Harris Jacobs, right, with attorney, Lou Barbone.
There is no question Harris Jacobs knew he struck a pedestrian in the predawn hours of Sept. 4, 2022.
Surveillance video shows the Atlantic City man pull into the Dunkin Donuts at Atlantic and Indiana avenues, rushing to the injured man and even bending down, possibly touching him.
It's what happened within two minutes that is in question: Jacobs gets back in his vehicle and drives away.
Orlando Fraga, 76, died at the scene.
Police would investigate for seven hours before tracking Jacobs down and making an arrest.
It was the trauma response of a man suffering from acute stress disorder, defense attorney Lou Barbone told the jury during his closing argument Thursday.
Dr. Gary Glass, a longtime forensic psychiatrist, testified about Jacobs' mental issues, in an effort to prove the defendant did not "knowingly" leave the scene, a requirement to find him guilty of second-degree leaving the scene of a crash resulting in death.
But Jacobs' actions afterward tell a different story, Chief Assistant Prosecutor Seth Levy told jurors when it was his turn to address them.
Jacobs, then 26, called his cousin and roommate, Peyton Caldwell, twice on his way home. When Caldwell did not answer, Jacobs woke him up when he returned home, relaying that he was in a crash, a man was hurt and he left.
That was well within the timeframe where the law allows someone who flees a crash to return to the scene, Levy said.
There also were the 10 phone calls Jacobs made to his father, attorney Joe Jacobs.
No calls were made to police, Levy pointed out.
Jacobs talked to his father, Joe Jacobs, 10 times after the crash, Chief Assistant Prosecutor Seth Levy said.Barbone has said Jacobs heard a man on the phone with 911, had seen the injuries to the victim who appeared to not be breathing with "brain matter" exposed, and walked away in a dissociative state.
Glass testified that it was a protective measure similar to how sexual assault victims will remove themselves.
"His life wasn't in danger," Levy told the jury in response to that argument. "He had done the damage. Yet Mr. Barbone said (Jacobs) had to put his mind somewhere else to survive?"
Levy instead said Jacobs was looking to protect himself, after being out in Margate through the night, where he allegedly drank at a friend's house, and then two bars: Memories' and Maynard's.
No one will ever know if he was under the influence of anything because he left, Levy told the juries in both his opening and closing to them.
Even when he left the Dunkin parking lot after the crash, Jacobs had two choices: Go back out Atlantic Avenue or go out another way and wind up on Pacific.
His building is on Atlantic Avenue, but so was "a body and police," Levy said.
Jacobs was emotional through much of the openings and closings, wiping away tears several times.
Harris Jacobs wiped tears away often during both openings and closings in the trial.The crash happened in an area that was under construction, with no sidewalk and the normally two-lane road cut to one with no shoulder.
Fraga was walking in the street as a result.
A NJ Transit bus is seen going around him in video shown to the jury.
Jacobs did not have the view a bus does, Barbone said.
But there had been no other fatal crashes in that area in the three months the construction area was there, Levy would counter.
Jurors have the option of finding Jacobs guilty of a lesser third-degree crime for leaving the scene.
If he is found not guilty, there remains a motor vehicle citation for leaving the scene, which does not require that he did it knowingly.
