Julie Harper Trial

On October 7th, 2015 I attended a public criminal court case at the Superior Court North County Division in Vista, California. On August 27th, 2012, Julie Harper, mother of three, shot and killed her husband, Jason Harper, in their home in Carlsbad, California, claiming self-defense. This case was first presented to Judge Blaine Bowman where Julie Harper was initially tried on first-degree murder. Bowman declared a mistrial and Harper was acquitted of the charges. On March 23rd, the prosecution made motions for a retrial, accusing Julie Harper of second-degree murder/voluntary manslaughter. “Voluntary manslaughter is an act of killing that would ordinarily be considered murder but is committed in response to a high level of provocation. Because

At the entrance, we were asked to remove all metal and walk through a metal detector. We then walked to the help desk and asked if there were any cases we could watch that morning. The clerk made an interesting comment, saying, “There’s a really great murder case going on in room 20.” I wouldn’t have described a murder case as being “great” but I guess you have to make light of things when you work in a courthouse all day filled. We walked down the long hallway lined with doors to courtrooms until we reached ours. Among us were people that were involved in this particular case including lawyers, family members of both Jason and Julie Harper, and lastly a news crew. We had no idea this case was being recorded. A policeman then opened the door, gave us some brief instructions of the conduct expected in the courtroom while in session, and then guided us inside. Julie Harper’s defense lawyer then began his closing arguments. He spoke to the jury with a lot of emotion, trying to persuade them to feel sorry for Julie, his client. We got a break in the middle of the session, but the judge told us we were not allowed to speak to anyone about the case or anything said inside the courtroom. I was really bummed we didn’t get to see the prosecution, I would have liked to see both sides being presented, which would have made my observation a little more

A few days before the shooting, Julie Harper filed for divorce. Jason found out about it the day of the shooting and apparently came home in a rage, threatening her and starting to abuse her. According to her testimony, this is the point in which she pulled out her gun from under her pillow and shot Jason as he was ripping off her clothes because she was afraid he was going to rape her again. Prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Keith Wantanabe, disagreed with this claim. When police found his body, his belt was still buckled and clothes were still on. Wantanabe went on to describe the shooting. He started out with the “most reliable piece of evidence” (Wahn 2015), a mannequin with a simulation of the gunshot. He said that forensics proved that Jason had to be at a far distance and that the shooter had to be slightly behind Jason. According to Julie, she shot him at close range in the chest, so this evidence made it seem like she was lying about it being complete self-defense. After Julie shot Jason, she covered up the body with a blanket, buried the gun, got rid of all of his personal belongings, and headed on a “day of deceit” (Wahn 2015). Prosecutor Wantanabe questioned why she did not call police right away if she had shot him purely in self-defense. Instead she took the children to a coffee shop down the road in Carlsbad, and then to a friend’s