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After calling just nine witnesses for testimony that lasted less than two hours the defense rested in the trial of Dexter Lewis on Tuesday. Jurors will hear closing arguments Wednesday and then begin deliberating whether Lewis is guilty of If they find him guilty, the trial proceeds to the penalty phase in which Lewis could be sentenced to death.In their questioning of witnesses, defense attorneys ignored Lewis’s alleged involvement in the five killings, instead focusing their attention on the other men involved.Lewis went to the bar that night with Demarea Harris and brothers Joseph and Lynell Hill. When they left after what has been described as a botched robbery, the bar’s owner and four patrons lay dead inside from multiple stab wounds.Harris, reported the crime to his handlers hours later. Lewis and the Hill brothers were arrested. Joseph and Lynell Hill pleaded guilty to murder charges and received lengthy prison sentences. Harris was never charged.Defense attorneys took aim at Harris. One of their witnesses was a police officer who arrested Harris on drug charges in August 2012.”He asked multiple times if he could get himself out of this, if he could find someone bigger than him,” said Derek Hancock, one of the officers who arrested Harris. “He seemed fairly new to the streets.”They also called Harris’s uncle, Reginald Cotton, in an attempt to shed doubt on Harris’s credibility. Harris said previously that Cotton forced him to sell crack cocaine.”I didn’t force him to do anything,” Cotton said. “I never seen him dealing drugs.” Both and testified for the prosecution in Lewis’s trial, giving slightly different versions of events that shared a major similarity: Lewis, they said, stabbed all five victims to death. Lewis was given the chance to testify Tuesday but declined. When John Madden IV instructed Lewis on his rights regarding the decision to testify, he asked Lewis if there was any reason he might not be thinking clearly enough to choose.”Stress,” Lewis said. But he said he understood his decision, and Madden agreed.”I want the record to demonstrate that he was very reflective in his answers,” prosecutor Joe Morales said.The prosecution’s case spanned nine days of testimony, with over 40 witnesses called. The defense will likely call additional witnesses — including Lewis’s family members — during a penalty phase if Lewis is found guilty.