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COLUMBIANA, Alabama — Assistant District Attorney Alan Miller told a jury in closing arguments today that the man accused of killing a Pelham police officer shot the officer and left him down on the interstate for no other reason than the officer was doing his job.

Bart Wayne Johnson now wants to say he was suffering from a severe mental illness he has never complained of before, Miller told the jury.

Miller asked the jury to use common sense and find Johnson guilty of capital murder.

“This is a no-doubter,” Miller said.

Johnson is on trial in Shelby County Circuit Court in the December 2009 shooting of Officer Philip Davis during a traffic stop on Interstate 65.

Defense attorney Charles Salvagio said in his closing arguments that it couldn’t be anything but mental illness.

It did not make sense why a man would come from a dysfunctional family to earn a doctorate in pharmacy, marry and have a family, and throw it all away by killing a police officer, Salvagio told the jury.

The state doesn’t have a motive and is not required by law to prove one, Salvagio said, adding “but they couldn’t if they tried.”

“I think they know it’s mental illness,” Salvagio said of the prosecution. “He (Johnson) didn’t know what the hell he was doing.”

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