(7 of 9)
4. The Coach. The murder took place at 10:26 p.m., according to the prosecution. However, Cousin was playing basketball that night--there's even a videotape of the game. Cousin's game, one of several held in the same gym that night, should have ended at 9:30 p.m., but because an extra game was added, Cousin's session, according to several witnesses, started at 9:30 p.m. Eric White, a coach in the city's recreation department, drove Cousin and three of his teammates home that night. "We left the gym between 10:20 p.m. and 10:30," says White. "I dropped Shareef off at quarter to 11. I lived half a block from his house. I remember the time because my wife was sitting up and waiting. She told me what time it was. Shareef couldn't have committed that crime. He was with me." Prosecutor Jordan interviewed White, on tape, about the murders and in court played a recording of White saying the game was over "about 9:30." White charges that the tape was altered. "The tape recorder he used was a microcassette," says White. "The tape he used in the courtroom was a regular cassette. I know he dubbed it...All I could think of is, my God, they've railroaded this kid!" White objected to the tape at the trial but wasn't allowed to elaborate on his protest. Renee and Raymond Douglas, two brothers who refereed the late-night game, also told D.A. investigators that the game ended about 10:30 p.m. Prosecutors never shared these accounts with the defense.
5. Three Teammates. Three basketball players who rode along with Cousin on the night of the murders--Donald Mathieu Jr., Michael Doss and James Smith--were subpoenaed and waiting in the hall outside the courtroom during one of the last days of the trial. The boys were ready to testify that Cousin was with them, in a car, around the time the murder was occurring somewhere else. But they vanished just as defense lawyers were about to call them. Defense lawyers later found out that the boys were taken by prosecutors to the D.A.'s office across the street. Prosecutor Bryon Berry, on the stand during hearings for a new trial, explained "because of it being hot outside and so forth, some of [the boys] were relocated to the D.A.'s office. There's air conditioning, and it's more convenient for them to sit." One problem with that excuse: the trial took place during one of the coldest Januarys in New Orleans history.
THE PROSECUTION
Harry Connick Sr., New Orleans' district attorney and the father of actor-jazzman Harry Connick Jr., puts on a show of his own a few times a month at local jazz clubs. He croons standards like Tin Roof Blues and Up the Lazy River, sometimes threatens to put the band in jail and, as a local lawyer puts it, "shakes his booty" at the audience. It's a loose show. Some lawyers in town say Connick has been running a loose show at the office as well.