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Detective identifies knife in Ray Lewis murder trial

Ray Lewis

From staff and wire reports

June 2, 2000
Web posted at: 5:30 p.m. EST (2130 GMT)

ATLANTA -- Prosecutors in the Ray Lewis murder trial introduced the bloody clothes Jacinth Baker was wearing the night he and his friend Richard Lollar were stabbed to death in a fight outside an Atlanta nightclub after a post-Super Bowl party.

Baker's family members cried in the courtroom as Atlanta police Det. Ken Allen identified his boots, a fur hat and other evidence recovered near the victims' bodies. Lewis, a star linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, and his friends Joseph Sweeting and Reginald Oakley are charged with the murders of Baker and Lollar.

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Allen testified that he found a small folding knife on the ground near the bodies. The knife appears to be the same kind of knife that Sweeting bought from an Atlanta-area sporting goods store the weekend of the fight.

He testified that no blood or fingerprints were found on the knife.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard tried to get Allen to testify that he arrested Lewis based on a statement by Lewis's limousine driver, Duane Fassett, but Howard's questions were met with repeated objections from the defense.

At one point, Sweeting attorney Steve Sadow accused Howard of "prosecutorial misconduct aimed at causing a mistrial."

But Howard said, "We are not trying to goad the judge into a mistrial. Far from it."

The jury also heard from a Georgia Bureau of Investigations crime scene investigator who collected blood from Lewis's limousine.

Prosecutors had hoped to finish presenting their case on Friday, but now the say it will be Monday at the earliest.

The state still has to call forensics experts, medical examiners and a few more officers. Prosecutors also may call some of the other passengers in Lewis' limousine, including two men only known as Gino and Claudus.

The district attorney said Thursday he has not heard whether limousine driver Duane Fassett will return to testify. Howard wants him back to probe inconsistencies between the statement Fassett gave police and what he said on the stand last week.

The judge issued another subpoena for Fassett earlier this week.

When the prosecution rests, the defense will ask the judge to make a directed verdict of not guilty for Lewis, which would dismiss his case without allowing the jury to consider it, said Ed Garland, the football star's attorney.

A directed verdict may be granted either on the court's own initiative or on the motion of a party when the party with the burden of proof -- the state, in Lewis's case -- has failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Copyright 2000   The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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