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By
Andrew Michaels
- January 10, 2023
Court
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Daily Stories
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Homicides
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Shooting
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Suspects
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Victims
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“Did you shoot Mr. Hood?”
“No, sir, I did not.”
This exchange between 37-year-old Harry Cokley and his defense attorney, James Sweeting III, was the beginning of the defendant’s testimony on Jan. 6 when Cokley explained to the jury his recollection of what led to the death of Morris Hood Jr.
Cokley was found guilty of second-degree murder, firearm use in a felony violent crime, and illegal possession of a firearm on Jan. 9.
While on the stand, Cokley remained calm and steady as he told Sweeting that he had a friendly-turned-intimate relationship with a woman who, unbeknownst to him, was Hood’s girlfriend. On Feb. 28, 2022, the woman invited the defendant to her home on the 200 block of South Monastery Avenue, where she was having a party of about a dozen people.
“I didn’t see anything getting crazy or dangerous until I heard gunshots,” said Cokley, who noted that he and the woman were engaging in sexual activity on the living room floor when the shots were fired.
The defendant testified that he then ran out of the house.
Cokley told the prosecutor that he never knew Hood, but that he was aware that the woman had a roommate. He also said that he knew “a couple of people were upstairs” where the shooting allegedly occurred; however, he was downstairs and never went upstairs.
During her closing argument, the prosecution reiterated that Cokley knew the woman had a boyfriend but slept with her anyway. Although the relationship between Hood and the woman was far from solid, she continued, Cokley’s side of the story was “completely bogus.”
“Who was punished in this case? An innocent party: Mr. Hood,” the prosecutor declared to the jury.
The woman’s testimony was “all over the place,” Sweeting countered, making her “the most difficult woman to cross-examine.”