Hide Article Text (OCR)
From 1Aguilty,” said defense attorney Martin Underwood of Comstock.Smith has been found guilty of killing 61-year-old Tim Hudson twice, in fact: once in 1989 and again in 1994. And he has been sentenced to death row twice.But Underwood appealed both convictions and sentences.The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the 1989 trial, ruling that there was an error made in jury selection, Underwood said.A new trial was held in 1994, and Smith was again convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die.The Court of Criminal Appeals again agreed with Underwood and granted an appeal. This time the error was in the jury instructions given during the penalty phase of die trial, Underwood said.The conviction for capital murder stood, but the death penalty was reversed and the court ordered a new trial for sentencing onlyAccording to Underwood, 112th District Attorney Ori White has three issues on which he must get unanimous decisions from the jurors.This is White’s first encounter with this case. His predecessor, J.W Johnson, conducted the two previous trials.Jurors must first decide if the killing of Hudson was deliberate. If they all agree it was, then they must next all agree that Smith remains a future danger under the law, the defense attorney said.Underwood said jurors must be convinced that if Smith is not killed, he would continue to be dangerous to others — either in prison or in society, should he everbe released.If the jurors again agree unanimously that Smith is dangerous, they must look at the third issue: mitigating factors. Jurors must decide whether any reasons have arisen since the killing which would make Smith a person worth keeping alive.If the jurors conclude there are no mitigating reasons to keep him from being killed, the death penaltywill be imposed.Gwynn Hudson-Simmons, the daughter of the slain deputy, said she hopes the jurors reach that conclusion.“Our family’s tired of spending tax dollars to keep this guy in prison ... anything less than the death penalty would be a large disappointment to us,” she said.Hudson-Simmons said she remembers the night her father died. He was coming home to spend time with his 7-year-old grandson when he received one last call for the shift.A red 1978 Ford van had skipped without paying for $22.50 in gasoline from a Gulf station Bakersfield, according to court testimony.Deputy Hudson caught up with the van and tried to pull the vehicleover.When it did not respond to his flashing lights and siren, he attempted to pass the vehicle and set up a roadblock further down the road.However, when he pulled up alongside the vehicle, Smith and his cousin, who had escaped two days before from a minimum security prison in Kansas, fired a stolen .357 Magnum revolver at the deputy.According to court documents, Smith has admitted he fired three times at Hudson, but said he was only trying to disable the deputy’s police car, not hurt Hudson.One of the bullets tore through the passenger side door of the police cruiser and into Hudson. The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on Hudson estimated the deputy lived less than a minute after being struck with the bullet.When fellow Pecos County deputy sheriff Johnny Williams caught up with Hudson he encountered a cloud of dust” and saw Hudson’s car was facing the wrong way on the road.Stopping to help his fellow officer, Williams testified Monday he found Hudson dead.Soon a massive manhunt for the red van was underway According to court testimony, about 40 officers from neighboring jurisdictions and a US. Customs helicopter was involved in searching for theshooters.Roadblocks were set up and thehelicopter was sweeping over Pecos County, looking for the vehicle, according to testimony.Officers became suspicious when a white tractor-trailer approached one of the roadblocks, stopped and did a U-turn.A pursuit began that ended 44 miles later after several police officers and a U.S. Customs agent fired on the tractor-trailer.Smith and his cousin, Carroll Bernard Smith, 40, were arrested and charged with the murder of Hudson, according to testimony and court records.Carroll Bernard Smith was convicted of capital murder and is serving a life sentence in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, according to Hudson-Simmons.Underwood said, “Eleven years has done a lot to mellow everyone” involved in the case, recalling that when the case was first tried there was “a very tense courtroom.”Metal detectors screened everyone coming in and out of the courtroom, and many witnesses were still angry and upset about the shooting, he said.On Monday, the lawyers joked with one another, and the once-packed courtroom held about adozen spectators.Of the estimated 150 jurors interviewed in the case, Underwood said only a quarter of them even remembered anything about the shooting of Hudson.The jury selection took “about a month,” the defense lawyer said — with each juror being interviewed individually.The massive undertaking by the112th District Attorney’s office to take the case to trial again is worth it, said prosecutor Ori White.“This is important because Charles Edward Smith is a danger — whether behind bars or in the free world, he’s a danger.”The district attorney declined toelaborate about Smith. Aftermaking brief remarks previously, he said he planned to be careful about what he said to the press until the case was done so it could not be appealed again.Both prosecutor and the defense lawyer said the case could be finished this week.
Newspaper Details
Odessa American
Odessa, Texas, US
Tue, Nov 16, 1999
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Jared T.
NA, NA 07 Jun 2023
Other Publications Near Odessa, Texas
Odessa American
