Michael Kennedy, the admitted "wheelman" in the drive-by shooting of Cherica Adams, provided devastating testimony against the defense last week when said Carruth was the murder mastermind.

Defense attorney David Rudolf — who maintains Adams was killed during a botched drug deal — harped on the fact that Kennedy was a crack dealer who had been arrested several times and convicted twice for weapons possession.

But a clearly irritated Rudolf complained Monday that police delayed handing over information about a 1996 drug arrest until after Kennedy had stepped down from the witness stand. Kennedy was collared for selling crack to an undercover officer in Nov. 1996, but the state later dropped the charges. Rudolf said dropping the charges in the face of such blatant evidence may indicate that Kennedy was a police snitch.

Prosecutor David Graham told the judge he did not think Kennedy had been an informant, but Rudolf said that regardless, he would have used the arrest to impeach Kennedy's credibility on the stand.

Rudolf asked for all evidence of drug dealing by Kennedy in October, but according to the state, police did not uncover the arrest report until Tuesday when Kennedy finished testimony. Rudolf said he found the timing suspicious, and accused the police of sitting on the evidence to help the prosecution's case.

Although the defense could recall Kennedy to quiz him about the arrest, Rudolf indicated that some damage has already been done to his case.

"The cross is over. The jury doesn't really want to have it reopened," he said, adding "And they (the police) know it."

Judge Charles Lamm said he would decide by Friday whether to hold a hearing into why the report didn't surface earlier.

Rudolf, who has clashed with local police in previous cases, said the department has a "culture" of withholding evidence and that the public should be troubled by what he described as a pattern of defying the law.

"This happens in case after case after case," he said.