The Arizona Supreme Court on May 30 rejected the appeal of a man sentenced to die for two murders committed more than 30 years ago.
Joe Clarence Smith killed two young women in 1975 and 1976 by suffocating them with dirt after sexually assaulting them. He was convicted of the murder of 14-year-old Neva Lee, and later pleaded guilty for the murder of Sandy Spencer, an 18-year-old fast food worker.
In August 1977, Smith was sentenced to die for each murder, but the Arizona Supreme Court ordered a new sentencing in light of a 1978 ruling that increased permissible mitigating evidence in capital cases.
Smith’s lawyers presented no new evidence at his second sentencing hearing and he was again sentenced to die. He lost all subsequent appeals on the state level.
But years later, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Smith’s lawyers were ineffective because they failed to present evidence that Smith had multiple personalities, mental disorders and several “good relationships.”
The sentence of Smith, who had three previous rape convictions, was again delayed when the U.S. Supreme Court issued sentencing guidelines that overturned Arizona’s judge-sentencing capital procedures in ~Ring v. Arizona~.
Smith’s sentencing for the murder of Spencer began in April 2004, and the procedure for Lee’s killing began a month later. Though juries were presented testimonies that he was a mentally ill sadist and suffered from asthma and a difficult family life, death sentences by lethal injection were re-imposed.
The latest Arizona Supreme Court opinion rejected most grounds of his appeal, including that the 27-year-delay between his convictions and re-sentencing violate his right to speedy trial, finding “much of the delay resulted from Smith’s pursuit of post-conviction relief, as opposed to intentional delay by the state in carrying out the death sentence.”
The high court did rule the trial court erred by ordering lethal injection as his execution method and ordered Smith is entitled to choose the gas chamber if he wishes.