Harris was released on $80,000 bail raised by her brother and sisters and signed into the United Hospital of
Port Chester for psychiatric evaluation and therapy. She then contracted the services of attorneys Joel Aurnou and Bonnie Steingart to plan her defense. The case went to trial at the Westchester County Courthouse in
White Plains, New York, on November 21, 1980, and was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney George Bolen. The trial lasted 14 weeks, becoming one of the longest in state history. The New York press sensationalized the trial and made Harris a household name from coast-to-coast. Harris took the stand and testified at length in her own defense, but the jury rejected her story that the shooting had been accidental and convicted her of second-degree murder after eight days of deliberations. Consequently, Harris was
not legally eligible to inherit $220,000 Tarnower had bequeathed to her in his will. Harris consistently maintained that she did not intentionally kill Tarnower. Joel Aurnou later stated that he encouraged his client to plead guilty to a lesser charge, but she refused. Because the defense had gone for broke in their quest for an acquittal, the jury was not offered the option of finding Harris guilty of
manslaughter, and the mental health professionals who tested and treated Harris were not called to testify. Judge Russell R. Leggett ordered her confined to the
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in
Westchester County, New York, for the minimum of
15 years to life. Numerous appeals followed the conviction, but the higher courts determined that she had received a fair trial. While serving her sentence, Harris made it her mission to improve the education of fellow inmates in her facility. She began programs in which women could work toward obtaining their
GEDs or college degrees while imprisoned. She also taught a parenting class to inmates and developed the in-prison nursery for babies born to inmates. Eleven years after Harris's conviction,
Governor Mario Cuomo commuted the remainder of her sentence on December 29, 1992, as she was being prepped for
quadruple bypass heart surgery. She was released from prison by the parole board and initially planned to live in a cabin in
New Hampshire, but later moved to the Whitney Center, a retirement home in
Hamden, Connecticut. ==Death==