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