NEW ORLEANS – There were admonishments from the bench and sobs from the gallery. There was a heated request for a mistrial (it was denied).

There was an allegation that the witness was making an angry face at an onlooker and that an onlooker was flipping off the witness. There was continued talk about a gentlemen’s club visit that almost assuredly never occurred (apparently saying “Penthouse” in open court is impossible to resist). There was the bashing of police work. There was criticism of a lawyer’s career tactics.

There was the out-of-left-field revelation of a brain surgery.

Across four Thursday morning hours here at Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, the second-degree murder trial of Cardell Hayes reached its most heated, most theatrical and most intense moments yet. Hayes is charged with killing former New Orleans Saints great Will Smith. A jury of 12 will determine his fate, which could include life in prison.

Kevin O’Neal was the witness here on Day 3 of the trial, speaking up, but not always effectively speaking for, his best friend, Hayes.

The two have known each other since starring on the football team at nearby Warren Easton High School. They later played semi-pro football together. O’Neal declared himself “torn up” over seeing his friend in such a predicament.

On the fateful night of April 9, 2016, it was O’Neal riding shotgun in Hayes’ Hummer 2 when they encountered Smith and his party after a series of small traffic accidents in the Lower Garden District. After a verbal altercation in the street, Hayes unloaded a firearm he pulled out. Smith wound up dead, including seven bullets in his back. His wife was wounded, her legs shot up. Hayes claimed self-defense, namely that in midst of a wild scene Smith was en route to get his own gun and shoot first.

From the start O’Neal has been Hayes’ most loyal advocate. That night he attempted to keep members of Smith’s party from rushing Hayes during the argument just prior to the shooting. When it was over, he stepped in and answered questions from bystanders trying to film reactions.

During the past eight months, he has argued for Hayes’ innocence – not simply to authorities and a grand jury, but also national media outlets and into the camera phones of local advocates.

View photos John Fuller, the defense attorney for Cardell Hayes, called for a mistrial during one courtroom exchange. (AP) More

He’s at odds with Hayes’ defense team of John Fuller and Jay Daniels because he blames the two skilled and prominent local attorneys for not getting Hayes out sooner. That has included publicly calling Fuller a “sellout” and other comments the prosecution was eager to convey to the jury.

“Do you recall saying Fuller is a ‘nobody’ who gets people off on technicalities when he knows they are guilty?” prosecutor Laura Rodrigue asked O’Neal.

Fuller immediately stood, threw his yellow legal pad on the defense table and shouted, “motion for a mistrial, motion for a mistrial.”

Judge Camille Buras refused that request and soon enough Fuller was back to being cool and calm.

“I don’t even care that you said it,” Fuller said to O’Neal before motioning to the prosecutors. “They call me worse all the time.”

Much of the courtroom laughed, a rare bit of levity in an overwrought murder trial.

*****

The state and Fuller are engaged in a long-standing and bitter rivalry, featuring dueling ethics violation claims and high-profile cases (Fuller is on a winning streak). It serves as the backdrop to everything here, with neither side willing to give an inch, especially in a trial that has captured the region’s attention.

At one point there was a lot of shouting, and a hastily called sidebar, in a dispute over whether the defense asked the prosecution to provide lunch Thursday for a minor eyewitness. The verdict: maybe. It was ridiculous, and it spoke to the frayed nerves among the lawyers, if not everyone else.

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