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Dawnta Harris Trial: Closing Arguments Set For Tuesday

PERRY HALL, Md. (WJZ) — For more than five hours Monday, defense attorneys grilled Detective Alvin Barton on everything from the temperature of the interrogation room to the way Officer Amy Caprio was standing before she was run over by a Jeep last year.

It's day five of the murder trial of Dawnta Harris- who was 16 when prosecutors said he knowingly hit and killed the officer while helping three other teenagers burglarize homes in Perry Hall.

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An allegation, defense attorneys said, hasn't been proven.

"Their whole position is, he is the getaway driver... he is the lookout. And that's a sinister, cynical view of it. But the evidence just doesn't support it," said defense attorney Warran Brown.

Now, 17-year-old Harris is being charged as an adult with Officer Amy Caprio's murder.

Throughout the trial, attorneys picked apart body camera video showing her last moments- demanding Harris get out of the car- before she was run over and killed.

One witness testified she saw blood coming from Caprio's head and tire marks on her legs, saying, "I can't get her face out of my head,"

Harris' defense attorneys contend it was an accident.

"It may have been accidental, it may have been self-defense, it may have been any number of reasons that don't implicate you in a nefarious way. But it still weighs on you that someone's life was lost," Brown said.

And soon, his fate will weigh on the minds of jurors.

Harris did not take the stand during this trial. His attorney said he expects closing arguments to take place Tuesday morning and for this case to be in the hands of jurors by lunchtime.

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