A week after going on trial on charges that he killed a man in a botched holdup and tried to kill another, Juvon C. Harris was found guilty Monday by a Baltimore County Circuit Court jury of all eight counts against him, including first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.
Harris, 28, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole when he is sentenced July 30 by Judge John O. Hennegan, who presided over the trial. Prosecutors dropped their earlier intention to seek the death penalty for Harris, who was seen in a surveillance video fleeing the parking lot of Woodlawn's Windsor Inn early on July 1, 2007, immediately after two men had been shot there.
One of the men, Taavon J. Chambers, was pronounced dead at the scene, of a bullet wound behind his left ear. His friend Howard L. Hamlin, with whom Chambers had been talking in the parking lot when the gunman approached, was grazed on the top of his head by a bullet, but he recovered and testified last week.
Hossein Parvizian, an attorney with the public defender's office who represented Harris, said that he was disappointed in the verdict, but that jurors "took their job seriously." His client remained quiet during the reading of the verdict.
It was not clear whether the verdict would be appealed, Parvizian said, noting that such a decision would require a careful reading of the trial transcript to see whether there might have been prosecutorial or judicial errors.
The shootings occurred as the bar was closing for the night, Hamlin testified. He had been in the club earlier and, hearing that Chambers was outside, went to the parking lot to speak with him. Suddenly, he said, "Somebody came up and said, 'Get on the ground.' "
Neither Hamlin nor Chambers complied, and the gunman shoved the muzzle of his weapon into Hamlin's face. Hamlin said he reacted by slapping the gun away, and a shot rang out. Jurors were shown a police photograph of Hamlin's face, a bruise under his left eye where the muzzle had hit it and a bloody graze wound just above the hairline.
After being shot, Hamlin said, he ran off, and was not able to describe either the gunman's appearance or the shooting of Chambers, who was found face-down next to his maroon van.
Hamlin was given a ride to a hospital by a high school friend, and was interviewed later by police at the Woodlawn precinct house.
Meanwhile, police were searching for the white Lincoln Continental in which a witness saw the shooter flee. County dispatchers had also received a call about a man driving erratically in a white Lincoln, and officers traced the tags to a house in the 3400 block of Piedmont Ave. in Baltimore, where Harris lived.
Officers found a .40-cal. SIG-Sauer SIG Pro pistol in the car. The weapon was later determined to have been the gun used to kill Chambers and wound Hamlin.
Harris was picked out of a six-man lineup by a woman who was at the bar and who said she saw the gunman flee the scene, prompting her to call police and report the shooting.
