Two Narratives Emerge as Jury Begins Deliberations in Johnson Trial

Closing arguments in Michael Johnson’s rape and strangulation trial painted two sharply different pictures of the night his ex-girlfriend says he nearly killed her.

The prosecution in the 42-year-old York, Pa., man's trial called the now 21-year-old woman a "five-foot-one powerhouse" for surviving the ordeal and having the courage to come forward and testify against him.

"She survived being strangled. She survived being beaten. She survived being nearly killed and she survived being raped," Assistant State's Attorney John Magee said in closing arguments.

But Johnson's defense team told jurors the young woman didn't tell the truth about what happened in her Rosedale apartment in the early hours of July 1, 2024. They conceded her injuries were the result of a domestic assault but not of attempted murder or rape.

"The only thing that happened between Mr. Johnson and [his accuser] was a domestic argument, a physical fight, during which she was punched, slapped, and hit in the face," Public Defender Amy Stone told the jury. "And that is all that happened."

Jurors began deliberations about 2:40 p.m. Friday after hearing three days of testimony.

The jury of seven men and five women were not told about Johnson's prior alleged involvement in a murder case in Baltimore City. Johnson was the primary suspect in the 2010 murder of 16-year-old Phylicia Barnes. The headline-grabbing case played out in the legal system over several years, with Johnson facing trial three separate times. Ultimately, he was acquitted when a judge ruled the prosecution did not have enough evidence to convict.

Many of Barnes' relatives and supporters attended this new trial, hoping to finally see Johnson convicted and sent to prison.

In his closing arguments, Magee walked jurors through a recap of the case.

He reminded them of how the couple met when she was an 18-year-old foster kid who got in the wrong car thinking it was her Lyft. How Johnson took her on dates and trips. How she sometimes stayed at his home in York and he often stayed at her apartment in Rosedale. How, on the night in question, they argued, first about his suspicion that she was talking to a boy, then about him texting other girls. How she asked him to leave, which he did.

Magee asked them to remember how she said Johnson returned later and allegedly spent hours strangling her and sexually assaulting her. How she called and texted her social worker the next afternoon to tell her what had happened. How, when she regained consciousness, her face was so swollen and her eyes so bloodshot that she didn't recognize herself in the mirror. How her tongue was so swollen when police arrived that she had to communicate by writing or texting.

"[She] was traumatized. She was brutalized. She was tortured," Magee said.

Stone asked jurors to notice the inconsistencies in the young woman's account, her differing recollections of who she called, where she went once she woke up, what she wore, whether she'd locked her door, and her reported loss of bowel control.

"You have to decide whether she was being truthful, accurate and reliable," Stone told jurors.

Saying the alleged victim was "absolutely remarkable," Magee told jurors, "We can't expect victims who've been victimized in this way to be perfect."

Stone also asked the jury to be skeptical of the testimony of two medical witnesses from the Greater Baltimore Medical Center called by the prosecution, whose findings differed from those of an expert hired by the defense.

A neurologist and a specially trained sexual assault nurse both reported coming to conclusions that the woman's injuries were consistent with being strangled and raped. But an emergency medical expert put on by the defense said her injuries couldn't definitively be diagnosed without more specific medical evidence.

This story will be updated.