NEW ORLEANS — Eight years ago, Cardell Hayes was accused of shooting and killing former Saints player Will Smith in a road rage incident. Tuesday, he was back in court for retrial. His previous conviction was overturned when the Supreme Court deemed non-unanimous jury verdicts unconstitutional.
Jurors heard from people who were at the scene shortly after Will Smith was shot and killed. Two NOPD officers and a 911 worker who filed the call for help took the stand.
One witness said he was off-duty at a nearby bar when he heard a screaming match that quickly escalated. The screaming was followed by multiple gunshots, and when he arrived on the scene, he found Will Smith shot in the back with what he describes as "just a flutter of a pulse."
That's just one of the testimonies jurors heard on Tuesday. They all gave similar accounts of what happened on April 9, 2016. The defense and prosecution both gave their opening remarks, contradicting one another. Prosecutors argued that this crime was no accident, saying that Hayes fired every bullet inside his magazine except for one.
Defense attorneys say he shot the gun in self-defense, protecting himself against Smith, who he thought was going to shoot him. Hayes's attorneys say he didn't even realize that two of his bullets hit Smith's wife, Raquel.
The former NOPD officer who detained Hayes after the incident said she never heard him express remorse or shock when he heard that Raquel had been shot.
Raquel will likely be one of the first witnesses to take the stand on Wednesday, offering a perspective that no other witnesses have.
“She can humanize Will Smith,” Legal Analyst Craig Mordock said. “She can talk about him as a family man, a father, a husband, a brother.”
The trial is expected to resume at 9:30 on Wednesday morning.
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