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Thread: Brad Hunter Smith - Arkansas

  1. #11
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Death Row inmate loses appeal of Cleveland County conviction

    By the Magnolia Reporter

    An appeal by a man sentenced to die as the consequence of a Cleveland County homicide was turned down Thursday by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

    Brad Hunter Smith asked the court to act on issues he raised dealing with the sentencing phase of his trial in the murder of Cherrish Allbright and her unborn child.

    The bodies of Cherrish Allbright and her unborn child were found buried in an unmarked grave on December 10, 2015. Allbright had an arrow through her back and she had suffered two, severe, blunt-force impacts to the back of her head, which caused her death.

    Smith was arrested and charged with her murder. Following a jury trial in Cleveland County, he was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.

    Trial testimony indicated that in November 2015, Allbright disclosed to Smith that she was pregnant with his child. Throughout the following weeks he made numerous comments to friends, family, and coworkers that he needed help committing a murder.

    Smith enlisted the help of his two friends, Jonathan Guenther and Joshua Brown, to kill Allbright and hide her body. According to the plan, Brown would call Allbright under the pretenses of wanting to smoke marijuana and then drive her to a nearby field where Guenther and Smith would be lying in wait.

    When Brown arrived at the field with Allbright, Guenther and Smith were hiding behind some trees. When Allbright exited and walked to the front of the vehicle, Smith stood up and shot her through the back with a crossbow bolt.

    She attempted to get back into the vehicle, but Smith ordered her to get down on the ground on her knees. He then used a wooden baseball bat to hit her twice in the back of the head, killing her.

    The trio then loaded the body onto the back of a trailer, transported it to a gravesite behind Smith’s house, and buried her.

    Officers from the Cleveland County Sherriff’s Department brought Brown in for questioning on an unrelated matter and, upon encouragement from his mother, he confessed to the murder and led officers to the grave. Based on the information Brown provided, officers from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission were ultimately able to arrest Smith.

    Smith was charged with kidnapping, abuse of a corpse, and capital murder. The jury convicted him on all charges and he was sentenced to 20 years, 10 years, and death respectively. He only challenged his sentence for capital murder on appeal.

    Smith, 22, remains incarcerated at the Varner Supermax Unit.

    Circuit Court Judge David Talley of Magnolia heard the case at trial.

    http://www.magnoliareporter.com/news...3fc08640d.html

  2. #12
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Smith's petition for certiorari.

    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Arkansas
    Case Numbers: (CR-17-889)
    Decision Date: October 4, 2018
    Rehearing Denied: November 15, 2018
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  3. #13
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Resentencing ordered in death sentence case from Cleveland County

    The Arkansas Supreme Court today ruled that Brad Hunter Smith should be resentenced on his capital murder conviction for the kidnapping and murder of Cherrish Allbright in Cleveland County in January 2016.

    His conviction and death sentence were upheld originally, but in seeking post-conviction relief Smith said he’d had ineffective counsel because his trial lawyer dropped an objection to the prosecution’s using Allbright’s pregnancy as an aggravating circumstance justifying the death penalty.

    The Supreme Court’s 5-2 decision today turned on whether Allbright’s five-week-old embryo was a person under the statute, which says a person commits capital murder if “with the premeditated and deliberated purpose of causing the death of another person, the person causes the death of any person.”

    A separate statute in the criminal code defines a person as “an unborn child in utero at any stage of development.” Said the court:

    If the legislature did not extend the definition to sentencing, the court said in an opinion by Justice Courtney Hudson, “It is not this court’s role to act as a legislative body and create a sentencing scheme that does not exist.”

    The jury found two aggravating circumstances, the death of another person and that the crime was especially cruel or depraved.

    In resentencing, Smith can raise other points he said counsel had failed to present, including the mitigating circumstance that he had no criminal history.

    Darren O’Quinn, sitting as a special justice for Justice Robin Wynne, concurred to make the point that it was especially important to get such issues right as soon as possible rather than late in the extended appeals death cases receive in state and federal court.

    Justices Rhonda Wood and Shawn Womack dissented, with Wood writing: “The majority holding that, within this narrow homicide statutory scheme, an “unborn child” is a person in one context and not a person in another is an artificial distinction.”

    https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2...eveland-county
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  4. #14
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Ted's Avatar
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    Given that there's no evidence suggesting Allbright planned to have a termination, I think it's safe to say the loss of that pregnancy along with her murder should count towards Smith's sentence. (Not that he should've gotten off the hook if she did, but I digress.)
    Violence and death seem to be the only answers that some people understand.

  5. #15
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    Has the state appealed the State SC decision? In the 5 months since the State SC ruling I can find nothing (using Google) has happened to schedule the trial or appeal the decision.

  6. #16
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Smith Gets Life Sentence for 2017 Murder Conviction

    By Cleveland County Herald

    RISON – Brad Hunter Smith, sentenced to death by a Cleveland County Circuit Court jury for the 2015 murder of Cherrish Faith Allbright near the Pleasant Ridge community, had his sentence reduced to life in prison without parole Tuesday.

    Circuit Judge David Talley, Jr. issued the new sentence following a 5-2 decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court in December that the found the prosecution could not use Allbright’s unborn child as “aggravating circumstances” in support of the death sentence against Smith.

    Little Rock attorney Bill Luppen represented Smith in his appeal to have the death sentence overturned.

    While the Supreme Court’s decision did not overturn Smith’s capital murder conviction, it did overturn the death sentence rendered by the jury. Arkansas law has only two sentences for capital murder: death or life in prison without parole. A death sentence can only be given by a jury.

    Thirteenth Judicial District Prosecutor Jeffrey Rodgers said Allbright’s family was content with allowing Judge Talley to issue the life without parole sentence rather than having the case re-tried.

    Rodgers explained that in order to get the death sentence, the case would essentially have to be tried again before another jury since state law forbids a judge to give a death sentence in a capital murder case. He said trying the case again would be difficult since the aggravating circumstances could not be used, plus it would lead to “mountains of litigation” that Allbright’s family would have to go through again.

    In the end, Rodgers said the decision brings closure to the case. “They (Allbright’s family) could have some finality,” he said.

    “This is final,” Rodgers said, adding that he sees now basis for future litigation in the case. He said the only way Smith can be released from prison would be for a governor to commute his sentence some day.

    https://www.clevelandcountyherald.co...er-conviction/
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