"Guilty by association"...my thoughts on the Chris Smith case...

This is going to be kind of long, so please, "bear with me." I really feel like I need to get this out, and this seems like as good a place as any.

I was made aware of the Chris Smith case because I have known him, though not that well, for years but had kind of lost touch with him prior to his arrest. I was however aware of the arrest, and all the comments and articles in the paper that followed, so when I was given the assignment to observe a trial for my Criminal Procedure class I chose this one. In the very beginning I made the decision that, even though I was acquainted with him, I was going to observe the trial with an open mind. I admit that I was in doubt as to his guilt, but I wanted to give the prosecution the chance to prove he was guilty. I thought “I’ve been away from Kingsport for a while, so how could I possibly know for sure?” I even told Chris this the night prior to his trial beginning and was told, by Chris, that he actually wanted me to keep an open mind. He was sure of his innocence, without a doubt, but wanted to be able to have an outside party observing. Someone who could look at everything objectively, which I truly feel I did. I was required to spend a minimum of 2 hours observing this case and write a 5 page paper describing my observations. Fortunately, with the support of my professors (I had to miss several classes in order to be in court…thank you Ms. Price!) I was able to spend over 25 hours observing not all, but most of the testimony and evidence. My 5 page paper ended up being 14.

After all of this "observing" I can tell you that the prosecution ABSOLUTELY proved one thing and one thing only beyond any shadow of a doubt and that was...JIMMY SWAFFORD WAS A DRUG DEALER! He wasn’t just a simple nickel and dime dealer, but A HUGE drug dealer, one who made TONS of money selling lots and lots of drugs. This might be shocking if he had not already pled guilty to the charges (and most everyone in Kingsport didn’t know it already) but the sad, unfortunate thing is that they spent untold hours and untold amounts of TAXPAYER dollars to prove something that Jimmy Swafford had ALREADY PLEAD GUILTY TO! As for Chris Smith, and I've told him this many times, he was guilty of BAD JUDGMENT. He himself has admitted it also. Fortunately, as even Judge Cupp himself said today... "…that alone does not make him a criminal." The state failed to prove anything as to his guilt. “It,” as Cupp said, "just isn't there." (For a complete rundown of everything I observed in court please see http://jeffosborne.blogspot.com/2010/06/state-vs.html

Yes, Chris Smith was found not guilty. Yes, he can now start to put this behind him but the question I found myself asking as I was driving away from the courthouse today was this...was justice really served in this case? At the end of the day he was found not guilty, but at what cost? He has lost his job, his livelihood and his reputation. Thanks to "skewed" reports in the media I'm not sure that this can ever be repaired. Not only that, but how do you give someone 3.5 years of their life back? How do you change the fact that this man was drug out of his home, in front of his young children, and charged with something that the evidence clearly did not support? The simple answer to all of these questions is...YOU CAN'T.

Unfortunately there is no possible way I can walk away saying that "Justice" was ever really, truly served in this case. Yes, the system worked, this time, but I have to wonder just how many different people the system has failed? Thanks to my education, I know something that I had never even thought about before. It is a fact that, to me, is somewhat disturbing when I really think about it. 90 percent of ALL charges filed in our country never go to trial, and the overwhelming majority of these cases never see trial because of plea bargains. Now don't get me wrong, I think plea bargains are a good thing. Without them there is no way all of the cases could ever be resolved. With that being said though, I really have to wonder just how many people take plea deals, not because they are in fact guilty, but because they are scared into doing so just so that they can get it over with. If I'm charged with some bogus crime that causes me to face many, many years in prison but given the chance to plea to something that will get me no jail time whatsoever, what am I going to do? What would anyone of you do? We all like to think we wouldn't stand for it. That we would fight with everything we have. But at the end of the day, when it's OUR life on the line, what would we really do? I know I like to THINK I would fight, but until I was actually put in this situation I cannot honestly tell you what I would do. I don’t think anyone can. I pray to God that I NEVER have to make that decision.

What some of you may not know is that Chris Smith faced this very situation. It could not be brought up during the trial and therefore was not reported (though I’m not sure it would have been reported had it been allowed) but Chris was offered a plea deal in which he would plead guilty to a simple misdemeanor and receive NO JAIL TIME. Yes, NO JAIL TIME. Now imagine yourself facing this same situation. You have 3 children, one of which is just a baby, and you are looking at 30 years in prison. 30 YEARS! You can plead guilty to a misdemeanor and walk away from it all or you can take your chances on the system. A system that you yourself have seen fail many times. You can take a chance and put your life, your future and more importantly, the future of your family in someone else’s hands. You put it in their hands and hope and pray that politics and unknown loyalties don’t get in the way of true justice. Would you be able to tell the state to shove it and that you will see them in court? Chris Smith had the courage to do this, but unfortunately studies show that many people do not.

I also think it is very sad when the highest rated shows on television are dramas such as "Law and Order" and “CSI” yet when I sat in that courtroom the only people there that didn't have to be was Chris's father and I. It’s really a shame because people get so absorbed in these shows yet the best drama I have ever seen has to be the drama I saw in that courtroom. If people would just take the time to observe one of these trials on their own, and not depend on the media to tell them what is happening, they would see that things can be quite different from what is actually depicted in the media. I cannot tell you how many times I came home after being there most of the day (if not all day) only to read what was reported and say “Was this person in the same courtroom I was?” I know I am walking a fine line here but believe it or not, I’m really trying to not slam the press or the reporter involved. With that being said though, I truly have to wonder if the goal isn’t more about selling newspapers and having “web hits” than it is about reporting the facts.

I also think that there is a trend in this country for people to think that just because someone is arrested then they must be guilty. I don’t care at all to admit that I myself have been guilty of this in the past, but I can tell you without a doubt that I will never allow myself to ever think this again. Police and other law enforcement officers have a very hard job. It’s a job with hard work, long hours and little pay. Most do this job because they want to be a part of something larger than themselves. They do it because they want to serve and they do it because they want to protect life and property. I have no doubt that most police officers do everything they can to “get it right.” Police officers though, like all of us, are human. They make mistakes. I strongly feel though that the good officers have the ability to realize when they are wrong, admit it and correct it, just like any good person. I don’t feel like this happened in this case.

We are also supposed to have fail safes imbedded in the form of a district attorney’s office that should protect us when the mistakes are not caught. They are supposed to be able to look at the evidence and say “we have a case” or “we don’t have a case.” I’m sorry, but gut feelings and innuendo are NOT evidence, and that is all there was in this case…gut feelings and innuendo.

Then there is the grand jury system. The grand jury is supposed to look at the evidence and then make a decision on whether or not there is enough evidence to indict the accused and proceed to trial. The grand jury is made up of common people, just like you and me, common people who are trying to make the best decision possible. Yes, the grand jury indicted Chris Smith but only after the prosecution presented only PART of the evidence, not all of it. Any evidence that may have shown that he wasn’t guilty was never shown. The defendant is never allowed to address the grand jury, and they have no attorney present. It is just the prosecution, investigators, and the jury. I strongly believe that this should be changed. I don’t claim to know how, but something just isn’t right when only one side gets to tell their story and gets to skew evidence in their favor and the result is not a conviction, but a man whose entire life has potentially been ruined, irreparably, for a long time to come.

I know that there is no possible way this case could ever affect me the way it has Chris or his family and closest friends, but it has affected me. It has affected me in ways I just cannot explain. It has really opened my eyes to a lot. Those that really know me know that until my kids were born I was someone who could pretty much care less…about anything and everything. I didn’t really follow politics and pretty much had no clue about what was going on in the world. Good or bad. I can honestly say that is not the case today. I feel that a true injustice was done to Chris but the sad thing is, until we stop getting our information from third parties and start getting the facts for ourselves, things like this can and will happen again.

In the beginning Chris Smith was an acquaintance. I knew him, he knew me, but we weren’t hanging out together or taking our families on vacations together. We knew each other and talked mostly through comments or chat on Facebook, most of the time it was about Tennessee football. I considered Chris a friend the same way most of us consider our Facebook “friends” to be friends. Yeah, we know them… yeah, we like them okay…and yeah, we will talk to them when we see them out, but are they really friends? I mean really, am I going to call up a random Facebook friend whenever I find myself in a jam? Probably not. Let’s be honest, Chris was a guy I knew from back when I used to Dee Jay. He was a cop that worked security at the club I worked at, that was it. Today after this whole process has completed I am proud to say that I consider Chris a friend, but far more than just a Facebook friend. I am proud to say that as this case has gone on I feel like Chris and I have become very good friends. I consider Chris as someone I could call if I was in a jam and I hope he considers the same of me. I would be proud and more than happy for he and I to take our respective families on vacation together. I’m proud to say I know Chris Smith, I’m proud to say he is my friend, and I’m just downright proud of Chris Smith in general. He has faced an ordeal and a hell that I would not wish on anyone…that is except for the few uninformed people who make stupid comments on websites when they obviously do not know all of the facts…but hey, I’ll save that for another rant.

In conclusion, I would like to say that I am very, VERY happy with the outcome of this case. But as happy as I am, I’m even more pissed that there was even a trial at all. I’m happy not just because a friend can now get on with his life, but because an innocent man was not found “innocent”, but was found “NOT GUILTY.” The sad fact is that a lot of us have lost touch with this concept. It is a very simple concept that was one of the most important things our country was founded upon. A person is INNOCENT until PROVEN GUILTY. Think about that for a minute…INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. People aren’t found “innocent.” They are innocent from the very beginning. It’s very simple folks. Just because someone is accused of a crime doesn’t necessarily mean they are guilty of the crime, yet we convict in the court of public opinion as soon as the arrest is reported. We think “well they were arrested, so they must be guilty.” Then we read reports of so called “evidence” but are never told “the other side of the story.” Please people just try to remember that there are always two sides to every story and just because you only read one side in the paper doesn’t mean that is what really happened. While Judge Cupp did take his sweet time in deciding this case but, after hearing the facts, he ultimately came to the only decision that any reasonable person could come to…”NOT GUILTY.”

To Chris Smith I say “Congratulations, my friend...you did it!” It may not mean much in the whole scope of it all, but I’m proud of you! I’m proud that you had the guts to fight for what you knew was right. I’m just sorry you had to go through any of this at all.

To the rest of you I say please, stop basing your opinions on what you hear. Get all of the facts before you condemn someone. Get all the facts and then make your decision.

Damn, I just realized this is almost six pages long…maybe I can save it and turn it in for a future assignment…