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David SMITH
A.K.A.: "Little Britches"
Classification: Spree killer
Characteristics: Angered
because his girlfriend ended
their relationship
Number of victims: 4
Date of murders: 1980
Date of arrest:
Same day
Date of birth: 1948
Victims profile: His
girlfriend
Becky Church, 17;
her daughter Amanda Church, 18 months; her mother, Mary Thompson,
48, and her sister, Betty Maynard, 27
Method of murder:
Shooting
(hunting rifle)
Location: Pike County, Kentucky, USA
Status: Sentenced to death in 1983
This killer executed his teenage girlfriend, his girlfriend's infant
daughter, her mother and sister with a gun in Pike County in 1980. The
killer confessed at the scene of the quadruple execution.
A
federal judge blocked the planned execution of murderer David "Little
Britches" Smith, who was scheduled to die Tuesday in Kentucky's
electric chair. The ruling came just 3 days after U.S. District Judge
Joseph Hood had refused to grant Smith a stay so his lawyers would
have more time to file a federal appeal in the case. But Smith's
lawyer rushed to file a 323-page appeal with the court yesterday, and
Hood stayed the execution until courts have time to consider the
issues it raises. Smith is probably years away from execution.
Smith, 52, was convicted in 1983 of
the Pike County murders of his teen-age girlfriend, her daughter, the
girlfriend's mother and the girlfriend's sister. Smith, who his
lawyers contend was under the influence of drugs when the murders took
place, has apologized for the killings.
Smith shot and killed his girlfriend's mother, Mary
Thompson, 48, and sister, Betty Maynard, 27, with a hunting rifle
after a falling out with the girlfriend. While emergency medical
workers were treating those victims, Smith returned and shot his 17-year-old
girlfriend, Becky Church. One bullet left her body and struck her 18-month-old
daughter, Amanda Church, killing her.
Although Smith has not yet exhausted his appeals,
Attorney General Ben Chandler asked Gov. Paul Patton to sign a death
warrant in early May -- less than a month after the U.S. Supreme Court
declined to hear one of Smith's earlier appeals. Patton signed the
death warrant May 11. Smith was scheduled to die at 7 a.m. Tuesday in
the death chamber of the Kentucky State Penitentiary at Eddyville.
Corey Bellamy, a spokesman
for Chandler, said the attorney general sought the death warrant to
keep the appeals process from stalling while waiting for Smith to file
his next appeal. Rebecca Ballard DiLoreto, Smith's lawyer with the
state Department of Public Advocacy, scrambled yesterday to assemble
the appeal and get it filed in U.S. District Court in Frankfort, in
hopes of delaying the execution until federal courts have an
opportunity to review the case. That filing of the appeal came
perilously close to the execution for Smith. Officials at Eddyville
had already begun preparing for the execution. The Kentucky Press
Association began the process of deciding what newspaper reporters
would witness the execution.
Death-penalty appeals are conducted in 3 levels, with 3 steps at each
level. Smith has been turned down in the 1st 2 levels and is at the
1st step of the 3rd and final level. Since taking office in 1996, it
has been Chandler's policy to seek death warrants as soon as the U.S.
Supreme Court rules against the condemned at each level. Chandler has
said that policy keeps the process moving and doesn't allow defense
lawyers to delay. Although governors in the past had generally waited
90 days for defense lawyers to perfect their appeals, Patton has
signed death warrants quickly. DiLoreto had asked Hood to stay the
execution while she and attorney Steve Pence of Louisville completed
the appeal.
The 1996 federal
anti-terrorism bill, which was designed to streamline death-penalty
appeals, allows federal appeals be filed within one year of state
appeals being exhausted. The Department of Public Advocacy has taken
that to mean death-row inmates should receive an automatic 12-month
stay of execution while their lawyers work on appeals. But the
attorney general's office has contended that provision means only that
defense lawyers must file such an appeal within a year. Hood sided
with the attorney general in the case and refused earlier this week to
stay Smith's execution. A Maynard family member in Pike County
declined on behalf of the victims' family to comment yesterday. There
are still appeals pending and this execution is not likely to take
place on this date.
