New Video Shows The Moments Before Ex-NFL Star Will Smith Was Fatally Shot
After the jury deliberated for nearly six hours,Cardell Hayeswas found guilty Sunday (Dec. 11) of manslaughter in the fatal shooting ofWill Smith. Here are five things learned from the final day:
1. Lawyers" animus takes center stage
The bitter feud between defense attorney John Fuller and District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro"s office dominated a large portion of Fuller"s closing argument. With the DA watching from the front row of the gallery, Fuller accused his office of a pattern of misconduct and accused prosecutors Jason Napoli and Laura Rodrigue of "cheating."
"I recently paid them a compliment, saying they are both really good trial lawyers and they don"t have to do that stuff," Fuller said, referencing a pretrial interview with NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune reported hereand here. "Great lawyers don"t have to do this. It"s almost an insult to their G*d-given talent that they have to do this stuff, to cheat."
Fuller claimed the prosecution was disingenuous with a decision not to call as a trial witness St. Tammany Sheriff"s Office crime lab deputy Madelyn Collins. Collins was called to the stand late Friday afternoon as a defense witness. She testified that trace amounts of gunshot residue were found on Will Smith"s hands, though not in the density usually seen on someone who recently fired a weapon.
"If not for us calling her before she left town for the weekend, y"all would have never known that Will Smith had gunshot residue on his hands!" Fuller thundered to the jury.
Fuller was accused in July of possible witness tampering in a memorandum Cannizzaro"s office sent to local law enforcement agencies, in five cases unrelated to Hayes". No charges have been filed but an ethics complaint was lodgedby a Baton Rouge attorney unhappy that Fuller spoke to his client without his knowledge or permission.
2. Ceravolo also a topic
Both sides" closings also involved William Ceravolo, the retired New Orleans police captain accused months ago of tampering with evidence at the crime scene, specifically of removing a gun from the interior of the Mercedes SUV belonging to his friend Will Smith within moments of the shooting.
The purported witness who made the accusation, identified in court Friday by defense-hired private investigator David Olasky as Warnisha "Weedy" Hudson, was not called to testify. Prosecutors had already debunked the accusation with surveillance video showing Ceravolo at the Windsor Court Hotel at the time of the shooting.
Napoli again accused Hayes" defense team of unfairly allowing unwarranted suspicion of Ceravolo to linger, as a distraction from the central point that Will Smith was shot seven times in the back by defendant claiming self-defense. Fuller countered that he had no intention of even bringing up Ceravolo, until prosecutors raised his name in opening arguments and put him on their witness list.
"This is smoke-and-mirrors foolishness," Fuller said. "Mr. Ceravolo should have never been an issue at this trial. But we all know how this district attorney"s office works. I"ve never seen any trial where somebody who is not even accused of something is brought in and defended by the district attorney"s office. I"m wondering why they"re putting so much emphasis on it when I haven"t mentioned his name since May."
Rodrigue said, "We didn"t know they would abandon that claim. They never retracted that it would be part of their defense. Of course we had to mention his name, because they blasted it all over the media."
3. Fuller a marathon man
Jurors listened to 5 hours and 16 minutesof closing arguments in the trial Sunday. Prosecutor Jason Napoli went first with a closing statement that took 51 minutes.
Defense attorney John Fuller"s closing took 3 hours, 37 minutes (217 minutes). Fuller spoke without pause for 1 hour and 47 minutes before Judge Camille Buras interrupted for a recess to allow jurors a bathroom break. After the recess, Fuller resumed speaking for another 1 hour and 50 minutes.
Jurors took a lunch break of 1 hour and 12 minutes, before prosecutor Laura Rodrigue gave the state"s rebuttal closing, which spanned 48 minutes.
4. Jailhouse phone call played
Responding to a challenge laid down by Fuller in his closing argument, Rodrigue included in her rebuttal presentation an audio recording of one of cardell hayes" jailhouse phone calls, which was referenced Saturday but not previously introduced for the jury.
In the call, Hayes is heard speaking to an unidentified woman about Racquel Smithaccepting on her late husband"s behalf Will Smith"s induction into the Saints Hall of Fame on Oct. 28. The ceremony marked Racquel Smith"s first public commentssince her husband"s death.
The recorded call was at times inaudible inside the courtroom. But jurors heard Hayes say, in reference to the widow, "Yeah, her with all her bulls---," and "phony, phony, phony."
5. "This case is about stupidity"
Rodrigue spoke bluntly toward the end of her closing argument, telling jurors that Fuller was right that this case should be evaluated on its merits, no matter the victim"s celebrity.
"This case is no different than the senseless and unnecessary murders that happen every day in this city," she said. "This is about somebody that got really mad. This case is about stupidity, about someone getting p****d off and shooting someone eight times. Cardell Hayes had the courage to grab a gun, but not to shoot Will Smith while he was standing in front of him. He waits until he"s got a clean shot at him, and shoots him when Will Smith walks away because he thinks it"s over.
"Is that the world we want to live in? When you"re born, you get a birth certificate and a gun, and whoever shoots first wins? The argument was over between them. It had been defused and Will Smith was walking away."
Source: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2016/12/cardell_hayes-will_smith_trial_6.html
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