Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path with Chile.
Speaker 2: I'm Robin, I'm Jules.
Speaker 3: And I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case.
Speaker 2: March second, nineteen ninety five, New Orleans, Louisiana. After leaving
Speaker 2: a restaurant with his date, twenty five year old Michael
Speaker 2: Girardi is fatally gunned down in the French Quarter by
Speaker 2: a tree year old robbers. Weeks later, sixteen year old
Speaker 2: Sharif Coussin is implicated in the crime and charged with
Speaker 2: first degree murder. Even though Sharif seems to have an
Speaker 2: airtight alibi, Michael's state identifies them as a shooter at trial,
Speaker 2: and he's found guilty and sentenced to death. However, it
Speaker 2: turns out that the District Attorney's office withheld exculpatory evidence
Speaker 2: and committed prosecutorial misconduct. After nearly three years on death row,
Speaker 2: Sharif's conviction is overturned, but Michael Girardi's real killers are
Speaker 2: never found.
Speaker 1: After that, the Path went Chiley, So we've got a
Speaker 1: truly jaw dropping story to cover today. The nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: five murder of Michael Girardi and the subsequent wrongful conviction
Speaker 1: of Sharif Coussin. You might recall then, on our last
Speaker 1: series of episodes, we covered the nineteen ninety six murder
Speaker 1: of fourteen year old Crystal Champagne, which took place in
Speaker 1: the Greater New Orleans metropolitan area and led to the
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction of Damon Thibodeaux, who spent sixteen years on
Speaker 1: death row for the crime before he was exonerated. We
Speaker 1: know that Ashley is particularly impassion when talking about wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction cases, so well, we've picked out another one which
Speaker 1: took place in New Orleans during that time period and
Speaker 1: is one of the most outrageous miscarriages of justice you'll
Speaker 1: ever hear about. The defendant in this story is an
Speaker 1: African American teenager named Sharif Cussen, who was only sixteen
Speaker 1: years old when he was arrested for the murder of
Speaker 1: Michael Girardi, and he was sent to death for the
Speaker 1: crime at age seventeen, making him one of the youngest
Speaker 1: people ever sent to death row. Given Sharif's young age,
Speaker 1: this decision was bound to be controversial regardless whether or
Speaker 1: not he was guilty of the crime. However, it soon
Speaker 1: became apparent that the people who put Sharif away had
Speaker 1: to have known he didn't do it, but were determined
Speaker 1: to convict him no matter what. I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of wrongful convictions involving misconduct, but the prosecutors in this
Speaker 1: case just went to insane lengths to withhold and fabricate evidence,
Speaker 1: even though it meant an innocent kid could have wound
Speaker 1: up being executed for a crime he did not commit.
Speaker 1: Throughout all this injustice, one aspect of this story which
Speaker 1: God overlooked is that the real killers of Michael Girardi
Speaker 1: were never found. There were some promising suspects who seemed
Speaker 1: to slip under the radar.
Speaker 3: Where do I start. I'm already so frustrated with this
Speaker 3: case because of multiple factors. You have Sharif who is
Speaker 3: sixteen years old at the time that he was arrested,
Speaker 3: and then seventeen years old when he sentenced to death
Speaker 3: for a crime he committed supposedly as a juvenile, and
Speaker 3: thank the Lord today that can't happen. That doesn't happen
Speaker 3: because of the landmark decision in Roper v. Simmons. But
Speaker 3: believe it or not, that was only a five to
Speaker 3: four ruling. If you know that case, that no longer
Speaker 3: can someone who's a juvenile at the time that they
Speaker 3: are that they have committed the crime. Right, if they've
Speaker 3: committed the crime under the age of eighteen, they can
Speaker 3: no longer be eligible for the death penalty. In the
Speaker 3: United States, I want to say, there were like seventy
Speaker 3: some odd kids on death row when that ruling came out.
Speaker 3: And so that's the first problem. He's a child. So
Speaker 3: let's say Sharif was guilty. He still has zero frontal
Speaker 3: lobe development, right, there's very little stability going on there.
Speaker 3: He won't fully mature you until he's about twenty five
Speaker 3: years old. And to say that at sixteen there's not
Speaker 3: any possibility that for the rest of his life he
Speaker 3: could be redeemed or healed is wild. But in this
Speaker 3: case it goes even further because Sharif is innocent and
Speaker 3: his sentence not just to life in prison or any
Speaker 3: other sentence, it's death. So then it it brings up
Speaker 3: the idea of the death penalty. Right that, yes, there
Speaker 3: are arguments that are valid arguments for why the death
Speaker 3: penalty seems to be a good idea. There's crimes we
Speaker 3: hear about where you say, wow, I don't know that
Speaker 3: that person can be redeemed or that crime is so
Speaker 3: evil that I understand why the death penalty would be
Speaker 3: an option. But when you hear that there's been one case,
Speaker 3: and let's all understand there's been many, many cases, but
Speaker 3: there's a case where someone has sat on death row
Speaker 3: and is later found to be innocent, there's a problem
Speaker 3: with our death penalty process. So that's another thing that
Speaker 3: is very frustrating. If one innocent person was ever sentenced
Speaker 3: to death, that's a horrible alternative right and an option
Speaker 3: for us to have because it's not fool proof. And
Speaker 3: the final thing you nailed it wrongful convictions. I love
Speaker 3: that our leading evidence here is an eyewitness, which every
Speaker 3: listener who's ever tuned in before knows the drill worst
Speaker 3: type of evidence you can have if you're talking about reliability,
Speaker 3: because our minds lie to us, and even when we
Speaker 3: have the best of intents, we don't do well picking
Speaker 3: out suspects. We just don't. And you also have some
Speaker 3: elements that add to it. You have a young African
Speaker 3: American teenager, Sharif. I don't know much else about his demographics,
Speaker 3: but you're in New Orleans. There's a lot of racial
Speaker 3: tension in New Orleans. And you clearly have a kid
Speaker 3: who is targeted by police, and that targeting by government
Speaker 3: officials didn't stop all the way through his trial. You
Speaker 3: said that there was prosecutorial on his conduct. It was
Speaker 3: covering up of evidence that could have proven he was innocent.
Speaker 3: And again, this isn't a kid who's being put away
Speaker 3: and might be eligible for parole. This is a kid
Speaker 3: that they knowingly were sentencing to death. He was not
Speaker 3: given a fair trial. They knew there was evidence that
Speaker 3: made him look like he was innocent, and still they
Speaker 3: said he was so invaluable as a human being he
Speaker 3: had no value that made that wrong in their eyes.
Speaker 3: Is horrific. And I don't even know the start of
Speaker 3: it until you guys tell me the rest of the story.
Speaker 1: Well, you're going to be pretty shocked when you hear
Speaker 1: some of the details we share, because we've done wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction cases where you can say, okay, I think the
Speaker 1: authorities were acting a good faith They genuinely thought they
Speaker 1: had the right person, even though they turned out to
Speaker 1: be innocent. But this is why, where you know that
Speaker 1: people in power clearly knew that Jarif didn't do it,
Speaker 1: but they just did not care. They wanted to close
Speaker 1: this case and get a conviction at any cost. And
Speaker 1: it's terrifying to think that there are people out there
Speaker 1: in power who are willing to do something like this.
Speaker 2: One thing I wanted to ask you Ash before we
Speaker 2: get going on the story. There's going to be a
Speaker 2: callback to this later, but I really wanted to get
Speaker 2: your definition or your opinion on the multi factorial issue
Speaker 2: of recidivism, especially when especially when it pertains to young offenders.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, So I mean, recidivism has a billion factors
Speaker 3: that go into it, right, especially like you said, when
Speaker 3: there's a youth involved. One of the biggest factors is
Speaker 3: what someone's going to go home to, right, And if
Speaker 3: you are a product of your environment, an environment, family, friends,
Speaker 3: lack of resources, lifestyle options, right, If that's what you're
Speaker 3: going to go right back to, and that's what landed
Speaker 3: you in hot water in the first place, the likelihood
Speaker 3: of you recidivating is huge, right. It's they call prison
Speaker 3: a revolving door for a reason. But one of the
Speaker 3: problems is that our prison system and even jails, they're
Speaker 3: creating worse individuals when sometimes like Sharif, he went to
Speaker 3: prison as an innocent human being, but in order to survive,
Speaker 3: he had to learn skills, and not all those skills
Speaker 3: are positive ones. And you're really creating people who get
Speaker 3: this fight or flight response. They're with people who have
Speaker 3: committed different types of crimes, who share, you know, spirituality,
Speaker 3: but they also share criminal tips, and they attack each other,
Speaker 3: and they you know, manipulate each other, and they sexually
Speaker 3: abuse one another, and all kinds of things that create
Speaker 3: a much I don't know, a much more broken human
Speaker 3: being when we release them with no resources and no
Speaker 3: education that really helps them have a different life after
Speaker 3: their release. So, especially when it's a wrongful conviction, it
Speaker 3: breaks my heart because you put them in an environment
Speaker 3: which is going to give them no option but to
Speaker 3: struggle and to learn skills that do not translate to
Speaker 3: a healthy individual outside of prison, and you expect them
Speaker 3: to function like a normal person when they're released from prison.
Speaker 3: The other problem with recidivism, though, is that we, in
Speaker 3: good faith and with good principle behind it, put a
Speaker 3: lot of really strenuous stipulations on individuals, and depending on
Speaker 3: who your parole or probation officer is, will really dictate
Speaker 3: how much grace and normalcy they allow for you as
Speaker 3: a human being who's clearly struggled before serve time and
Speaker 3: is now being released, which is also a struggle. So
Speaker 3: you'll see some people who you know have a parole
Speaker 3: officer who believes in them and fightes for them, and
Speaker 3: maybe they drink and get caught drinking and they don't
Speaker 3: get sent back. They're given an opportunity to heal and
Speaker 3: get help. But then you also have the next person
Speaker 3: who comes through and their person sends them back into
Speaker 3: prison because of a minor infraction. So it's a whirlwind.
Speaker 3: But we set people up to fail. We don't have
Speaker 3: enough resources or structure in place to help people succeed
Speaker 3: once they've gone to prison or jail, but especially when
Speaker 3: they're innocent. How could you come out and be okay
Speaker 3: when you went in for something you were not the
Speaker 3: hardened criminal they presented you as. And for him, Sharif,
Speaker 3: he's sixteen, he learned way too much, way too quick,
Speaker 3: from the wrong people.
Speaker 2: Our story begins in New Orleans, Louisiana, in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 2: and our victim is twenty five year old Alfred Michael Girardi,
Speaker 2: who goes by his middle name and lives in the
Speaker 2: nearby town of Slidel. On the evening of March second,
Speaker 2: Michael went out on a date with thirty seven year
Speaker 2: old Connie Babin. They'd recently met at a Mardi Gras
Speaker 2: party in New Orleans French Quarter before Michael phoned up
Speaker 2: Connie to ask her out. They decided to return to
Speaker 2: the French Quarter for their first date together and went
Speaker 2: out to dinner at the Port of Call restaurant on
Speaker 2: Esplanade Avenue. After they finished dinner, the couple left the
Speaker 2: restaurant and walked towards Michael's pickup truck, which was parked
Speaker 2: half a walk away. At ten twenty six pm, they
Speaker 2: reached the truck when three African American males appeared and
Speaker 2: headed in their direction. Once it became apparent that one
Speaker 2: of the men was moving towards them in a threatening fashion,
Speaker 2: Michael turned towards Connie and told her to run away.
Speaker 2: Connie immediately took off, but as she was running, she
Speaker 2: looked behind her and saw that one of the black
Speaker 2: males was holding a gun, and he proceeded to shoot
Speaker 2: Michael in the face. Connie made it back to the
Speaker 2: Port of Call restaurant and called nine one one for assistance.
Speaker 2: When police arrived at the scene, they found Connie kneeling
Speaker 2: next to Michael's body and clutching his hand, but by
Speaker 2: then he was already dead. Since Michael's wallet was missing,
Speaker 2: robbery was the apparent motive for his murder.
Speaker 3: All right, so when we look here, remember she's going
Speaker 3: to be the eyewitness who points out that Sharif is
Speaker 3: one of these three African American men. He's one of
Speaker 3: the young black men who shoots her significant other. Right,
Speaker 3: this guy that is it her boyfriend?
Speaker 1: It's the first date, so they just started.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, he's one of the black men
Speaker 3: who shoots her date. Now here's the problem you have
Speaker 3: to think about when you look at eyewitness identification. This
Speaker 3: case has tons of marks for why Connie, even in
Speaker 3: her most authentic, genuine attempt, would have a problem correctly
Speaker 3: identifying somebody. I'm going to assume that Connie and Michael
Speaker 3: are Caucasian, which means the first thing that Connie has
Speaker 3: going against her recollection is that she's making a cross
Speaker 3: racial identification. And when that happens, the rate of accuracy
Speaker 3: significantly drops no matter which race is identific fine and
Speaker 3: another race. So let's say you have a Hispanic individual
Speaker 3: identifying a Caucasian individual or a Hispanic individual identifying a
Speaker 3: black individual. Right, there's going to be that cross racial
Speaker 3: bias that has scientifically been proven to radically drop rates
Speaker 3: of accuracy because there is not a likeness to compare
Speaker 3: other person to right, Like I can't say, oh, they
Speaker 3: have my eyes but not my nose, and the canvas
Speaker 3: you're starting with is scientifically proven to make a significant
Speaker 3: difference on that ability to put facial features in place.
Speaker 3: It's also night time that obstructs a lot of things.
Speaker 3: Right shadows, street lights, the way that things look at
Speaker 3: night is problematic. There's also a gun present, and so
Speaker 3: there's the weapon focus effect that occurs here where if
Speaker 3: you pull out a gun or a knife or anything
Speaker 3: that's going to be a risk to me, in order
Speaker 3: to protect myself and the person I'm standing with, I
Speaker 3: often will lock my eyes on the weapon and make
Speaker 3: sure that that weapon is in my eyesight and I
Speaker 3: know where it's being pointed, who's holding it, and if
Speaker 3: it's being pointed towards us. So it's that idea that
Speaker 3: we don't really focus at the person's face anymore. I'm
Speaker 3: most concerned about where the tip of that gun is
Speaker 3: being pointed. A lot of other things are going on here.
Speaker 3: There's multiple people, and so the ability to mix features
Speaker 3: that you might remember, like oh, there are bushy eyebrows,
Speaker 3: and then you're going, well, I think it was on
Speaker 3: the shooter, Well maybe not. And who was wearing the
Speaker 3: ball cap and who had five o'clock shadow, and all
Speaker 3: these different things could easily be convoluted. And not to
Speaker 3: mention she just saw someone she's on a date with
Speaker 3: get shot in the face. So the trauma of thinking
Speaker 3: you could have died and the poor person that you
Speaker 3: just went to dinner with is on the ground with
Speaker 3: a significant trauma wound would also then startle your ability
Speaker 3: to recall that person's face later.
Speaker 1: And not to mention that Connie was running away at
Speaker 1: the time and was kind of looking over her shoulder
Speaker 1: when she saw the shooting occurred. So that's a very
Speaker 1: stressful situation. She's from a distance, so you could understand
Speaker 1: how she might misidentify someone, and you got to feel
Speaker 1: bad for it. But I do find that in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases involving eyewitnesses who were survivors to crimes
Speaker 1: that a lot of the time, the police kind of
Speaker 1: lead them on where they say, oh, we got this suspect,
Speaker 1: and we're pretty sure he's the right guy. We just
Speaker 1: need you to make an identification. And even if they're
Speaker 1: not entirely that sure, they're thinking in their selves, well,
Speaker 1: if the police say he's the right guy, then he
Speaker 1: must be the right guy, and that's why they make
Speaker 1: their identification.
Speaker 2: And how dark was it at that time, Like how
Speaker 2: well would she have been able to see the features
Speaker 2: of any one of these three black men in the dark.
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, investigators got a promising lead when
Speaker 1: sixteen year old James Rawl was arrested and charged with
Speaker 1: nine counts of armed robbery. Raol implicated a sixteen year
Speaker 1: old friend of his name, Sharif Coussen, who had allegedly
Speaker 1: bragged to him about being responsible for the murder of
Speaker 1: Michael Girardi. Sharif was one of eight siblings being raised
Speaker 1: by a single mother in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
Speaker 1: Even though Sharif grew up without a father and his
Speaker 1: family struggle with poverty, he was known for being an
Speaker 1: intelligent kid who did well in school. However, things started
Speaker 1: to change when Sharif took the initiative to finally track
Speaker 1: down and meet his biological father, who refused to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that Sharif was his son. This reaction devastated Sharif and
Speaker 1: sent him on a downward spiral as his attitude changed,
Speaker 1: his grade started a fall, and he got involved in drugs.
Speaker 1: After being sent to a substance abuse treatment center, Sharif
Speaker 1: befriended James Rawl, who turned out to be a bad influence.
Speaker 1: Sharif allegedly accompanied Raoul on some of his armed robberies,
Speaker 1: though he claimed that he never got directly involved or
Speaker 1: carried a weapon and only waited to the car anyway.
Speaker 1: When Raul implicated Sharif and Michael Girardi's murder, he was
Speaker 1: picked up by police and taken down to the station.
Speaker 1: On March the twenty eighth, he was placed in a
Speaker 1: lineup where Connie Babbin positively identified him as the shooter,
Speaker 1: and Sharif was soon formally charged with first degree murder.
Speaker 3: Well, here's the sad thing for Sharif. Sharif has a
Speaker 3: million things working against him right. He is growing up
Speaker 3: without a father, and you know, mamas do a great job.
Speaker 3: But I feel like there's such value in positive mail
Speaker 3: influence and having you know, a healthy father in the home,
Speaker 3: but Sharif didn't have the opportunity to have that. In fact,
Speaker 3: it sounds like was exposed to a lifestyle of you know,
Speaker 3: that existed in a low income area where drugs were common.
Speaker 3: And it's really interesting because despite that, he is fighting
Speaker 3: to be healthier because he had the opportunity to go
Speaker 3: to a substance abuse treatment center. It sounds like he
Speaker 3: does really well in school, and so there is potential
Speaker 3: that he doesn't have to follow the kind of the
Speaker 3: trajectory that's being put before him. That there's ways that
Speaker 3: Sharif can beat what's before him. But like many people,
Speaker 3: one of his biggest influences as a sixteen year old
Speaker 3: kid is that he is hanging out with people who
Speaker 3: are quote his friends, and are not doing anything to
Speaker 3: be a true friend to him. They're engaging in the
Speaker 3: same risky decisions and they're putting him at risk, and
Speaker 3: they're in a lifestyle of you know, like high risk
Speaker 3: kind of I don't know, just being young, dumb kids,
Speaker 3: but they're making big mistakes and kind of playing with
Speaker 3: fire and so It's sad because Sharif is trying. Sharif is,
Speaker 3: you know, trying to do good in school. He's trying
Speaker 3: to be sober and get away from drugs, and yet
Speaker 3: here he is, He's about to get picked out of
Speaker 3: a lineup, and it likely has to do with the
Speaker 3: group he's hanging out with. Right He's associated by the
Speaker 3: police and by some members in the community to be
Speaker 3: a troubled kid, and he gets wrapped up, especially when
Speaker 3: Connie can passibly I d him.
Speaker 1: And that's a sad thing about this story is that
Speaker 1: the only reason sure I've even popped up on the
Speaker 1: radar as a suspect is because James Raul decided to
Speaker 1: point the figure at him. And you're automatically suspicious because
Speaker 1: he's facing nine counts of armed robbery himself. So he
Speaker 1: seems like the type of guy who will do anything
Speaker 1: to help his legal situation, even if it means falsely
Speaker 1: accusing a so called friend of his. And like I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, it's one of those things where I'm sure
Speaker 1: once he was brought in, the police told Connie, hey,
Speaker 1: this is the guy. We've got another person who implicated him.
Speaker 1: So if you could just pick him out that would
Speaker 1: be great, that would be enough for us to make
Speaker 1: an arrest. And even if Connie wasn't entirely sure if
Speaker 1: this was the guy that she saw, she still went
Speaker 1: ahead and identified him.
Speaker 2: However, Sharif would hit with additional charges besides murder. On
Speaker 2: the basis of James Raoul's story. Police believed that Sharif
Speaker 2: was part of a gang of teenagers who'd been committing
Speaker 2: robberies throughout the city, so they charged him with four
Speaker 2: additional counts of armed robbery. The case wound up in
Speaker 2: the hands of the Orleans of the Orleans Parish District
Speaker 2: Attorney's office, who announced that they were planning to try
Speaker 2: Sharif four times for each separate count of armed robbery
Speaker 2: before they even took him to trial for murder. If
Speaker 2: convicted on all these armed robbery charges, Sharif could potentially
Speaker 2: receive ninety nine years in prison. He was also going
Speaker 2: to be tried in adult court for Michael Girardi's murder,
Speaker 2: and if found guilty, he would be facing the death penalty.
Speaker 2: Sharif maintained that he was innocent of both the murder
Speaker 2: and the robbery charges, but his defense attorneys presented him
Speaker 2: with a difficult choice. So they told Sharif that there
Speaker 2: was no way that they could possibly win four separate
Speaker 2: armed robbery trials and a murder trial. So they advised
Speaker 2: him to plead guilty to the robberies and he would
Speaker 2: receive a ten year prison sentence and likely only have
Speaker 2: to serve half the time. This way, they could devote
Speaker 2: all their energy to helping Sharif beat the murder charge
Speaker 2: and potentially save his life. Sharif reluctantly agreed to enter
Speaker 2: a guilty fleet of the robberies, but came to regret
Speaker 2: the decision when he received a twenty year prison sentence
Speaker 2: instead of his expected ten years. Nevertheless, Sharif and his
Speaker 2: defense team still thought that there was a very good
Speaker 2: chance that they would win the murder trial.
Speaker 3: Are these public defenders?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I was like, this is bad advice. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so as soon as you started talking about his attorneys, yes,
Speaker 3: they had an uphill battle. You've got to keep in
Speaker 3: mind when we talk about public defenders, it is something
Speaker 3: a lot of attorneys have the honor of doing when
Speaker 3: they first start in their career, especially, but public defenders
Speaker 3: often have a massive caseload and when they're faced with
Speaker 3: a case like this with Sharif, where the five major
Speaker 3: crimes they're facing, they're trying to figure out, how can
Speaker 3: I give my very limited resources to the best ability
Speaker 3: to Sharif. And in their mind they thought, hey, you
Speaker 3: know what, let's have him say he did armed robbery
Speaker 3: because that'll make him look really good and then we
Speaker 3: can spend our focus on the murder. But Sharif's saying,
Speaker 3: I didn't do it. And here's what one of the
Speaker 3: crazy things is. And I think one of the things
Speaker 3: his defense attorneys could be thinking is that Sharif doesn't
Speaker 3: have money to bond out and get bailed out. He's
Speaker 3: also on trial for murder, so very unlikely he would
Speaker 3: get released. Sometimes trials take two and three years to complete,
Speaker 3: and so it might have been that his defense attorneys
Speaker 3: were saying, listen, just plead guilty and you'll basically be
Speaker 3: serving the same amount of time as you're going to
Speaker 3: be waiting trial for this murder charge and you'll be out. Well,
Speaker 3: they didn't have that in writing. That wasn't a promise.
Speaker 3: And even if it was, if you said you're going
Speaker 3: to serve six months for the armed robberies, he didn't
Speaker 3: do an armed robbery, according to Shreef, and so when
Speaker 3: he says I did it, Sharif now has lost any
Speaker 3: ability down the road to function as a successful man
Speaker 3: in an easy way. Right, no matter how hard he works,
Speaker 3: he'll always have to overcome that he admitted to and
Speaker 3: was charged with and had to serve time in prison
Speaker 3: for armed robbery. I'm not hiring him right there's you're
Speaker 3: not getting a job. You have to be careful where
Speaker 3: you live, all kinds of things. So they by labeling
Speaker 3: him a felon, who then says, I did it. Now
Speaker 3: you've created a life where your opportunities and potential are
Speaker 3: much more limited and bleak. And then you're going to
Speaker 3: face a murder trial with your public defenders not good.
Speaker 3: They disappointed you once, they gave you really bad advice once.
Speaker 3: And now we're going to see, with very limited resources,
Speaker 3: a young, you know, low income kiddo sitting there on trial.
Speaker 3: It's not going to go well.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk more about this in our next episode.
Speaker 1: But it turned out that the Orleans Parish District Attorney's
Speaker 1: office had a history of using this dirty tactic and
Speaker 1: other murder cases where they would charge a defendant with
Speaker 1: a bunch of other additional crimes such as armed robbery,
Speaker 1: and then just say I'm going to take you to
Speaker 1: trial for each offense separately, and of course, if they
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of money, they have a public defender,
Speaker 1: they're going to say, there's no way we can win
Speaker 1: all these separate trials, so you're better off pleading guilty
Speaker 1: to the lesser charge. And it's all the more heartbreaking
Speaker 1: because Sharif is screwed either way, and there's no real
Speaker 1: evidence that he committed these robberies other than the story
Speaker 1: from James Rowell, who, as we're going to talk about,
Speaker 1: is a very unreliable eyewitness. So it just goes to
Speaker 1: show that there was a lot of shadiness going on
Speaker 1: in this District Attorney's office during that time period, which
Speaker 1: made it very hard for innocent people to beat the charges.
Speaker 1: So on the surface, it appeared that Sharif had an
Speaker 1: airtight alibi which clear to him of any involvement in
Speaker 1: Michael Girardi's murder. On the evening of March the second,
Speaker 1: Sharif was playing in a youth league basketball game at
Speaker 1: the Tremae Recreation Community Center, and the evidence clearly backed
Speaker 1: up as alibi. His signature was on the signing sheet,
Speaker 1: there were several witnesses who could place him there, and
Speaker 1: there was even a videotape of Sharif playing in the game.
Speaker 1: Sharif's coach, Eric White, maintained that he drove him home
Speaker 1: that night and did not drop him off until ten
Speaker 1: forty five pm, around twenty minutes after Michael was murdered,
Speaker 1: but in spite of this, the Orleans Parish District Attorney's
Speaker 1: office still went ahead with Sharif's trial as planned. It
Speaker 1: began in January of nineteen ninety six and would be
Speaker 1: prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Roger Jordan and his co
Speaker 1: counsel Byron Barry. Since there was no physical evidence linking
Speaker 1: Shreif to the crime and the murder weapon could not
Speaker 1: be found, the prosecution's case would hinge on the eyewitness
Speaker 1: testimony of Connie Babin. When she took the stand, Connie
Speaker 1: stated that she was positive that Shariff was the shooter
Speaker 1: and identified him, stating, I will never forget that face.
Speaker 1: The prosecution also believed that James Raul's testimony would support
Speaker 1: their case, but received an unexpected surprise. When he took
Speaker 1: the witness stand.
Speaker 2: Raoul recounted his original story and now claimed that Sharif
Speaker 2: had never bragged to him that he shot Michael Girardi. So,
Speaker 2: according to Raoul, when he was arrested on nine counts
Speaker 2: of armed robbery, he was told by his defense attorney,
Speaker 2: George Simino, that he could potentially be facing eight hundred
Speaker 2: years in prison, so Simino asked if he had any
Speaker 2: information to offer which might help reduce that sentence. This
Speaker 2: is what led to Raoul implicating Sharif in Michael Girardi's murder,
Speaker 2: though he claimed he was coerced and told what to
Speaker 2: say by the police and the two prosecuting attorneys when
Speaker 2: he gave his official deposition, so in exchange for his testimony,
Speaker 2: Raoul would only receive a fifteen year sentence, who was
Speaker 2: instructed not to mention this a trial. A sentencing hearing
Speaker 2: for Raul's robbery charges had been scheduled by the District
Speaker 2: Attorney's office, but they made a calculated decision not to
Speaker 2: hold the hearing until after Sharif's trial had concluded, so
Speaker 2: they had no legal obligation to disclose this information to
Speaker 2: the defense. This revelation prompted the prosecution to call George
Speaker 2: Somino and a detective named Daniel Wharton to the stand
Speaker 2: as impeachment witnesses. They both testify that they were present
Speaker 2: at the meeting when Raoul gave his deposition, and that
Speaker 2: he'd implicated Sharif of his own free will without any coercion, of.
Speaker 3: Course they did. Why would the kid retract his statement
Speaker 3: if he actually had been right promised something. I love
Speaker 3: how they said, Look, we're not even delivering on anything yet,
Speaker 3: so how can you hold that against us. This is
Speaker 3: one of the problems with our justice system. The deals
Speaker 3: that you're willing to make with people. Sometimes they're necessary,
Speaker 3: but a lot of times they lead to false information.
Speaker 3: If you say, hey, I can get you a deal,
Speaker 3: if you can give me anything, I can give you
Speaker 3: a lot of things. Right, I'm a very creative person.
Speaker 3: If I was hanging out with people who were doing
Speaker 3: some questionable, immature, you know, dumb things, I could come
Speaker 3: up with a lot of stories that would get you
Speaker 3: some information you might want. And so I absolutely believe
Speaker 3: that he's another kid who's caught up in this.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: Right, he's one of his friends. He's being caught up
Speaker 3: in this as well too. And you know, when you
Speaker 3: go back to poor Connie, she said, I'll never forget
Speaker 3: that face. I bet she truly believes I know that
Speaker 3: face so very well, because how long has it been
Speaker 3: since the time he was picked up the lineup, in
Speaker 3: the time that she's testifying, if it's you know, how
Speaker 3: long was that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: A whole year. So for a year, Connie is being
Speaker 3: told she is safe. We have your you know dates
Speaker 3: killer in our hands. This is who it is. Here
Speaker 3: he is in the newspaper. Here, he is on TV.
Speaker 3: Here he is in an orange jumpsuit. Here he is
Speaker 3: at the defense table. Of course, Connie gets up there
Speaker 3: and says, well, I know who it is. It's the
Speaker 3: same kid I picked out a year ago and I've
Speaker 3: been seeing for a year since. So she has been
Speaker 3: confirmed in her mind to be right for a year.
Speaker 3: The police would have never let someone innocent get to
Speaker 3: court and sit in front of her if she wasn't right.
Speaker 3: So that's a sad reality of eyewitness identification. And poor
Speaker 3: Sharif and his you know, his uh, his basketball coach
Speaker 3: is like, wait a minute, what are we talking about?
Speaker 1: Here?
Speaker 3: He was with me and he was with me past
Speaker 3: the time that this other individual was murdered. I can
Speaker 3: assure you from the sign in sheets to the videotapes
Speaker 3: to me dropping him off, Sharif was with me. Sharif
Speaker 3: was doing something a normal kid should have been doing. Yes,
Speaker 3: he was making mistakes by hanging out with the wrong kids.
Speaker 3: But remember Carrie is engaged in an extracurricular activity, he's
Speaker 3: doing well in school. He's gone through substance abuse treatment
Speaker 3: like my guy in the scenario he was dealt. He
Speaker 3: really didn't have a whole lot of hope to escape
Speaker 3: that cycle. And it seems like he's trying to escape,
Speaker 3: but he's trying to find ways to be a healthy,
Speaker 3: functioning kid given the circumstances he has. And now he's
Speaker 3: sitting about to be assigned to death row because no
Speaker 3: one's doing the right thing. No one's calling out issues
Speaker 3: that are in his case. They're overlooking facts, they're hiding
Speaker 3: evidence because they quote don't have a legal responsibility. You
Speaker 3: have an ethical responsibility to do the right thing, whether
Speaker 3: you have a legal win or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The basketball coach Eric White, he was always one
Speaker 1: of Sharif's biggest supporters, and he was trying to help
Speaker 1: him out, even though he had gotten into some trouble
Speaker 1: in the past, had some substance abuse issues, and he
Speaker 1: never changed his story. He always maintained that I dropped
Speaker 1: Shreef off at this particular time, so he couldn't have
Speaker 1: committed the crime. And we'll talk more about this in
Speaker 1: a few minutes, but you're going to get particularly enraged
Speaker 1: when you hear about the dirty tactics that were used
Speaker 1: to try to discredit the coach's alibi. So the crux
Speaker 1: of the defense's case would be Sharif's alibi. Like we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, he was playing at a basketball game at
Speaker 1: the Recreation Community Center in the Tremaine neighborhood and someone
Speaker 1: from the crowd had actually videotaped the game and captured
Speaker 1: Sharif in the footage. Not only that, but the video
Speaker 1: was timestamped and seemed to show that there was no
Speaker 1: way Sharif would have had enough time to travel to
Speaker 1: the French Quarter and shoot Michael by ten twenty six pm. However,
Speaker 1: the prosecution argued that the time stamps could have been
Speaker 1: inaccurate if the video camera was not set correctly. In
Speaker 1: spite of this, to Recreation department supervisors, a player from
Speaker 1: the opposing team, and Sharif's coach, Eric White appeared as
Speaker 1: witnesses to testify that the game ended sometime between ten
Speaker 1: twenty and ten thirty PM, and White was adamant that
Speaker 1: he dropped Sharif off at his home at ten forty five.
Speaker 1: The defense was also planning to present three of Shreif's
Speaker 1: teammates as alibi witnesses, as White had also driven them
Speaker 1: home and dropped them off before Shari, But even though
Speaker 1: they were subpoened, none of the three teammates showed up
Speaker 1: in court on the day they were scheduled to testify,
Speaker 1: and they could not be located. Prosecutor Roger Jordan attempted
Speaker 1: to discredit Shreif's alibi by playing a recording of a
Speaker 1: prior interview he had conducted with Eric White in which
Speaker 1: he contradicted his trial testimony. In the recording, Why could
Speaker 1: be heard saying that the game ended at nine thirty,
Speaker 1: so Jordan argued that after being dropped off at home,
Speaker 1: Shreif still could have had enough time to travel to
Speaker 1: the French quarter and kill Michael at ten twenty six.
Speaker 1: While making his closing statement to the jury, Jordan described
Speaker 1: the circumstances of the murder, which prompted Shref to cause
Speaker 1: an outburst by standing up and yelling out quote, I
Speaker 1: wasn't there. In the end, the jury believed the prosecution's
Speaker 1: version of events, and on January the twenty sixth, they
Speaker 1: found Sharif guilty of first degree murder. The jury would
Speaker 1: subsequently deliberate on Shreif's sentencing and voted for him to
Speaker 1: receive the death penalty, though there would be a month's
Speaker 1: long delay before sentencing would actually be pasted.
Speaker 3: Well, here's the poor thing that the jury's facing, right.
Speaker 3: The reality behind jury psychology is that you have somebody
Speaker 3: who's been brought to trial again. They're sitting there in
Speaker 3: a jumpsuit, right, they're shackled probably, and they're sitting at
Speaker 3: a defense table. You have a victim who's saying, I
Speaker 3: one hundred percent know that I'm right. You have people
Speaker 3: wearing a badge who are supposed to be honest and
Speaker 3: respected saying this is what happened, this is what we saw.
Speaker 3: And you have prosecutors who are making an argument that
Speaker 3: they're debunking or trying to discredit everything that could stand
Speaker 3: for Sharif when you have people who are supporting him,
Speaker 3: like his coach, there's a questionable reality of saying like, well,
Speaker 3: of course, someone who cared about him and was trying
Speaker 3: to help him have a better life is going to
Speaker 3: stand up for him, like the coach is almost a
Speaker 3: daph and so wouldn't the dad of this kid or
Speaker 3: the coach of this kid have a reason to lie
Speaker 3: for him. So Sharif's in trouble from the get go.
Speaker 3: We assume police wouldn't lie, prosecutors wouldn't lie, witnesses wouldn't lie.
Speaker 3: A victim would never get it wrong because they would
Speaker 3: remember that face for the rest of their life, and
Speaker 3: that no one would make it to that room without
Speaker 3: being guilty because innocent people, we would obviously know that
Speaker 3: they're innocent. And so I think when you sit there
Speaker 3: and you say innocent until proven guilty, I do believe
Speaker 3: because it's, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt, that that
Speaker 3: is the way we aim to be. But I think
Speaker 3: when someone walks into a courtroom, there's an assumption they're guilty,
Speaker 3: and I need to see questionable reasonable doubt before I
Speaker 3: can change my mind. I think that's how the human
Speaker 3: brain works.
Speaker 2: Why would they bring charges unless this person had evidence
Speaker 2: against them. And you brought up jury psychology, and I
Speaker 2: think that's an a important point. When Sharif has these
Speaker 2: public defenders, how do you think, Ashley, that plays into
Speaker 2: the process of wadier, which is jury selection, and you
Speaker 2: have these prosecutors on the other side with more resources
Speaker 2: and more ability to be able to vet these people, Like,
Speaker 2: how likely do you think that he was able to
Speaker 2: have a jury of his peers?
Speaker 3: I doubt it. You've also got to remember, oftentimes a
Speaker 3: lot of people aren't getting a jury of their peers.
Speaker 3: But here you have prosecutors. Often when you're talking about
Speaker 3: district attorneys and things like that, they often have years
Speaker 3: upon years and decades upon decades of experience. They know
Speaker 3: jury psychology, they know those kinds of factors, how race
Speaker 3: and gender play a role, And unfortunately for a public defender,
Speaker 3: they also are very talented in that. But they have
Speaker 3: to know their defendant, They have to know the case
Speaker 3: incredibly well. They have to know what factors are working
Speaker 3: against them and how that's going to impact the jury.
Speaker 3: And I think because they're given so many cases in
Speaker 3: so much workload, that they simply don't have the time
Speaker 3: to get to know Sharif and his needs and his personality.
Speaker 3: The people who are going to be testifying, I just
Speaker 3: don't think they have the same time, in resources or
Speaker 3: experience that you're going to see or honestly, in some cases,
Speaker 3: conviction and dedication. I think most people, like any other profession,
Speaker 3: when they say yes, I'll fulfill that job duty right,
Speaker 3: they do it to the best of their ability. I
Speaker 3: think most people do try to have integrity, but that's
Speaker 3: one of those like we're going to do the best
Speaker 3: we can, but sometimes the best we can is not
Speaker 3: really what that defendant deserves.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: Almost immediately following the guilty verdict, Sharif's defense team was
Speaker 2: mailed a recording from an anonymous source. It turned out
Speaker 2: to be a tape recorded statement that Connie Babin had
Speaker 2: made when she was interviewed three days after the murder,
Speaker 2: where she stated that she was not wearing her glasses
Speaker 2: or contact lenses when she witnessed Michael get shot. Since
Speaker 2: it was dark at the time, Connie said that all
Speaker 2: she could really see were patterns and shapes, so she
Speaker 2: did not get a good look at the shooter or
Speaker 2: as two accomplices. The only information Connie could provide was
Speaker 2: that the shooter was slightly shorter than Michael, making him
Speaker 2: around five foot seven or five foot eight, but Shariffe
Speaker 2: was actually four inches taller than Michael. The defense was
Speaker 2: also able to obtain a copy of a report written
Speaker 2: by the first officer who interviewed Connie following the murder,
Speaker 2: where she stated that she would probably not be able
Speaker 2: to identify anyone. This was in direct contradiction to Connie's
Speaker 2: trial testimony, in which she expressed absolute certainty that Sharif
Speaker 2: was a shooter. Since in neither the report nor the
Speaker 2: recording of Connie's interview were disclosed to the defense, they
Speaker 2: filed a motion for a new trial, but it was
Speaker 2: ultimately to The sentencing phase finally resumed, and on July second,
Speaker 2: Jarife was officially sentenced to death by a lethal injection
Speaker 2: and transferred to death row at Louisiana State Prison in Angola.
Speaker 2: By this point, Sharife was only seventeen years old, making
Speaker 2: him the youngest person ever to be condemned to death
Speaker 2: row in the history of Louisiana.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine how terrified this poor kid is that
Speaker 3: he is doing petty silly things, right, He's doing what
Speaker 3: a lot of kids in his community are doing. He's
Speaker 3: getting exposed to drugs. He might be doing a little
Speaker 3: bit of petty theft to fund drugs or to steal
Speaker 3: from somebody in his pursuit of drug dealing and things
Speaker 3: like that. But this is not a kid who killed someone,
Speaker 3: and it's not a kid who deserves to be in prison,
Speaker 3: much less on death row. He's a child in a
Speaker 3: very hardened man's game. I cannot imagine what he faced
Speaker 3: walking through those doors and thinking, Okay, the sounds of smells,
Speaker 3: the size of people, it's terrifying. It's so sad to
Speaker 3: think of that. And not only is he walking into
Speaker 3: prison with bars closing behind him, but his reality is
Speaker 3: that the only way he's leaving there is deceased due
Speaker 3: to lethal injection. The other thing that makes me enraged
Speaker 3: is this audio tape of Connie. And do not misunderstand
Speaker 3: I'm not frustrated with Connie whatsoever. Connie's a victim in
Speaker 3: this case. Multiple times, because Connie is telling the police, Hey,
Speaker 3: I wasn't wearing my contacts or glasses. I honestly couldn't
Speaker 3: see them very well. Remember, there's reasons she wouldn't have
Speaker 3: seen them very well if she did have her glasses
Speaker 3: in contacts on, but she's saying I did not. I
Speaker 3: honestly could only see shapes. But the police need her
Speaker 3: to validate what they've already confirmed in their own minds,
Speaker 3: And so Connie now becomes a pawn and manipulated and
Speaker 3: loses her like the dignity that they give her as
Speaker 3: a true victim. Right, They use her as a tool
Speaker 3: at that point, And it's frustrating because you take someone
Speaker 3: who's been through trauma, you gaslight them basically and try
Speaker 3: to convince them that they saw something they didn't and
Speaker 3: then they believe it. And remember Connie's part of this story.
Speaker 3: So when eventually we found out Sharif was wrongfully convicted,
Speaker 3: Connie has to deal with the repercussions of saying I
Speaker 3: was the one who pointed to him and said I'd
Speaker 3: remember that face for the rest of my life. And
Speaker 3: Connie did nothing wrong here. The professionals handling her and
Speaker 3: her testimony are the ones who, like I said, used her.
Speaker 3: And she also becomes a even deeper victim because of
Speaker 3: the investigation and trial process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, talking about how terrified Charif must have been at
Speaker 1: that age, He said that he didn't really have much
Speaker 1: concept on how the death penalty worked, Like all he
Speaker 1: knew was he was being sent to this prison to
Speaker 1: be executed. But I don't think he really graps that, No,
Speaker 1: you don't get executed immediately. You'll at least be on
Speaker 1: death row for several years while we tried to appeal
Speaker 1: your conviction. But in his eyes, he could be taken
Speaker 1: out and executed at any time, which is a very
Speaker 1: traumatic experience. And it is also very bothersome that even
Speaker 1: after they discovered that the primary evidence against him, Connie's
Speaker 1: identification was not reliable, that nobody in power said, maybe
Speaker 1: there's some reasonable doubt here and we shouldn't try to
Speaker 1: execute a seventeen year old kid. But no, they just
Speaker 1: stuck to their guns and sent him to death row. Anyway,
Speaker 1: given Scherif's young age, the decision to give him the
Speaker 1: death penalty was a controversial one. His supporter sought the
Speaker 1: assistance of CLIVEE Stafford Smith, a British foreign attorney who
Speaker 1: had become a prominent activist against the death penalty, and
Speaker 1: he soon an uncovered evidence of some egregious aximis conduct
Speaker 1: which had been committed by both the New Orleans Police
Speaker 1: Department and the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office. The lead
Speaker 1: detective on this case had been Anthony Small, but disturbing
Speaker 1: allegations began to emerge against him. Small had initially claimed
Speaker 1: that he uncovered two a day tional eye witnesses besides
Speaker 1: Connie Babin, who saw Sharif commit the murder, but they
Speaker 1: were never called upon to testify a trial. However, it
Speaker 1: turned out that the reason for this was because the
Speaker 1: witnesses did not actually exist, as Small had allegedly lied
Speaker 1: about them, so he would have additional evidence to secure
Speaker 1: a warrant for Sharif's arrest. Clive Stafford Smith would also
Speaker 1: hear a shocking story from Small's ex wife. On March
Speaker 1: twenty fourth, nineteen ninety five, three weeks after the murder,
Speaker 1: the Crime Stoppers tip line supposedly received a call from
Speaker 1: someone who claimed that they had heard Sharif Kussin boasting
Speaker 1: about the crime, and Small made a note of this
Speaker 1: in a report. When Sharif was arrested a few days later,
Speaker 1: the tipster wound up receiving a reward of ten five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. Well, according to his ex wife, small was
Speaker 1: the person who phoned in the tip and after the arrest,
Speaker 1: he got one of his friends to pose as the
Speaker 1: tipster so they could split the reward money together. And
Speaker 1: needless to say, this was a major conflict of interest.
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, it's a catastrophic conflict of interest. What a
Speaker 3: morally corrupt, dark human being. It sounds like lying with
Speaker 3: something that was just natural to him, right that, I'm
Speaker 3: going to basically create witnesses. I'm going to flub this
Speaker 3: story and I'm going to make all these lies and
Speaker 3: develop evidence that doesn't exist. Oh and I'm going to
Speaker 3: capitalize on this by getting a friend to call it
Speaker 3: in and we're going to split this. I'm going to
Speaker 3: make money off of taking a child and ruining and
Speaker 3: stealing their life from them to the point that they're
Speaker 3: going to be executed. Like how much more corrupt do
Speaker 3: you get? And remember when you guys told me that
Speaker 3: there were actually some of Sharif's friends that were supposed
Speaker 3: to come and testify, but they couldn't find them and
Speaker 3: they never showed up. I would not be surprised if
Speaker 3: they were not threatened or manipulated in some way or
Speaker 3: made to feel fearful that if they did come and
Speaker 3: they justified Sharif being innocent, that they they were going
Speaker 3: to be charged with their own crimes, that the police
Speaker 3: were going to plant something on them, or the prosecutors
Speaker 3: were going to make charges against them. I guarantee you
Speaker 3: there was some kind of intimidation where they said, I'm
Speaker 3: not getting involved in that.
Speaker 2: There would also be disturbing allegations against prosecutors Roger Jordan
Speaker 2: and Byron Barry, who used some very questionable tactics to
Speaker 2: discredit Sharif's alby defense. As you might recall, three of
Speaker 2: Sharif's teammates who'd been subpoena to testify that he was
Speaker 2: with them when coach Eric White dropped them off after
Speaker 2: the game, but they never showed up in court on
Speaker 2: their scheduled date. As Ashley just mentioned, well, guess what.
Speaker 2: These witnesses actually did show up as plan that morning
Speaker 2: and were waiting in the hallway outside the courtroom when
Speaker 2: they were intercepted by Roger Jordan and Byron Barry, who
Speaker 2: instructed them to wait in the District Attorney's office across
Speaker 2: the street. Without the defense's knowledge, the three teammates wound
Speaker 2: up waiting in the office all day and missing their
Speaker 2: scheduled time to testify until the prosecution informed them that
Speaker 2: their testimony would no longer be required. In the defense's eyes,
Speaker 2: the prosecution had practically kidnapped and illegally detained their witnesses.
Speaker 2: When questioned about these allegations, Barry did admit that he
Speaker 2: asked them to wait in the District Attorney's office, but
Speaker 2: only did so because it was hot that day and
Speaker 2: thought the witnesses might be more comfortable waiting there because
Speaker 2: it was air conditioned.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, the problem was that the trial took place in January,
Speaker 2: in fact, one of the coldest januaries in the history
Speaker 2: of New Orleans.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Wow, I knew you'd say that.
Speaker 3: Wow. Okay, So, like I said, something happened where these
Speaker 3: poor kids wanted to testify. They wanted to show up
Speaker 3: for Sharif's attempt or for his benefit, and they did.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, these poor kids did. They came and
Speaker 3: they said, we played ball with him. We played until
Speaker 3: I guarantee you they would confirm thirty because remember the
Speaker 3: coach accidentally says nine to thirty at one point. I
Speaker 3: guarantee you they would confirm the timeline. I guarantee you,
Speaker 3: they would confirm that they saw him there, and you
Speaker 3: know what's sad. I still don't know if that would
Speaker 3: have been enough, because again we talked about the issues
Speaker 3: with people who know you and quote care about you
Speaker 3: being your alibi, but they didn't even have a chance.
Speaker 3: Sharif didn't even have a chance. They literally did. They said, hey,
Speaker 3: go hide out over here, that's where that's where you
Speaker 3: need to be, with all the purpose being they cannot
Speaker 3: contradict the story we've told the jury, and that's exactly
Speaker 3: what they were.
Speaker 2: Going to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, just imagine you're the jury and you see
Speaker 1: three alibi witnesses just not show up to testify in
Speaker 1: their scheduled date. They're probably thinking to themselves, well, they
Speaker 1: probably knew that Sharif is guilty and that he committed
Speaker 1: the murder, and they were planning to perjure themselves, but
Speaker 1: they probably chickened out and that's why they didn't testify
Speaker 1: when all along they were just directed to the wrong
Speaker 1: place by the prosecuting attorneys. So it's just terrible. Shakairi.
Speaker 3: Yet they cared about him, so they like they would
Speaker 3: show up. But if they don't show up, it shows
Speaker 3: either they don't want to get involved. Maybe they've grown
Speaker 3: apart because he is a killer, right and they were
Speaker 3: gonna lie because they cared about him, But now they don't.
Speaker 3: It looks bad.
Speaker 2: I think through the lens of twenty twenty five, if
Speaker 2: people are familiar with true crime, they might look at
Speaker 2: that in a different way. They might think that if
Speaker 2: three witnesses don't show up, that is really strange. If
Speaker 2: one decides to bail, okay, but you almost have to
Speaker 2: ask the question if there was witness intimidation or something
Speaker 2: else was afoot. But I think back then nobody was
Speaker 2: going to be asking those questions, and there was probably
Speaker 2: a lot more trust with the police and the prosecution.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, exactly, Like back in nineteen ninety five. I
Speaker 1: don't think the average jury member was aware how unreliable
Speaker 1: eyewitness identification could be, and that had led to many
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions. So they were going to take Connie Babben's
Speaker 1: testimony as as gospel. But of course, if t happened today,
Speaker 1: I think enough people are familiar enough with these cases
Speaker 1: and have listened to enough podcasts that they might find
Speaker 1: this whole thing suspicious. Well, I hate to tell you this, ash,
Speaker 1: but It gets even worse, as perhaps the most shocking
Speaker 1: allegation of misconduct involved the tape recorded statement of coach
Speaker 1: Eric White's pre trial interview with Roger Jordan. To recap,
Speaker 1: White testified that the basketball game ended sometime between ten
Speaker 1: twenty and ten thirty PM, but when he asked what
Speaker 1: time the game ended during the recording, White could be
Speaker 1: heard answering nine thirty. Theoretically, this still would have given
Speaker 1: enough time for Sharif to make it to the French
Speaker 1: quarter to commit the murder at ten twenty six. But
Speaker 1: here's the big problem. Multiple games took place at the
Speaker 1: recreation center that night, and an extra game was added
Speaker 1: at the last minute, which caused Shreef's game to be delayed.
Speaker 1: As a result, it did not actually start until nine thirty.
Speaker 1: White maintained that he only answered nine to thirty when
Speaker 1: Jordan asked him what time the game started, not when
Speaker 1: it ended. According to White, when Jordan recorded the interview,
Speaker 1: he used a micro cassette tape recorder, but when Jordan
Speaker 1: played the interview during the trial, he used a regular
Speaker 1: tape recorder. As a result, White became convinced that Jordan
Speaker 1: had doctored the tape and edited his answer. He even
Speaker 1: went so far as to openly object when the tape
Speaker 1: was played in court, but was not allowed to elaborate
Speaker 1: on this issue for the jury. If that wasn't enough,
Speaker 1: it turned out that investigators for the prosecution had also
Speaker 1: interviewed a pair of brothers who refereed the games that night,
Speaker 1: and they also stated that Sharif's game ended right before
Speaker 1: ten thirty. But this information was never shared with the defense.
Speaker 3: Why why why would you sit there and say it
Speaker 3: is not even a question. It is confirmed over and
Speaker 3: over and over again by the referees. Have a reason
Speaker 3: to lie on his behalf. Like there's multiple people, his
Speaker 3: entire team, his coach, people signing the players in for
Speaker 3: the game, Reese, and and then you have other factors
Speaker 3: that they know, Connie saying that she didn't really see
Speaker 3: them very well. You have other people who are recount
Speaker 3: recanting their testimonies, saying, you know, I said his name,
Speaker 3: but I know he wasn't there. It is wild that
Speaker 3: human life means so little to you. It's just his
Speaker 3: kid was a throwaway to them. He was a like
Speaker 3: he was discarded, like a piece of trash. Like you
Speaker 3: just go ahead and they're going to stick a needle
Speaker 3: in your arm and kill you. And that's okay with
Speaker 3: me because I'm gonna win this case. I'm gonna lock
Speaker 3: somebody up and all the wild guys. There's a real
Speaker 3: killer who confronted this couple and shot the man in
Speaker 3: the face, and we're just gonna send a kid to
Speaker 3: death row for it, even though we know he didn't
Speaker 3: do it. I don't understand there's multiple players in this
Speaker 3: that knew they were wrong and they did it anyway.
Speaker 3: I just cannot understand that.
Speaker 1: In Another factor is if you're recalled. There were three
Speaker 1: people involved in the crime, the shooter and two accomplices,
Speaker 1: Yet they arrest Sharif send them to death row, and
Speaker 1: they don't seem to care too much about finding these
Speaker 1: two other accomplices who were an accessory to murder. And
Speaker 1: that's probably because they know Sharif did not have two
Speaker 1: accomplices because he didn't do it.
Speaker 2: You could see something similar like this happening in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: It's any of those places that are like tourist destinations.
Speaker 2: They always want to wrap it up quickly and they
Speaker 2: don't seem to be too concerned with the details. There
Speaker 2: seems to be so many cases from New Orleans, lots
Speaker 2: from Las Vegas too, where it's like, let's just wrap.
Speaker 5: It up, even if it's a frame up job, Let's just.
Speaker 2: Do it quickly because we don't want to affect the
Speaker 2: influx of cash and tourists to this destination.
Speaker 3: Yes, you have to paint a story that this can't
Speaker 3: happen to you, and don't worry. If anything does happen,
Speaker 3: we quickly apprehend and really significantly punish the person responsible.
Speaker 3: And it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Well, all these shocking revelations prompted Sharif's defense attorneys to
Speaker 2: file an appeal with the Louisiana Supreme Court, arguing the
Speaker 2: prosecution had committed a number of Brady violations by withholding
Speaker 2: so much exculpatory evidence. They now believed there were major
Speaker 2: credibility issues with Connie Babbin's eyewitness testimony and that without it,
Speaker 2: there was literally no evidence that Shariff committed the crime.
Speaker 2: The defense also had issues with the prosecution's decision to
Speaker 2: call George Soemino and Detective Daniel Wharton to the stand
Speaker 2: as rebuttal witnesses. When James Raoul recounted his story, Their
Speaker 2: argument was that the prosecution was now using Semino and
Speaker 2: Wharton's memories of Raoul's earlier statements to strengthen their case
Speaker 2: for Sharif's guilt, but their testimony was nothing more than
Speaker 2: hearsay and should not have been considered evidence.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: The Louisiana Supreme Court agreed with this particular argument and
Speaker 2: stated that a quote flagrant misuse of evidence had taken place,
Speaker 2: so in April nineteen ninety eight, they overturned Sharif's conviction
Speaker 2: and ordered a new trial. By this point, Sharif's case
Speaker 2: had already been featured on a number of television shows
Speaker 2: and generated a lot of controversy, but there was still
Speaker 2: uncertainty about whether or not he would be taken to
Speaker 2: trial again. The case garnered the attention of prominent human
Speaker 2: rights advocate Bianca Jagger, the former wife of singer Mick Jagger,
Speaker 2: who announced her plans to travel to New Orleans and
Speaker 2: organize some protests and rallies. While before any of this
Speaker 2: could happen, Sharif was suddenly offered a plea bargain on
Speaker 2: January eighth, nineteen ninety nine, so in exchange for pleading
Speaker 2: guilty to the murder, Sharif would be sentenced to time
Speaker 2: served and taken off death row, but he turned down
Speaker 2: the deal. Within a few hours of Sharif making this decision,
Speaker 2: the Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry Connick Senior, publicly announced
Speaker 2: that his office was going to drop the case because
Speaker 2: there just wasn't enough evidence to take Sharif to trial again.
Speaker 2: Sharif was removed from death row, he would still have
Speaker 2: to remain in prison to serve out the remainder of
Speaker 2: his sentence for the armed robbery charges that he pled
Speaker 2: guilty to.
Speaker 3: It's erroneous, Okay, let me let me uh that he
Speaker 3: should have never pled guilty to.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I love it here. He's sitting there and he's he's
Speaker 3: approached with this deal. You're a kid, and you know
Speaker 3: that your outcome is likely death. Right, that's what you've
Speaker 3: been sentenced to. And all of a sudden you get
Speaker 3: a reprieve that they're going to drop the charges, and
Speaker 3: they say, hey, we're going to recharge you. Okay, we're
Speaker 3: coming after you again because we know you did it.
Speaker 3: And all you got to do is say I did
Speaker 3: it and you can basically go home after you serve
Speaker 3: your armed robbery charges because you'll be off death row,
Speaker 3: you'll have already served your murder sentence, and you are
Speaker 3: home free. What they're doing is they're trying to avoid
Speaker 3: any responsibility for wrongfully convicting this kid. They're trying to
Speaker 3: get it where they can be excused from all they're
Speaker 3: wrongdoing because he just told you he's guilty. Sharif's smarter
Speaker 3: than that. And Sharif says I didn't do it. I've
Speaker 3: already suffered enough with people thinking I did it, and
Speaker 3: my answer is no. And what makes it wild is
Speaker 3: that just within a few hours, the prosecution says, you
Speaker 3: know what, we're not going to recharge you anyway. So literally,
Speaker 3: you can tell the only reason that they went to
Speaker 3: him with that plea deal was to try to excuse
Speaker 3: themselves from any further responsibility, financial compensation, anything like that.
Speaker 3: But thank the Lord that you did have somebody who
Speaker 3: was willing to relook at the evidence and say we
Speaker 3: cannot reprosecute this case. Now at this point, I'm assuming
Speaker 3: they're not declaring his actual innocence, which again would hold
Speaker 3: them responsible. But Harry Connick Senior, remember Harry Knock Junior's dad,
Speaker 3: we've seen him in a very recent in case where
Speaker 3: was that.
Speaker 1: It was the Crystal Champagne murder, which took place in
Speaker 1: the suburbs of New Orleans in nineteen ninety six, just
Speaker 1: a year after this crime, and was prosecuted by his nephew,
Speaker 1: Paul Conic. And in Part two we're going to talk
Speaker 1: more about the whole situation with the Conic family. But
Speaker 1: it is interesting to see the parallels because Paul Conic,
Speaker 1: when he realized he had sent an innocent man to
Speaker 1: death row, fought very hard to get the conviction overturned
Speaker 1: and admitted he was wrong. But Harry Conic Senior would
Speaker 1: not do the same thing.
Speaker 3: Nope, he's saying, hey, let's try to trick this kid
Speaker 3: to say he's guilty so that we're not held capable
Speaker 3: and then we don't owe him anything. And then he says, oh,
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to recharge you anyway, no worries.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Like, how many cases are you going to
Speaker 1: offer someone on death row for murder a plea deal
Speaker 1: where you said, plea guilty and we'll send you to
Speaker 1: time served, Like they're not going to do that to
Speaker 1: a guilty person.
Speaker 2: This is feeling very like West Memphis three.
Speaker 1: Yep, very much.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh. I love when Damien
Speaker 3: Eggles is told basically, you've got your two code offindants,
Speaker 3: all three of you need to plead guilty in order
Speaker 3: to get Damien off death row. He's the only one
Speaker 3: on death row. And the two are going nope, nope,
Speaker 3: we didn't do it, we didn't do it. And Damien
Speaker 3: has to say, listen, you need to help me. If
Speaker 3: we take an Alfred plea, at least my life is spared,
Speaker 3: and then we'll have to fight for accountability for the
Speaker 3: people who have wronged us. But like, what a desperate
Speaker 3: situation of integrity and desire to prove your innocence and
Speaker 3: then knowing you're running out of time for your friend
Speaker 3: to not be killed for something you know is wrong
Speaker 3: and that he's innocent. It's insane.
Speaker 1: On a side note there, they are still trying to
Speaker 1: do DNA testing in the West Memphis three case, but
Speaker 1: it keeps getting postponed, so hopefully we do get a
Speaker 1: conclusive answer at some point.
Speaker 3: Didn't they get a lot of information that justified the
Speaker 3: stepdad doing it?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Terry Hobbs, one of the stepdads, one of the victims,
Speaker 1: is considered a potential alternate suspect to be the killer,
Speaker 1: but they're hoping to conclusively prove that if they can
Speaker 1: test the DNA, OH.
Speaker 3: That would be fantastic.
Speaker 2: If anyone's interested in long form coverage of this. The
Speaker 2: prosecutors are taking it on. They're on the episode two
Speaker 2: right now, but they're saying like there could be like
Speaker 2: twenty episodes, twenty eight episodes of this case. They're going
Speaker 2: through all the legal minutia and every little detail of it,
Speaker 2: and they're so thorough. Bretton Alis are amazing. So if
Speaker 2: anybody's looking to want to go deeper with that case,
Speaker 2: they're going to uncover things that you've never heard before.
Speaker 1: So Sharif's family filed a civil lawsuit against the District
Speaker 1: Attorney's office and the New Orleans Police Department, naming Roger Jordan,
Speaker 1: Byron Barry, and Detective Anthony Small as the defendants. Harry
Speaker 1: Connock Senior was also listed as a defendant, as they
Speaker 1: sought to hold them liable for his failure to properly
Speaker 1: train and supervise the prosecutors from his office. But in
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, the US Court of Appeals for
Speaker 1: the Fifth Circuit dismissed the lawsuit, that Jordan and Barry
Speaker 1: were protected by the doctrine of absolute prosecutorial immunity and
Speaker 1: that Conic had qualified immunity. However, a separate complaint was
Speaker 1: filed against Jordan with the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board for
Speaker 1: his allegimist conduct during Sharif's trial. In two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: Jordan wound up being disciplined for his actions by the
Speaker 1: Louisiana Supreme Court, the first time they had ever done
Speaker 1: so to a prosecutor. But Jordan's punishment was nothing more
Speaker 1: than a three month suspension, which would be waived on
Speaker 1: the provision that he did not commit another ethics breach
Speaker 1: over the course of the next year. While most people
Speaker 1: considered this to be a slap on the wrist, Jordan
Speaker 1: still felt that the ruling was too harsh and tarnished
Speaker 1: his otherwise unblemish record, so he made an unsuccessful attempt
Speaker 1: to appeal the decision. In September of that year, Sharif
Speaker 1: was paroled for his armed robbery charges, and he finally
Speaker 1: got to walk out of prison, Though it was a
Speaker 1: very bittersweet feeling. Since Hurricane Katrina had destroyed his family's
Speaker 1: home less than one month beforehand, so he was forced
Speaker 1: to go live at a cousin's house in Bowser City.
Speaker 3: How sad I still remember Hurricane Katrina and you can
Speaker 3: still see remnants of that damage when you go to
Speaker 3: New Orleans. It's so so sad. The disparity and income
Speaker 3: and things like that, the tension to certain areas and
Speaker 3: little jurisdictions down there. It was It's pitiful that you
Speaker 3: still see places that were never rebuilt or restored. And
Speaker 3: he's in prison when all this is happening. You think
Speaker 3: about losing your family home. You think about the years
Speaker 3: that he was sitting there for something he did not
Speaker 3: do in the level of the prison on death row,
Speaker 3: and then and you as a very violent armed robber,
Speaker 3: he was not with people doing white collar check writing.
Speaker 3: You know, this is He's in a very intense situation.
Speaker 3: And so in some ways, I'm praying that that move
Speaker 3: to Bosier City actually put him maybe in a better environment,
Speaker 3: even though I know in his heart he wanted to
Speaker 3: go to his family home that no longer existed. Do
Speaker 3: you know if he ever returned to New Orleans or
Speaker 3: do you or did he stay in Bosuer City course ACTI.
Speaker 1: Jules was going to tell you about it.
Speaker 2: This part's going to make you sad ash.
Speaker 3: Oh no, this has already been a day.
Speaker 2: Yeah so, And this is the callback to why I
Speaker 2: asked you earlier to define recidivism. Sharife eventually moved to
Speaker 2: Georgia and got a job as a legal clerk for
Speaker 2: the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. He also
Speaker 2: wound up marrying a woman with three kids, and they
Speaker 2: had another child together, which Sharif was unable to financially
Speaker 2: support his new family. In two thousand and eight, Sharif
Speaker 2: found himself in more legal trouble when he was caught
Speaker 2: using his boss's name, birth date, and social Security number
Speaker 2: in order to obtain credit cards and rack up forty
Speaker 2: two thousand dollars in purchases. Sharif pled guilty to identity
Speaker 2: fraud and credit card fraud and received a ten year
Speaker 2: prison sentence. After serving three years, he was paroled for
Speaker 2: good behavior and eventually moved back to New Orleans. He's
Speaker 2: since become an activist for ending the death penalty in
Speaker 2: Louisiana and had become involved with helping the wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 2: He's also done work for such organizations as Witness to Innocence,
Speaker 2: a nonprofit organization which supports people who've been exonerated from
Speaker 2: death row, and the Resurrection After Exoneration Project, which was
Speaker 2: founded by John Thompson, another wrongfully convicted death row inmate,
Speaker 2: whom we will be discussing in part two of this series.
Speaker 2: In spite of everything that has happened, the Orleans Parish
Speaker 2: District Attorney's Office still seems to hold the position that
Speaker 2: Sharif Couzin was guilty of Michael Gerardi's murder. As a result,
Speaker 2: Michael's real killers have never been brought to justice and
Speaker 2: the crime technically remains unsolved.
Speaker 1: So I guess you could say the path when Chile.
Speaker 3: They do not. They do not think that Sharif is
Speaker 3: actually guilty of this murder. They cannot admit that they
Speaker 3: did something wrong. And there's so many different players who
Speaker 3: are wrong in this situation. It's not one thing that
Speaker 3: went wrong where it's easy to say like, oh wow,
Speaker 3: who would have known that was wrong? And during the
Speaker 3: trial we messed up. There are multiple individuals who knowingly hid, disgraced,
Speaker 3: embarrassed the evidence that was presented right, it wasn't real evidence.
Speaker 3: They hid the real evidence. They manipulated people. They even
Speaker 3: cashed in and made themselves a quick five thousand dollars
Speaker 3: through a tip call, just to benefit their own family.
Speaker 3: It's a really, really bad case. And you're right, Sharif
Speaker 3: was set up to fail from the beginning of his life.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: He's born into a circumstance where the kids have to
Speaker 3: fight hard to have a better life for themselves with
Speaker 3: very little resources and sometimes without a lot of support.
Speaker 3: And Reef goes and he gets married. He has three kids,
Speaker 3: and when they have another kiddo, it's expensive, it's stressful.
Speaker 3: Sharif is the man of the house. He needs to
Speaker 3: be the provider. And Sharif was never taught how to
Speaker 3: do any of those things. Remember, he did not have
Speaker 3: a father. You do have his basketball coach, who seemed
Speaker 3: to be a really positive male role model. But Sharif
Speaker 3: is building a family from basically his imagination of what
Speaker 3: it's supposed to look like. And remember, because his awesome
Speaker 3: public defenders told him to plead guilty to armed robbery,
Speaker 3: he's a felon, and so when he's released and out
Speaker 3: there seeking positions that are going to hire him and
Speaker 3: give him a paycheck. His options are incredibly limited. You're
Speaker 3: talking about a fast food restaurants, maybe some manual labor positions,
Speaker 3: but nothing that's going to be a competitive, good pay
Speaker 3: type of job because there's a lot of peace people
Speaker 3: buying for those and if I can hire someone who's
Speaker 3: not an armed robber potential murderer, I'm going to do that.
Speaker 3: So Sharif has a stigma that he's having to battle.
Speaker 3: There is no surprise that he was desperate, and it
Speaker 3: was easy for him to say, hey, listen, I don't
Speaker 3: know what else to do. I'm gonna get some information
Speaker 3: from someone who has the ability to get money. And
Speaker 3: he tries to provide for his family the wrong way,
Speaker 3: but to him, probably the best way he knew how.
Speaker 3: And again, remember the people who did teach him how
Speaker 3: to be a man were the people he served next
Speaker 3: to you in prison, which is not the kind of people
Speaker 3: you want raising you. He was a child in a
Speaker 3: man's world, in a very dangerous man's world, and then
Speaker 3: he's thrown out on the streets with a record and
Speaker 3: expected to function and be successful. He did pretty darn good,
Speaker 3: and now, thank the Lord, he can use his tragedy
Speaker 3: for purpose and work with groups like Witness Tenniscence Resurrection.
Speaker 3: After exoneration, I worked specifically with Witness Tennessence and Sabrina Butler,
Speaker 3: who was a mother accused of killing her child and
Speaker 3: as she too was on death row and later was exonerated.
Speaker 3: And it's insane that there's so many people, that there's
Speaker 3: organizations of these individuals. But my god, what a family
Speaker 3: you don't want to be in, but a powerful family
Speaker 3: of fellow wrongfully convicted individuals and they do beautiful, amazing work.
Speaker 3: So it turned out okay for him. He can use
Speaker 3: even the part where he messed up once he was
Speaker 3: released as part of his testimony, like this is why
Speaker 3: not caring about the sixteen year old boy mattered, because
Speaker 3: it wasn't just me at sixteen. It was me when
Speaker 3: I actually had a chance. It's me when I was
Speaker 3: being loved. It's me when I had little ones who
Speaker 3: needed me and I got I got in trouble and
Speaker 3: caught up because I was set up to fail from
Speaker 3: the moment those handcuffs went on me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The good news is that ever since Shereef served
Speaker 1: that time in prison on the product charges, he has
Speaker 1: kept his nose clean since he was paroled and is
Speaker 1: still doing good work today, so at least we do
Speaker 1: have a somewhat happy ending, even though he has never
Speaker 1: been officially exonerated, so this would be a good time
Speaker 1: to bring an end to Part one. Join us next
Speaker 1: week as we present part two of our series about
Speaker 1: the murder of Michael Girardi and the wrongful conviction of
Speaker 1: Sharifquissen Robin.
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