LAWYERS REHASH RAPPER'S TRIAL\Defense says case shouldn't have seen court; prosecutors cite\strong evidence.

Byline: Janet Gilmore Daily News Staff Writer

Snoop Doggy Dogg's attorneys said it was a case that never should have gone to trial.

Jurors, who acquitted the rap star and his bodyguard of murder last week in a 1993 drive-by shooting, questioned the testimony of key prosecution witnesses, finding them contradictory and problematic.

Prosecutors said their case was strong.

"We knew, full well, the problems that we had going in," said prosecutor Bobby Grace. "Nobody went into this case with the illusion that it was a slam-dunk case."

Jurors first acquitted the rapper, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, and his bodyguard, McKinley Lee, of first- and second-degree murder. Then they acquitted Broadus of being an accessory after the fact.

The jury deadlocked on voluntary manslaughter in the shooting of Philip Woldemariam.

"Nobody's crying over here and saying we were done wrong or that the jury was stupid," Grace said. "But give us credit for trying to be ethical and responsible prosecutors."

But Donald Re, the attorney who represented Lee, said the grand jury testimony and the testimony from new witnesses showed that prosecutors were trying to put together a case that never should have reached trial.

"It was shocking to watch how they tried to piece the case together," he said. "Everybody contradicted everybody else. It was just unreliable testimony."

The District Attorney's Office contended that the rapper and his bodyguard murdered 20-year-old Woldemariam in the Palms area park.

The shooting, they said, followed a series of events that began with a member of Broadus' group exchanging rival gang insults with Woldemariam as he passed by the bodyguard's home.

Defense attorneys, meanwhile, painted Woldemariam as a hotheaded, gun-toting gang member who forced Lee to shoot in self-defense.

Based on the verdict, Grace said, jurors may have adopted the defense's portrait of Woldemariam and allowed it to color their view of the evidence.

However, he acknowledges that problems plagued the prosecution's case before defense attorneys had spoken a word.

Several witnesses, who were also friends with Woldemariam, told police he was unarmed during the shooting. Then, at a grand jury hearing, they admitted that Woldemariam was armed and that they had removed his weapon and disposed of it.

"Everyone had to take a look at that and say our case had been seriously damaged," Grace said.

But Grace's optimism returned when the grand jury - which he characterized as a group of older, generally conservative members of the community who don't like gang members - returned an indictment charging the defendants with murder even though the victim was armed.

"I thought that was a good barometer to determine if a (trial court) jury would at least listen to this type of evidence," Grace said.

Besides, Grace said, many experienced gang prosecutors said the office could win the case. And while co-prosecutor Ed Nison got mixed assessment on whether the office could win, Nison had confidence in the basic facts of the case.

As the case moved toward trial, Grace said the prosecution found new witnesses, apart from the victims' cronies, who would testify that Woldemariam was not raising his hand to shoot when the final incident occurred.

This, they expected, would offset the shaky testimony of Woldemariam's friends who lied to police about the victim being armed.

Prosecutors said some of their witnesses clearly were reluctant to testify, other witnesses were perhaps less than coherent, and defense attorneys exploited their testimony for their own purposes.

Re disagreed.

"At some point," he said, "a prosecutor and the prosecutors' office should be able to come to grips with the fact that they made a mistake in a given case.

"All that (their explanations) means is that in the future they're going to continue to make the same mistakes . . . when the blame rests solely with the prosecution."

Re contends that Woldemariam was shot in the side, less than an inch toward the back - a position that he argues is consistent with Woldemariam attempting to shoot at Lee and turning to flee.

And he notes that one of the prosecution witnesses testified that Woldemariam appeared to be motioning toward his waistband when the shooting occurred.

For Lee to shoot at that point, he said, is "the nature of self-defense."

Prosecutors dismiss the defense contentions as illogical. In their view the defendants had been stalking Woldemariam and, in the final park confrontation, were driving up to teach him a lesson.

It was not reasonable for Woldemariam to arm himself, they contend, given that he had been chased by the group and then followed into the park by them.

"I don't think that we did a very good job of communicating our argument," Grace said.

And jurors may have overlooked physical evidence and reliable witness testimony because of their biases about the victim and his friends' gang ties, prosecutors said.

It didn't help, said prosecutor Nison, that jurors were given a squeaky-clean image of the rap star who showed up in court in a suit and tie, his supporters and smiling 2-year-old son in tow.

"When you have the ability to dress up defendants and bring in this cheering section," Nison said, "I think there is a tendency of people to say "look at them, they can't be that bad of a person.' "

Before the trial began, Nison said, the judge disallowed into evidence documents indicating the rapper's past gang affiliation and excerpts from an October 1995 Playboy magazine interview in which the rapper is quoted as talking about street mentality and the compulsion to shoot, rather than talk peacefully to, gang rivals encountered on the street.

The judge kept both items out of trial, finding the gang-affiliation allegations too remote in time and the magazine article more prejudicial than probative.

The District Attorney's Office is scheduled to hold a status hearing on the case March 18 to determine whether to retry Lee, 26, and Broadus, 24, on the deadlocked voluntary manslaughter charge.