A bond hearing for former UA men’s basketball player Darius Miles was delayed again Monday. The new date for the hearing on the bond motion is Aug. 21.
The charges stem from an incident last January on the Strip in which Miles handed his gun to his friend Michael Davis, who then allegedly shot and killed 23-year-old Jamea Harris. Miles was removed from the basketball team and arrested following Harris’ death, and he was later indicted by a grand jury for capital murder.
Miles’ attorneys have suggested that he may have handed the gun to Davis for self-defense against Cedric Johnson, Harris’ boyfriend, whom investigators believe was in the car with Harris when she was shot.
A hearing Monday addressed other motions by the defense, including one to suppress statements Miles gave to law enforcement before and after his Miranda rights were read to him hours after the shooting by Investigator Jeff Miller from the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit.
Over the course of around three hours, three separate law enforcement officers testified that they had followed proper procedure while questioning Miles in the hours following the shooting and that Miles was first thought of as a witness, not a suspect. District Attorney Hays Webb led the direct examination of two of them.
The defense, led by attorney Mary Turner, sought to convey during its cross-examination that, among other things, the officers had treated Miles as a suspect earlier on in the hours-long questioning than the officers originally disclosed and that they asked incriminating questions before and after reading Miles his Miranda rights.
At the hearing, a recording was presented of a 911 call made by Miles after the shooting on the Strip from an apartment at the Vie at University Downs complex. In the call, he is heard telling the dispatcher that Davis has been shot in the shoulder. Davis then is heard asking the dispatcher for an ambulance while noting that he’s drunk and cannot remember where he was shot.
Officers at the hearing testified that law enforcement initially believed the call to be from a separate incident from the shooting on the Strip and that investigators eventually linked the two incidents together.
The hearing for the motion to suppress will continue Aug. 21 at 9 a.m., the same date as the bond hearing.
At Miles’ last bond hearing, Judge Daniel Pruet denied bond but said Miles could revisit the issue later after more information in the case came out. Bond hearings for the defendant have been postponed repeatedly this year.
