Defense attorneys attacked the government’s star witness and said little physical evidence supports his story that a group of young men committed a series of shootings that culminated in a massacre on South Capitol Street.
The trial for the five men charged in the March 2010 shootings that left five dead and nine wounded is nearing its end and could go to the jury Wednesday. During closing arguments Tuesday, their attorneys asserted the case against them is built nearly entirely on the word of one shooter who is cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of a lighter sentence: Nathaniel Simms, who pleaded guilty in April 2010.
“What they’re asking you to do is take Nathaniel Simms’ word for it,” said Rudolph Acree, an attorney for 22-year-old Orlando Carter. “They don’t have anything else.”
Defense attorneys said Simms repeatedly lied on the witness stand. He told jurors he pleaded guilty solely to do the right thing; defense attorneys played jail phone recordings in which he expressed concern about a long prison term.
“He will, under oath, say something that he knows is not true,” Acree said.
Prosecutors say the violence started when Carter’s brother, 21-year-old Sanquan Carter, got upset over a missing bracelet at a party on the 1300 block of Alabama Avenue SE, and called his brother, Simms and 23-year-old Jeffrey Best to bring guns to the gathering. Jordan Howe, 20, was fatally shot.
The next day, Orlando Carter was wounded by friends of Howe, and the group, joined by 23-year-old Robert Bost, retaliated by opening fire on a group of mourners on the 4000 block of South Capitol Street after Howe’s funeral. A 17-year-old boy was killed in what prosecutors said was a botched robbery to obtain another. Lamar Williams, 23, is accused of providing firearms.
Attorneys for Bost and Best said no physical evidence or observations from other eyewitnesses implicated their clients.
Todd Baldwin, Bost’s lawyer, said the man’s fingerprints were not found on any gun, and Bost was not identified at any of the crime scenes.
No DNA, fingerprints or hairs from Best were found in a rented minivan, said his attorney, Michael O’Keefe. Simms placed Best at all three shootings, but other witnesses said the shooter in Best’s position was tall and wearing dreadlocks — a description that doesn’t fit his client, O’Keefe said.
“Without Nathaniel Simms, there’s not a case against Jeffrey Best,” he told the jury. “Don’t overlook the complete lack of physical evidence that corroborates Nate Simms’ story.”
