A hearing is scheduled Tuesday morning to consider whether the Baltimore teen convicted of shooting a 5-year-old girl deserves another trial based on incorrect information lawyers told the jury. If he doesn't win a new proceeding, Lamont Daviscould spend the rest of his life in prison.
A hearing is scheduled Tuesday morning to consider whether the Baltimore teen convicted of shooting a 5-year-old girl deserves another trial based on incorrect information lawyers told the jury.
If he doesn't win a new proceeding, Lamont Davis, who turned 18 in April, could spend the rest of his life in prison. Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Gale E. Rasin is set to sentence him Tuesday as well.
Davis faces a maximum term of life plus 61 years, according to the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office.
His attorney, Assistant Public Defender Linwood Hedgepeth, filed a motion for a new trial shortly after Davis was convicted in April.
A jury found the teen-ager guilty of attempted murder in the shooting of another teen-aged boy, who was struck in the arm, and little Raven Wyatt, who was hit in the head. She's now six years old and relearning how to do everything from walk to talk, because of the bullet left lodged in her brain.
Davis was under Department of Juvenile Services house arrest when the shots were fired, nearly a year ago on a crowded Southwest Baltimore street. Records from his ankle-strap monitoring system, which uses global positioning technology to track offenders, show Davis was home when someone shot Raven and the older boy.
But both the defense and prosecuting attorneys mistakenly told the jury that Davis had previously violated the provisions of his house arrest more than 100 times, suggesting he broke the rules at least 10 times per day.
The statement was a gross overestimation of the truth, and some outside attorneys said it could have led jurors to conclude that the records showing Davis was home—his alibi—were useless.
A Sun analysis showed that Davis was beyond the boundaries of his house arrest, without an adequate explanation, eight times over a 10 day period, and each infraction was dutifully documented.