The reputed leader of a notorious, violent drug gang that terrorized Liberty City in the 1990s, who had already been removed from death row after a judge found prosecutors had committed misconduct, had his convictions and life sentences reduced Wednesday as part of a plea deal with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.
Corey Smith, 52, was scheduled for resentencing on two 2005 death sentences, but defense attorneys Craig Whisenhunt and Allison Miller spent years investigating police and prosecutorial misconduct, persuading a judge last March to remove two assistant state attorneys from the case.
Circuit Judge Andrea Ricker Wolfson was considering a defense motion to vacate all of his convictions, forcing a retrial, a risk so high that the state attorney decided it was best to drop the first-degree murder convictions and life sentences in favor of Smith pleading guilty to second-degree murder and receiving 30 years in state prison, having already served more than 24 of those years.
After being released from state custody, he must still serve the remainder of his current 60-year federal drug trafficking sentence, which will see him released in around 2051 at the age of 79. However, his attorneys tell NBC6 that he is entitled to a new federal sentencing hearing and that his 60-year sentence could be reduced.
The plea agreement came after the state had already waived the death penalty in the case, which was brought back for resentencing in 2017 because the original jury’s death recommendation was not unanimous — a requirement that has since been reversed to allow non-unanimous death sentences.
In withdrawing a death sentence, prosecutors cited the challenges posed by the passage of time since the murders and other crimes in the late 1990s, as well as changing stories from surviving key witnesses.
They cited those factors as reasons for agreeing to the plea deal, as well as the possibility that the judge — who had already found misconduct by their prosecutors — would grant the defense motion to vacate all Smith’s convictions and force a retrial, which would be difficult to win for similar reasons.
Police and witnesses identified Smith as the leader of the John Does gang, and he was convicted in connection with the deaths of seven people, two of whom received death sentences.
The son of one of those victims, Angel Wilson, who was brutally murdered at the age of 26 in 1998, delivered a compelling victim impact statement, addressing Smith directly at times while also criticizing prosecutors’ misconduct, which he claimed resulted in a “miscarriage of justice.”
Jerome Fulton clutched a photo of his mother and said, “She was a beautiful soul that never got to fulfill her full potential,”
Despite losing his father to gun violence before he was born and his mother five years later, growing up parentless and surrounded by drugs and violence, Fulton lamented that his mother did not get to see him achieve his full potential, graduating from the University of Florida, Southern California, and Harvard Business School.
Fulton turned to Smith and said, “Whether you pulled the trigger yourself or ordered it, your organization was responsible for Angel’s death. You are responsible.”
Then he turned his attention to the state attorney’s office, which he praised for attempting to do a difficult job but ultimately failed to bring justice to the man found guilty of his mother’s murder.
“Do better,” he told the state. “Act with ethics, not ambition. Lead with integrity, not ego. And ensure that victims come first, not your careers.”
He cited “a few rotten apples” in the office without naming names and concluded, “This ordeal should never have happened. “This is a genuine miscarriage of justice.
Last year, Judge Wolfson removed two prosecutors from the case, citing one for reckless conduct in pursuing the death penalty. One of them, longtime senior prosecutor Michael Von Zamft, was recorded in a jail call discussing witness issues with one of the John Doe defendants convicted of conspiring to murder a fellow prosecutor.
“I’m trying to figure out who I want to use to testify who testified before, who’s not going to be crazy and f—- with us,” Von Zamft reported.
“You got to understand about the black widow,” the inmate said. “She some cold sh—.”
The “black widow” was Smith’s former girlfriend, a witness whose story had evolved over time.
“If we call her and she refuses, then I will find a way to make her unavailable,” Von Zamft says later in the conversation.
Wolfson ruled that a reasonable person could conclude the prosecutor was sending a cryptic message to have the witness removed, though she did not believe it.
Still, for that and other reasons, she removed Von Zamft and a colleague from the case. Von Zamft left the office the day the order was issued and has declined to comment since.
In court Wednesday, Fulton demonstrated the grace that the John Does were not known for: “I send love and peace to you and your family, and I pray that no one else has to lose their angel to gun violence.”
Among those moved by those words was Judge Wolfson, who concluded the proceedings by telling Fulton, “Your ability to open your heart in a process like this is truly, truly remarkable, and your words will stay with me for the rest of my career.”
