Jennifer Emily reports, " Ex-Dallas death row inmate gets life in prison in plea deal," in the Dallas Morning News.
A man whose death sentence was overturned last year by the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to life in prison Thursday in exchange for Dallas County prosecutors not seeking to execute him. The plea bargain likely means LaRoyce Smith will die in prison.
District Attorney Craig Watkins had said as recently as 11 months ago that he would seek the death penalty against Mr. Smith after the high court overturned his sentence for a second time. The Supreme Court overturned the sentence – but not the conviction – because it ruled that the jury at Mr. Smith's trial was not allowed to consider his low IQ of 78 and that he was a 19-year-old ninth-grader as mitigating factors.
Mr. Smith's plea deal comes one week after a special prosecutor made a plea bargain with a man whose Dallas County conviction and death sentence were overturned by the Supreme Court because of racial bias in jury selection. In that case, Thomas Joe Miller-El pleaded guilty to murder and aggravated robbery, and prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.
In Mr. Smith's case, Dallas County prosecutors David Alex and Kim Schaefer said they offered the plea bargain because even if a jury again sentenced Mr. Smith to death, they would be in court for years litigating issues of mental retardation. The prosecutors said they also would have faced federal court litigation over matters dealing with the guilt/innocence portion of Mr. Smith's original trial.
As part of the plea deal, Mr. Smith, 37, agreed to drop those issues in court.
"Let's say we tried him again and got a death sentence," Mr. Alex said. "They wouldn't have killed him. They would have relitigated those issues."
Earlier coverage of the Smith case is here and here. Oyez.org's Smith v. Texas page is here.
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