CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — The woman convicted for killing the father of her child is asking for a new trial and the victim’s sister is supporting her.
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Channel 2′s Tom Jones watched a Zoom hearing where Lavoya Williams asked a Clayton County judge to grant Ciera Harp’s motion for a new trial.
“Yes, she’s wrong for killing anybody. But, she went through a lot of mental abuse with my brother,” Williams said.
Williams told the court it was not easy to come forward with her testimony about her brother, Rahim Grant, but she had to do what was right.
“I don’t want her to be convicted,” Williams said.
Williams says her brother routinely beat Harp.
Prosecutors got her to admit she never saw him hit her.
Harp claimed self-defense and battered women’s syndrome as the reason she shot Grant, her child’s father, several times back in 2017. Grant’s cell phone recorded his murder. You can see Harp shooting him and cursing him as he pleads for his life.
Their small child watched her father die.
“I didn’t want to come here and talk about this,” Williams said.
Harp’s new attorney asked for a new trial because she says Harp’s initial attorney Lloyd Matthews didn’t prepare Williams to make these claims during trial.
It was during the trial that Harp’s mother called her daughter a danger to the community.
“Wherever you went, chaos and trouble (were) sure to follow,” the mother said from the witness stand.
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Grant’s mother was horrified as she listened to her daughter’s testimony.
“Never thought she would do something like that... just to get up and lie,” Geraldine Grant said.
Grant says her son never beat Harp.
“Never abused her,” Grant said.
She says if he did she would have turned him to law enforcement.
Grant says her daughter was always jealous of her relationship with her son and is angry that she doesn’t have Rahim Grant’s child.
“It’s about the child,” Grant said.
She hopes the judge denies Harp’s request for a new trial.
“If you murder someone and plot and do it, you should stay in jail for the rest of your life,” Grant said.
Harp also wants a new trial because she says she had ineffective counsel, the trial court was partial to the state, and the court improperly limited her expert witness testimony. She also argues the state has changed its position on whether all of the shots she fired contributed to Grant’s death or the one shot to the head.
The judge will decide whether to grant Harp a new trial at a later date.
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