CHARLOTTE (Court TV) — Rae Carruth's defense opened its case Monday by putting the police, prosecutors and the state's star witness on trial.

The former NFL player's attorney, David Rudolf, grilled three witnesses associated with the capital murder prosecution to suggest that the investigators ignored leads pointing away from Carruth and sat on evidence requested by the defense.

The brunt of Rudolf's attacks concerned Michael Kennedy, the "wheelman" in the drive-by shooting and the centerpiece witness of the state's case. Kennedy testified that Carruth masterminded the murder of Cherica Adams, a 24-year-old pregnant with his baby, because he did not want to pay child support.

While most of the jurors don't seem as absorbed in the testimony as they did during the heated exchanges that flew between Rudolf and Kennedy, one member of the panel — a former criminal defense attorney — was furiously taking notes throughout Monday's proceeding. Juror No. 9 also spent noticeably more time on each exhibit than the rest of the panel.

But Rudolf opened his case — and the fourth week of the trial — by implying that Kennedy had perjured himself before the jury and the prosecution had done nothing to stop him.

Dismantling Kennedy's credibility is crucial to the defense's case. Rudolf not only wants the jury to discard Kennedy's account of the shooting, but also to believe another scenario in which Kennedy's drug dealing resulted in Adams' death.

On the stand, Kennedy acknowledged dealing crack and admitted two convictions on weapons charges and numerous run-ins with police. But he denied the 1994 shooting of a drug dealer named Thomas Lee. Kennedy was charged with several counts of assault, but the charges were later dropped, according to Kennedy, because the police found a videotape exonerating him.

That claim was cast in serious doubt Monday when Rudolf called the prosecutor who had handled Carruth's defense. Thomas Porter, who has since left the district attorney's office to become a defense attorney, testified that he had plenty of evidence implicating Kennedy. He told jurors that Lee knew Kennedy before the shooting and easily picked Kennedy out of a line up. Porter said he only decided to drop the case because the victim, and chief witness, was in a federal prison in Indiana. There was no videotape, Porter added.

According to the testimony of Officer William Ward Jr., an investigator in Adams' murder case, prosecutor David Graham squashed any inquiry into Kennedy's drug past the morning he was agreeing to testify for the state.

Ward recounted a conversation he had with Graham in the hallway outside the room where Kennedy was speaking to police and prosecutors. Ward claims he asked Graham if he should press Kennedy about drug dealings they received from a third-party tip.

"He walked away, indicating he didn't want him to talk about it," Ward said. "That's what I did. I didn't talk about it."

Rudolf asked Ward, "Would it be fair to say that before he was called as a witness on this case that you never tried to find out the truth about his drug-dealing?"

"I never had that opportunity, that's correct," Ward conceded.

Ward said that he informed his sergeant about the alleged conversation, but it wasn't until after Rudolf filed motions last week charging that police withheld exculpatory information that he was instructed to document the conversation.

The questioning by Rudolf prompted objections by Graham, and the tension surfaced when Rudolf questioned why the prosecutor was voicing an objection out of turn. As the attorney who was about to cross-examine Ward, all objections were supposed to be raised by lead prosecutor Gentry Caudill.

The defense further attacked the police investigation by calling Carruth lead investigator M.S. Conner. The detective, who began working the case within hours of the shooting, also supervised the Lee investigation and admitted knowing Kennedy from the 1994 case. Rudolf grilled him about police interviews with Kennedy, noting that detectives did not record long stretches of questioning. He suggested that the detectives might have "contaminated" Kennedy's account by prompting him on answers during the unrecorded portions. Conner said he had not done so, but Rudolf pressed on.

He pointed out a list of inconsistencies between Kennedy's trial testimony and the account he first gave investigators. Rudolf suggested that Kennedy, who as Carruth's co-defendant was entitled to all discovery information, had changed his account after reviewing other evidence.

"For 12 months or 13 months, he could sit in his cell and read what every other person had said and then come in here and if he wanted to, try to tailor his testimony to what other people had said," said Rudolf.

"It's possible," Conner admitted.

Also testifying was the undercover narcotics officer who pursued a tip by an informant that Kennedy was selling crack cocaine.

Officer Jeffrie Ensminger, who did not appear on camera, testified that he conducted the undercover buy and bust operation that led Kennedy to being charged with possession of narcotics with intent to sell.

But while Ensminger acknowledged that he didn't know why the charge was later dismissed without a formal explanation, he offered his own theory that had nothing to do with the Carruth case.

"My opinion is at some point they tried to discover who the informant was, so we didn't want to give up who the informant was, so the case was dismissed," he said.