Darius Miles Returns to Jail, Bond Hearing to Resume in 6 Weeks

Former Alabama basketball player Darius Miles will remain in the Tuscaloosa County Jail for at least another six weeks after a three-plus-hour hearing Monday did not address whether to grant him bond.

As the Thread has reported at length, Miles is charged with capital murder for his role in the killing of a 23-year-old Birmingham woman who was killed in the Tuscaloosa Strip in January 2023.

Police say after a night of festivities at a nightclub on the Strip, Miles' best friend Michael "Buzz" Davis was involved in a brief verbal altercation on University Boulevard with Cedric Johnson, who was the boyfriend of the eventual victim, Jamea Harris.

Allegedly fearing for their safety, Miles gave Davis his legally owned semi-automatic handgun and moments later, Davis exchanged fire with Johnson, who was driving down Grace Street in Harris' Jeep.

Harris was shot and killed, Michael Davis was shot in the shoulder and grazed in the torso, and all parties fled the scene.

Johnson, the mortally wounded Harris, and the other four members of their group drove to the Walk of Champions nearby and met with police there. Darius Miles and his girlfriend picked up Michael Davis, now suffering from a gunshot wound and a graze wound, and drove him to the nearby apartment of Nick Pringle, another University of Alabama player.

Miles and Davis were both arrested and charged with capital murder the following day and have been held in the Tuscaloosa County Jail without bond since then.

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Monday's hearing was for Circuit Judge Daniel Pruet to consider three different motions, including a fresh motion on whether to grant Miles bond - the basketball player and his friend Michael Davis were both denied bond by District Judge Joanne Jannik last February, then Miles was again denied by Pruet last May.

The renewed push to allow Miles to leave jail comes after Pruet denied a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds of self-defense eight months ago.

The Monday hearing began in the afternoon, though, at 1:30 p.m. and attorneys did not get to address the issue of bond before it ended shortly before 5 p.m. Instead, the lion's share of the hearing was spent discussing whether Miles was illegally interrogated.

No electronic devices are allowed inside Pruet's courtroom, so neither new photos nor audio recordings are possible during hearings.

Although the pace of the hearing was slow, it did bring new revelations - attorneys said Darius Miles himself called 911 to get an ambulance to come to Pringle's apartment for the wounded Michael Davis, and that five-minute phone call was played in court Monday.

The call first featured Darius Miles asking for an ambulance, claiming his friend called him and asked for help but that Miles himself did not know when or how the shooting occurred. About halfway through the call, the wounded Michael Davis begins speaking to the dispatcher.

Both Miles and Davis claimed at first that Davis was drunk and did not how or where he came to be shot. At the end of the call, uniformed police officers and paramedics are arriving at Pringle's apartment.

Mary Turner, the leader of Miles' defense team, and District Attorney Hays Webb agree that Miles was interviewed by three police officers at Nick Pringle's apartment on 15th Street shortly after paramedics left with Michael Davis.

Miles then voluntarily rode with an investigator to the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Office, which is attached to the sheriff's office building on Greensboro Avenue, where he was placed in an interview room and questioned on and off for more than four hours before he was read his Miranda rights.

He would remain there another nine hours before be was ultimately charged with capital murder for handing Michael Davis the gun used to kill Jamea Harris,

Turner and company say anything Miles said during that time should be inadmissible as evidence against him because he was not read his rights during his first three conversations with police or during the first long interview at the VCU office.

All three investigators who interviewed Miles testified in court Monday - Captain Marty Sellers, the co-commander of the VCU, a minorly involved VCU investigator named Slade Martin and Jeffery Miller, the VCU investigator who talked to Miles in the interview room at the VCU office for 15 hours.

Webb and the investigators said Miles was not read his rights because he was at first considered a witness, not a suspect. After all, Miles himself called 911 to Pringle's apartment and answered questions about how Davis had come to be shot. He was not ever handcuffed or arrested, and when he rode to the VCU office, it was allegedly voluntarily, in the front seat of an investigator's truck, and at least partially at his own request, since his girlfriend was already there and Miles does not own a vehicle.

Miller said that Miles spent a little over 4 hours in the interview room answering questions and sleeping before the tenor of the investigation changed and evidence suggested Miles may be criminally culpable in the killing - that's when Investigator Miller finally Mirandized Miles.

Most of the facts of this part of the case are not really in question, Turner is attempting to show that the investigators considered Miles a suspect far before they read him his rights. Although the police have tried to argue Miles could have left Pringle's apartment or even the VCU office at any time before he was charged, Turner is trying to argue the basketball player was essentially in police custody from the moment they arrived at the apartment and conducted their first interviews with Miles.

Ultimately, Pruet called an end to the hearing before ruling on the Miranda motion, and the matter of Miles' bond was never addressed Monday.

The hearing, which had already been postponed three times, will resume on July 31st, in six weeks. Until then, Miles will return to jail and continue to be held without bond.

This story will be updated with more from the hearing.

For additional coverage of this case as it develops, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.