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Twist could lead to new trial

A man convicted of murder finds a technicality in his 2001 trial that could win him a new one.

By MOLLY MOORHEAD
Published January 19, 2007

DADE CITY - Lawrence Joey Smith had just finished a stint in a Missouri jail for burglary when Pasco County authorities identified him as the shooter of two teenagers on a darkened Land O'Lakes highway nearly eight years ago.

Then 22 and living in Spring Hill, Smith had carved a lucrative niche for himself as a drug runner, hooking up buyers and sellers and taking cuts for himself. At one point, he was charged with a sex crime involving his 15-year-old girlfriend.

As he said himself during his 2001 murder trial, Smith was "no angel."

But since his conviction for the September 1999 execution-style killing of one teenager and the attempted murder of another, Smith has formed a new identity, that of a self-taught lawyer.

His legal tactics had found mixed success in court until Thursday, when he unearthed a technicality that could win him a whole new trial.

With the help of a private lawyer, Smith is representing himself in proceedings leading up to a new sentence. Circuit Judge Maynard Swanson sentenced Smith to death after his trial, but in 2004 an appeals court said the judge made an error and granted Smith a new penalty phase.

Now even the guilt phase is in play.

Under Florida's criminal procedure rules, potential jurors must take an oath twice, once in a pool before they are questioned by lawyers and again when they are selected to serve on the panel. Smith, who researched the issue himself, says that at his trial the second swearing-in occurred, but not the first.

Assistant State Attorney Manny Garcia read the trial transcript during Thursday's hearing and all but agreed.

"I do not see Judge Swanson ever indicated to the clerk ... 'Jurors, please stand,'" Garcia said.

He said he wants to listen to the tape of the jury selection - if one exists - to see whether the transcript may have an omission.

"I'm not acquiescing that the record is correct," he said. "Maybe it was said" but not transcribed.

Circuit Judge Lynn Tepper read it, too.

"I do think this is a potentially fundamental issue," Tepper said.

She set a quick turnaround for a hearing on the issue - next week.

If she rules for Smith, it will be the second huge blow to the state's prosecution in the grisly crime.

Smith and co-defendant Faunce Pearce were convicted in the Sept. 14, 1999, shootings of 17-year-old Robert Crawford and his friend Stephen Tuttle, 16, on a then-remote stretch of State Road 54. The teens had been enlisted to buy 1,000 doses of LSD with $1,200 of Pearce's money. But they were duped out of the cash and went back to Pearce empty-handed. The teens were taken to a dark stretch of SR 54 before dawn and shot execution-style. Smith, authorities said, was the trigger man; Pearce, the mastermind.

Crawford died within minutes. Tuttle, who was shot in the head, survived by plugging his wound and was able to testify about the crime.

After juries in separate trials convicted Smith and Pearce, both were sentenced to die.

But just last month, Tepper granted Pearce a new trial, for now setting aside his death penalty. She agreed that his trial lawyers made errors that might have affected the outcome.

The state has not decided whether to appeal the Pearce ruling, Garcia said. But if Pearce gets a new trial, prosecutors will again seek death.

Keith Hammond, the attorney assisting Smith, said having sworn jurors is every defendant's right.

"A defendant has to know that the answers given by the prospective jurors are truthful," he said.

Molly Moorhead can be reached at 352 521-6521 or moorhead@sptimes.com.

[Last modified January 18, 2007, 23:32:09]