The state’s key witness in the trial in the death of a Pasadena teenager told a friend that he did not see an attack on the youth – which contradicted his courtroom testimony this week – the friend told a jury yesterday.
Testifying in the defense of Jacob Tyler Fortney, surprise witness Jennifer Littleton said that less than a month after the July brawl in which Noah Jamahl Jones died, Joshua David Bradley told her he did not have the answer to her query of “who killed Jamahl.”
“His response to me was that he did not know because he was too busy fighting for his … younger brother,” Littleton told the Anne Arundel County jury in the case.
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She said Bradley told her he saw Jones lying on the pavement. Nearby were Fortney and two others, who are among the six facing manslaughter and related charges in Jones’ death.
Her brief appearance contradicts Bradley’s detailed testimony of Tuesday, in which he said Fortney took a running leap at Jones while the youth was down, landing with both feet on Jones’ face.
It also leaves jurors to consider the account not only of Bradley, but also of two people he supposedly spoke with about the fight and gave different accounts. On Tuesday, Bradley’s uncle steadfastly backed his testimony.
Bradley, 20, maintains that he did not touch Jones, who arrived uninvited at a party with three friends – two of whom are charged with bringing weapons. Bradley has agreed to testify in exchange for prosecutors’ dropping charges against him.
Defense lawyer David W. Fischer said Littleton, 19, approached him late Monday, after two days of prosecution witnesses. But because she had heard some of the trial, prosecutors adamantly objected to letting her testify. Witnesses are not allowed to watch trials.
Littleton told the jury that she sang in a church choir with Bradley and that the families were friends; that she dated Richard Elbert McLeod, another teenager charged; and that she is the former fiancee of Michael Steinbach, who was the host of gathering where the fight began.
She was the second and final defense witness. Fortney will not testify. Over three days, prosecutors have called 18 witnesses. Jurors are scheduled to begin deliberating today after closing arguments.
Robin Jones, the dead youth’s mother, left the courtroom near tears.
“All I can say is that this is only time I wish I was white, so I could get some justice in this courtroom,” she said.
The case has been racially tinged. But no hate crime is alleged, and the lead detective testified that the fight was not racially motivated.
Fortney, Bradley and the others charged are white. Jones and his friends are black. After they arrived outside Steinbach’s house, one of Jones’ friends demanded the release of another friend who had gone inside to avoid Fortney’s group.
But Steinbach said they were locked out. Marion Shepherd, one of Jones’ friends, struck the host with a gun, according to earlier testimony. Bradley said he punched an increasingly belligerent Shepherd. Within minutes, Jones lay by Fortney’s Mustang, with fatal brain injuries.
Robin Jones and others in the black community contend that the fight had racial overtones, noting her son’s interracial relationships and other animosity.
Also yesterday, a former Washington medical examiner told jurors he found nothing to substantiate an account that anyone jumped onto Jones’ face.
Rather, Dr. Jonathan Arden told jurors, the head injuries “are consistent with a fistfight.”
Defense lawyer David Putzi gave Arden an abbreviated version of Bradley’s account.
“My opinion is that based on the medical evidence, that scenario did not occur,” Arden said.
Arden said that among the injuries likely from a 200-pound, 6-foot, 3-inch man landing on Jones’ face were shoe tread marks, broken facial bones and bruising.
Under cross-examination, Arden acknowledged that more blows to an injured area of the head could cause more damage and that if the same area was hit, it might not be possible to differentiate the injuries.
His testimony was similar to that of Dr. Ling Li, an assistant medical examiner who testified for the prosecution. She said Jones’ backward fall caused probably mortal brain damage, which was aggravated by other blows to the head. But she said she saw no evidence of the injuries that leaping onto Jones’ face would cause – though she said any variation from a scenario akin to Bradley’s account would result in different injuries.
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