CHARLOTTE N.C. (Court TV)—Medication, suggestions by other people and the trauma of having been shot could have affected Cherica Adams when she implicated Rae Carruth to 911 operators and police, defense experts testified Monday.

Opening the second week of its case, the defense attempted to chip away at Adams' tearful call to 911 and three pages of notes she scribbled as she lay in her hospital bed in the hours following the Nov. 16, 1999, shooting. In both, she placed the former Carolina Panther at the scene of the drive-by shooting and says that she believes Carruth was responsible.

Dr. Gary Pellom, testifying as an expert in anesthesiology, said that the combination of drugs Adams was taking — including Versed, morphine and Valium — would affect one's ability to make decisions and could alter one's recollection of events.

"All of the drugs acting together would have an adverse impact on her cognitive functioning," said Pellom, once a college football player himself at Duke University.

Pellom, who never examined Adams but was testifying as an expert familiar with studies conducted about the effects of such drugs, also said that a person could appear alert while still under the influence of the drugs. Hospital staff had testified for the prosecution that Adams seemed alert as she recounted the shooting.

During cross-examination, prosecutor David Graham tried to shift the focus to Adams, pressing Pellom for specifics on her condition rather than general information.

Asking Pellom to use his "common sense," he asked Pellom if particular statements Adams made before and after she was given the medication could be used as a baseline to be compared with later statements.

"I'm an expert witness and that's what I'm here to testify to," Pellom said, prompting Judge Charles Lamm to scold Graham on his line of questioning.

"This witness is no more an expert than the jurors to determine past evidence in a case," he said.

Also offering testimony analyzing Adams' statements was Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist, professor at the University of Washington and memory expert. Standing in front of an easel, Loftus used a magic marker to outline a quick lesson in the way the brain processes memories.

"We don't simply record the event and play it back like a videotape would work," she said, facing the jury.

She testified that studies prove that stressful situations can distort one's memory.

"If someone is extremely stressed or extremely frightened, it can have some negative effects on the formation of memory," she said. "A particularly violent event especially upsetting to someone can affect the storage of peripheral details."

She also said it's possible to "pick up a suggestion and adopt it" as one's own recollection and that leading questions can also distort memories.

In analyzing Adams' statements, Loftus said she found a "significant change over a seven-hour period" between her call to 911 operators and the notes she wrote later in the hospital.

For example, Adams told the operator that Carruth's car was in front of hers when he slowed down as another vehicle pulled up alongside. In the notes, Adams says, "he was driving in front of me and stopped," and "he blocked the front."

"In my opinion, this is a very different report — he slowed versus he stopped; nothing about blocking, now he is blocking the front," Loftus testified.

The witness speculated that questioning by any number of police, ambulance workers or family could have contaminated her memory of the shooting with their own hypotheses.

Exactly how significant prosecutors will find that difference — since both statements place Carruth at the scene — will remain a question for Tuesday, when prosecutors get their chance to cross-examine Loftus.