Double Trouble

Smith shrugs. He's sketchy about some details, such as whether Haley retrieved the Blazer alone. "We was all pretty lit up, for real," he says. "It was just all a blank. I don't even know if I was in my right state of mind, I wouldn't have even did it."

But even as Smith repeatedly took the blame, police had trouble confirming that he had really been the shooter.

Looking at a photo lineup that included Smith, Haley and Medlock, half a dozen witnesses pointed out Haley as the gunman.

So police let Smith go and continued to investigate.

Ten days later, Det. William Abney called Smith to ask him to come back to the station and talk about his videotaped statement. By then, Smith had apparently sobered up enough to keep his mouth shut.

"He refused," Abney wrote in a report. "Smith said he did not remember anything about the shooting, being questioned or giving a statement."

A few weeks later, officers arrested Haley at his parents' home and booked him into the Platte County jail. He was indicted on two counts of first-degree assault and two counts of armed criminal action.

Haley was looking at a maximum life sentence if convicted at trial, but he says he refused to accept a plea agreement for a crime he didn't commit.

His three-day trial began on October 10, 2000. Like many defendants who lose at trial, Haley gripes that he had bad legal representation. But his case really does turn on a question about his attorney's defense strategy. Namely, whether that attorney should have had the bloody gun tested for Haley's DNA.

Haley says that Martin Warhurst, the attorney hired by his family, assured him that he could punch holes in the testimony of witnesses. There were too many inconsistencies because of poor lighting outside the club and the chaos after the shots were fired.

In the months leading up to her son's trial, Mary Haley says, she called Warhurst every day and asked him to have the blood on the gun tested. She says Warhurst remained confident that Smith's confession and the shaky witnesses were enough to acquit her son. Besides, he warned her, any trace of Haley's blood on the gun could kill his case.

During the trial, five main witnesses took the stand. Three recalled Haley on the driver's side digging around for something before they heard shots. Two said they saw Haley firing the gun but testified that the shots had come from the passenger side. One of that pair of witnesses recalled Haley inside the Blazer leaning out the passenger-side window with the gun; the other remembered Haley standing outside the Blazer shooting.

The description of the shooter's clothing was just as confused. Witnesses had Haley bare-chested or wearing a dark T-shirt — or a St. Louis Cardinals baseball jersey, which Smith had worn that night.

The lead prosecutor for the case was David Ketchmark, an assistant attorney for Platte County who is now a federal prosecutor. He says the most damning testimony came from Kenny Grigsby, the injured bouncer, who described a tattoo on Haley's right forearm. At Ketchmark's instruction, Haley stood and showed the jury the tattoo that Grigsby had described.

Another bouncer working on the night of the shooting, Troy Dexter, contradicted Grigsby's testimony. He recalled the shooter as the man escorted out of the bar with tattoos on his upper torso — a description that implicated Smith. "There's one thing that will never leave my mind, probably for the rest of my life, and that's the face of the person who shot the gun," Dexter testified. Asked if he remembered the patron who had been kicked out, Dexter said, "Looks like this gentleman right here" — and pointed to Haley.

Jurors saw for themselves how similar Haley and Smith looked when Smith took the stand.

Questioned by Warhurst, Smith confirmed that police officers came to his house carrying a warrant for Haley's arrest and a photograph of Haley to help identify him. Based on the photograph, the cops thought Smith, who answered the door, was Haley. Officers cuffed him; they released him only after he produced his driver's license.

But prosecutors zeroed in on more confusing aspects of the crime. Ketchmark's wife, Roseann (also now a federal prosecutor), was co-counsel in the prosecution. Questioning Smith, she walked him through the night.

"Why should we believe you that you didn't shoot someone if you don't know what happened?" she asked.

"Because I know I didn't shoot anyone."

She then showed the videotaped confession. "I can't deny that it was me because that's me on the tape," Smith said. "But whatever I said on there, I know I didn't do that."

Then she asked Smith to roll up both of his sleeves to show the jury there was no tattoo on either of his forearms.

David Ketchmark argued in court that Smith's mind was filled with too many blanks in his videotaped recollection of the crime. Ketchmark tells the Pitch he has two theories why Smith would confess to a crime he didn't commit.

First, he suggests, Haley made Smith feel guilty for having had Haley bail him out of the fight. It's possible that Haley demanded Smith take the fall and that Smith agreed, Ketchmark says.