Case Acquitted: Attorneys Rest After Arguing Over Friend’s Confession

By Graham Krewinghaus [former] - November 4, 2022
Court | Daily Stories | Homicides | Shooting | Suspects | Victims |

This case was acquitted on Nov. 9, 2022.

Both the defense and the prosecution rested their cases on Nov. 3 after revealing that a close friend of the defendant came forward and said he was the one who committed the fatal shooting.

Mike Bidgell, 26, is charged with second-degree murder while armed in connection with the June 6, 2020, shooting of Marquis Harrod, 18, on the 1300 block of Brentwood Road, NE. According to court documents, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) detectives recovered footage from a liquor store that showed Harrod approaching what appears to be Bidgell’s vehicle before being shot three times by someone inside the car. There were at least two people in the car, according to the footage.

Defense attorney Brian McDaniel argued that it was not Bidgell but his friend, who was in the car with him that day, who shot Harrod. That friend has since come forward to MPD detectives and the prosecutors saying he leaned around Bidgell and shot Harrod from the passenger seat, McDaniel said.

“Even if he looked up to you as much as someone can possibly look up to another person,” McDaniel asked in redirect, “would that make him come and testify that he murdered someone?”

However, prosecutors attempted to discredit the friend’s confession, calling on the lead detective to discuss the confession further.

He said he never believed Bidgell’s friend because he described disassembling the murder weapon after using it, but he described it incorrectly, saying the gun had more pieces to its frame than Glocks actually do.

The detective gave a demonstration to the jury by disassembling his personal Glock 17.

A man who is being held at the DC Jail and, for a time, was on the same unit as Bidgell said he and Bidgell would talk frequently. He said he learned that Bidgell was charged with the murder of Harrod, who he had known on the outside. He said Bidgell confessed to him that he had, in fact, done it.

The witness said he wasn’t mad about Bidgell having killed someone he considered a friend, though, he said he understands that “people kill people sometimes,” and that it was forgivable.

He also said Bidgell never mentioned being accompanied by anybody.

McDaniel cast the witness as a “jailhouse snitch,” suggesting he had helped prosecutors with other cases by telling them about conversations with other inmates. He asked if the witness would testify on the defense’s side if the defense offered a similar deal to what the prosecution gave him, and recommended a lesser sentence.

“I’m gonna do what I can, yes,” the witness said, before adding that “there’s nothing to testify about” for the defense in this case because everything he’s heard indicates Bidgell’s guilt.

McDaniel cross-examined the witness about the agreement he entered into with the prosecution in order to get him to testify. Though it bore no formal promise, the witness said, he and the prosecutors in this case agreed that they would write a recommendation for a minimum sentence in an unrelated case pending sentencing in exchange for his testimony against Bidgell.

The prosecution rested its case. After dismissing the jury, DC Superior Court Judge Milton Lee heard both parties about what they wanted included in the jury instructions on how to deliberate. 

McDaniel requested language explaining that the jury could acquit based on a finding that it was not Bidgell, but they could also acquit based on a finding that Bidgell was acting in self-defense.

The prosecutors asked for a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter to be added in case the jury found the shooting was in self-defense.

“It would be disingenuous to now, at this point, add that second option,” McDaniel said. “The prosecutors never made any representations that they believed there was a basis for self-defense, and the jury ought to decide solely whether or not they believe it happened precisely as the government said it did. There should be no backup plan for self-defense if prosecutors did not give it consideration in their arguments,” he said.

However, Judge Lee accepted the prosecution’s request. 

The trial is scheduled to continue with closing arguments on Nov. 7.