTER THAN THE TWINKIE DEFENSE
THE COBB COUNTY CRUCIBLE ON HLN
THE VIEW FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
By John McCarthy
TMV Columnist
If the O.J. Simpson trial was the crime of the last
century, then the “hot car death” of Cooper Harris is the “alleged” murder of
the new century.
H.L. Mencken called the kidnapping and murder trial of
the Lindbergh baby’s killer in 1932 “the biggest story since the Resurrection.”
The trial of 33-year-old Justin Ross Harris promises to
not be all that, but it may be a bag of chips for the cable TV news networks
and their endless 24-7 cycle seeking to replace Malaysian Airlines Flight 370
as the new “go to” story.
The differences in the three crimes of the last two
centuries are telling: 1) Charles Lindbergh was the biggest celebrity in
America at the time his 18-month-old child Charles Jr. was stolen from his home
in East Amwell, New Jersey. 2) “OJ” was a known AVIS rental car spokesman and
ABC sports commentator, but merely part of the ensemble casts in “Towering
Inferno” (1974) and “Airplane” (1980). His alleged victims Nicole Brown Simpson
and Ronald Goldman were not celebrities. 3) Harris is a web designer for Home
Depot by trade and only came to prominence with his arrest last month in
Marietta, Georgia.
If the national news media builds the Harris Hot Car
Death into the “Crime of the Century” it will give Andy Warhol’s fabled “15
minutes of fame” even more credibility because neither Justin or his son Cooper
were celebrities before Cobb County Police identified Mr. Harris as a cold
blooded killer. German immigrant Bruno Richard Hauptmann became a celebrity
when he was arrested two years after the Lindbergh baby disappearance and was
then executed by the electric chair two years after his conviction.
In modern-day America, O.J. Simpson was released after
his double murder trial ended in a not guilty verdict so that he could commit
other sports memorabilia felonies in Las Vegas 14 years after his initial
arrest, including armed robbery and kidnapping. In 1971 (three years before
“Towering Inferno,” Charles Manson was convicted for masterminding the
Tate-LaBianca murders. But a year later the California Supreme Court outlawed
capital punishment.
The Cooper Harris murder trial represents the constantly
shifting paradigms of American society, from West Coast to Southern industrial
dominance; and geographically America’s population is moving westward and southward,
just as the trial of OJ was in LA, the new showstopper is in ATL - which is
known affectionately as "Hot-lanta." We have gone from Baby Boomers
on ordinary trunk land lines in 1994 to Generation Y, the so-called
“Millenials” sex text messaging, or “sexting” in 2014.
The current group, Generation Z, aka the “Homeland
Generation” or “digital natives” not only are too young to remember the
Lindberg baby kidnapping, but likely don’t even know who Johnnie Cochran was,
after all – they weren’t even born when Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered in
Brentwood. And the generational gap represented by these three or four Crimes
of the Century was never more obvious than when watching Headline News network
last night.
The cheerleading style of nightly justice outrage was
stoked to a fever pitch by “Nancy Grace” who used a full-screen Chyron graphic
to illustrate not only that Harris was sexting six women at the same time he
was supposed to be watching his son, but that one of them was only seventeen
years old. The opening act for Grace is Jane Velez-Mitchell’s show.
Velez-Mitchell came to prominence as a commentator during the Michael Jackson
sexual abuse trial and apparently developed an affinity for Jacko’s style of
plastic surgery following that 2003 media circus.
Velez-Mitchell emphasized almost as many times as Nancy
Grace, that when Harris was texting his six sextuplets, he was sending along
pictures of his “erect penis” to his chosen few. Grace, who was thrust into
national prominence first on Court TV as a reporter when ratings soared on the
glovetails of the O.J. Simpson trial, mentioned “erect penis” at least five
times during her hour-long show.
Grace, in her visibly-angered persona looking scarier
than Bruce Nauman in full “Clown Torture” video mode, showed that the 22-year
age difference between her and the accused is significant. Because that
generational gap was never more apparent than when she and near sexogenarian
Velez-Mitchell were gagging on the “erect penis” pictures that they said Harris
was including in text messages to his “friends with benefits.” Presumably, the
two women would have been equally upset if Harris had jaywalked with his child
– but sexted at the same time.
The voice of reason came when the 55-year-old Dr. Drew
Pinsky was included in a telephone beeper on Velez-Mitchell’s “Issues” show.
Substance abuse expert Dr. Pinsky stated that if Harris had gotten drunk and
run over Cooper, everyone would have understood it as an accident. “Dr. Drew”
said the line of reasoning that best fits Harris’ crime is that the
Alabama-born father is a “sex addict.”
And the sexual perversion angle is not just important to
Nancy Grace and Jane Velez-Mitchell and their respective shows' ratings, it was
also important to Harris before going to court yesterday. Because Mr. Harris
chose Maddox Kilgore as his defense attorney, a lawyer who has never before
represented a murder defendant - Kilgore has typically defended sexual
predators and people accused of harboring child pornography in the past.
As the prospect of a Justin Ross Harris capital murder
trial is dangled in front of a federal grand jury, prosecutors must now come to
grips with the fact that it is inconsistent to argue on the one hand that
Harris was distracted by titillating pictures of six women other than his wife
– while at the same time saying the negligent father coldly, analytically
plotted to kill his baby son by leaving him unattended in that hot car.
The balding, pasty-white, morbidly-obese Cobb County
Chief Magistrate Judge Frank R. Cox told his standing-room-only courtroom that
there was not only probable cause to bind Harris over for trial, but that
sufficient evidence might exist for the death penalty to come into play.
Cobb County Police Detective Phil Stoddard had argued
that Harris’ sexting suggested that the defendant was living a criminal “double
life” and should not be set free on bail. Prosecutors also said that Harris
researched hot car deaths on the Internet just five days prior to Cooper dying
of hypothermia.
Court testimony revealed that the Harris’ purchased a
$25,000 life insurance policy on Cooper in 2012. An additional $2,000 life
insurance policy was included in Harris’ compensation package as a Home Depot
employee.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys will be able argue whether or not Harris intended to kill his son on that fateful 18th day in June.
What is not debatable is that cable TV news networks see the case only as a distraction until they can cut to more commercials.
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