On Dec. 11, lawyers gave their closing arguments in the trial of a 22-year-old attempted murder defendant before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Martin Welch. During the proceeding, the defense attorney said video of a handgun in the case may have been something else entirely.
Malik Height is charged with two counts each of attempted first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, and reckless endangerment. Height is also charged with attempted armed carjacking, attempted carjacking, attempted armed robbery, robbery, firearm use in a felony or violent crime, carrying a handgun on his person, and having an unknown handgun in Baltimore City.
In her closing statement, the prosecutor showed the jury video footage of a person identified as Height running until he slipped and fell. The suspect then gets back up and runs under a wooden fence adjacent to a backyard.
Investigators later found a nearly loaded handgun in same backyard near a broom that had been knocked over, prosecutors argue from Height’s throwing the gun.
The prosecution claimed that Height discharged the handgun in fear of being caught.
Defense attorney James Sweeting III closed by stating that no one saw or found Height with a handgun and that the surveillance footage was inconclusive.
Sweeting contended that there were birds near the backyard and the handgun depicted in the footage could have been a moving bird.
In rebuttal, the prosecution said, “A reasonable person can recognize that it is not a bird.”
The trial will have a hearing on Dec. 12.
