Mom who lied to protect son gets jail time

An Atlanta mother was sentenced to a year in jail for lying to police about her son's involvement in the murder of a taxi driver. Deena Davis, 45, was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty in Fulton County Superior Court to one count of false statements and two counts of hindering the apprehension of a criminal, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Presiding Judge Kelley Amanda Lee sentenced Davis to serve one year in a state penitentiary and then five years on probation. Davis' son, Quantavious Harris, was sentenced to life plus 10 years in prison last September for the murder of 57-year-old cab driver Stephen Anim. Harris' co-defendant, Samuel Ellis, was convicted May 17 and sentenced to life plus five years in prison. On April 22, 2009, Anim was shot to death during a robbery at the Hamilton E. Holmes MARTA station. Video surveillance caught Harris and Ellis, then 17 and 16 respectively, committing the crime. After the shooting, Davis destroyed evidence, including getting rid of the clothes Harris was wearing at the time of the killing, prosecutors said. The mother also told police Harris was with his 14-year-old brother at the time of the shooting and that neither of the boys were in the cab that night. Five days later, Davis admitted to police that she had lied about Harris being with his younger brother the night of the shooting, but then lied and told police she could not identify the person in the surveillance video that turned out to be Harris. "Fortunately, Harris was ultimately convicted of murder, but due to his mother's repeated lies and attempts to thwart the murder investigation, his arrest was delayed by a couple of months," prosecutors said.