Jason T. Harris (WDIV screenshot)
An appeals court in Michigan has upheld the murder conviction of a man who killed his wife by intentionally spiking her cereal with a lethal dose of heroin just months after their second child was born. A three-judge panel of the State of Michigan Court of Appeals on Friday unanimously rejected the request of Jason T. Harris to have his conviction overturned due to ineffective assistance of counsel, reasoning that there was “overwhelming evidence” of his guilt and the “sheer fiendishness of his actions.”
As previously reported by Law&Crime, a jury in November 2021 found Harris guilty on one count each of first-degree murder, solicitation of murder, and delivery of a controlled substance resulting in death for causing Christina Ann-Thompson’s 2014 overdose.
The appeals court
According to the court’s opinion, Harris’ defense attorney made a critical error by not consulting or calling a toxicology expert to refute the state’s evidence showing Harris’ wife orally ingested a fatal amount of heroin.
“By not consulting an expert (or conducting any independent investigation into the basis for the prosecution’s expert’s testimony), Harris’s lawyer remained unaware of the possibility of either presenting his own witness to counter the prosecution’s experts or cross-examining the prosecution’s witnesses based upon information he learned from either an independent investigation or the consultation with his own expert,” the opinion states. “We conclude that his decision was objectively unreasonable.”
However, the panel further reasoned that despite his attorney’s error, Harris failed to establish that there was a “reasonable probability” the jury would have found him not guilty, which is the standard for overturning a conviction based on ineffective assistance of counsel. The panel concluded that while such evidence could “possibly have affected the jury verdict,” the “overwhelming evidence of guilt and the sheer fiendishness” of Harris’ actions meant there was not a “reasonable probability” that the jury was likely to reach a different conclusion.
“In order to acquit, the jury would have had to disregard this overwhelming evidence that not only did he want Christina (Ann-Thompson) dead, but he also had previously solicited others to kill her. Further, he had developed a method by which to carry out his plan, had the knowledge of how to acquire illicit substances and had in fact acquired controlled substances to give to Christina (Ann-Thompson) on multiple occasions,” the opinion states. “Additionally, the jury would have had to ignore testimony showing that, because Christina (Ann-Thompson) was dead, Harris was able to live with his lover and, rather than having to pay child support or get a divorce, he received approximately $120,000 in life insurance proceeds. Indeed, he called to inquire about the policy issued through Christina (Ann-Thompson’s) employer within hours of the paramedics determining that she was dead.”
Prosecutors applauded the panel’s decision to uphold Harris’ conviction as well as his sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“Post-trial appeals are very common among defendants sentenced to life or very lengthy prison terms and they require an immense amount of time and effort by my appeals division,” Genesee County Prosecutor David S. Leyton said in a statement following the court’s decision. “I am proud of the work my team of prosecutors, victim advocates, and support staff put forth in this case and very happy that we were once again able to stand up for Christina (Ann-Thompson), her children, her parents, her siblings and all her friends and family to see justice through.”
The murder
Thompson was found dead in the couple’s bed on the morning of Sept. 29, 2014. Harris told the police that he prepared a bowl of cereal for his wife to eat on the evening of Sept. 28 and said that she had difficulties holding the spoon so he helped her get to bed. He said when he awoke the next morning, Ann-Thompson remained sound asleep in their bed until he went to work, at which point he said she was “not talking to him but was coughing and in a restless sleep.”
After she did not respond to his texts or calls, Harris said he asked a neighbor to check on Ann-Thompson. The neighbor found Ann-Thompson unresponsive and “cold to the touch.” That neighbor contacted a registered nurse who lived nearby. The nurse went to the home, checked on Ann-Thompson, and called 911. Authorities pronounced her dead on the scene.
Genesee County Medical Examiner Brian Hunter initially ruled the death an accidental overdose, but several members of Ann-Thompson’s family showed up at the Davison Police Department on Oct. 1, 2014, and told investigators that it was impossible for Ann-Thompson to have died from an overdose because she never used drugs.
The detective in charge of the murder case testified in court that he opened a two-year investigation which involved multiple interviews with co-workers and neighbors and sending samples of Ann-Thompson’s breast milk, which had been frozen to feed their infant child, to a laboratory for analysis. Skellenger said investigators found no evidence that Ann-Thompson used heroin, and there were no traces of the drug in any of the breast milk samples from the days prior to her death.
Officials said it was the first time authorities had used breast milk as evidence in a criminal trial.
Evidence was also presented that appeared to show Harris wanted to get Ann-Thompson out of his life, including testimony from Harris’ siblings, who said Harris made several comments to that effect.
Harris’ brother and sister in October 2014 sought out investigators looking into Ann-Thompson’s death and told them Harris had talked “about getting rid of” Ann-Thompson and cheating on his wife before she died.
Harris had also been texting with several other women in the weeks before Ann-Thompson’s death, one of whom he flew out to visit in Rhode Island only nine days after his wife’s death. Less than two months after Ann-Thompson was found dead, another woman had moved into the house with Harris.
Harris also received more than $120,000 in life insurance payouts due to Ann-Thompson’s death. The couple began dating in 1998 and married in 2003. Their two children were born in November 2009 and May 2014.
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