MORGAN COUNTY, AL (WAFF) -
Testimony in the murder trial for Marquez Smith finished Thursday. Now, a Morgan County jury will decide his fate.
Smith is charged with capital murder for the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Jeremy Black in Trinity. The crime happened in August of 2003.
A man originally charged with murder in the case testified for the prosecution Thursday.
Christopher Smiley testified that he gave a gun to Smith before the shooting.
In 2008, a jury convicted Smith's co-defendant - and his uncle, Patrick Smith - for Black's murder.
The prosecution's final witness was Terry Kelly. Kelly was the Morgan County Sheriff's Office lead investigator for the case.
Kelly testified that authorities had determined two guns were used to shoot Black. He said the gun Patrick Smith used, a .45 caliber handgun, could hold seven rounds. He testified one bullet was still in the gun, and Black had been shot nine times with .45-caliber bullets.
Before that testimony, Smiley said from the stand that he had given a .45 caliber gun to Marquez Smith a few days before the murder, and that he picked Marquez and Patrick Smith up in Trinity after the fatal shooting.
Smith's defense team worked to punch holes in Smiley's credibility as a witness. He gave three different statements to investigators in the days following the shooting. Only in the third one did he implicate Marquez Smith.
Smiley took a deal with prosecutors in connection with the case in 2009, pleading guilty to robbery.
The defense rested without calling a single witness.
Closing arguments will come Friday morning. Then Judge Sherrie Paler will give jurors instructions before the jury begins deliberating.
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Marquez Smith's murder trial will go to the jury.
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