{"id":10580,"date":"2014-09-17T15:07:52","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T19:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=10580"},"modified":"2014-09-17T15:09:54","modified_gmt":"2014-09-17T19:09:54","slug":"lula-smart-acquitted-on-all-counts-quitman-10-vindicated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/lula-smart-acquitted-on-all-counts-quitman-10-vindicated.html","title":{"rendered":"Lula Smart acquitted on all counts: Quitman 10 vindicated"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nLula Smart cleared by a jury in third trial.\r\nThird strike by the prosecutors: they’re out!\r\nWill they stop wasting our taxpayer dollars now?\r\n

\r\nKatheryn Hayes Tucker, Daily Report, 17 September 2014,\r\n\r\nAcquittal in Trial Over Absentee Ballots<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nLula Mary Smart was acquitted on 19 felony charges of voting\r\nirregularities Wednesday following a month-long trial in Brooks\r\nCounty Superior Court in South Georgia.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe crimes for which she was tried involved putting sealed absentee\r\nballots in the mail for friends and relatives, according to defense\r\nattorneys Chevene King Jr. of Albany and Tiffany Simmons of Atlanta.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nUm, that’s charges.\r\nShe was just acquitted.\r\nThat means she did not commit any crimes.\r\n

\r\n

\r\nSmart is one of the defendants known as the Quitman 12 who have been\r\nprosecuted since a 2010 election created for the first time an\r\nAfrican-American majority on the Brooks County Board of Education.\r\nSmart’s sister was elected to the school board in that election, as\r\nwere several other defendants, according to the defense attorneys.\r\nAll the defendants are African-American. All the incumbents who were\r\ndefeated are white.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd all the defendants who were elected in that election\r\nhave been elected twice more in elections since.\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nSmart’s case is the first to be tried. King and Simmons expressed\r\nhope that her acquittal will lead the state to drop the other cases.\r\n“It would be a waste of taxpayers’ money to continue to prosecute\r\npeople for laws that are clearly weighted in favor of the way we\r\ninterpreted them in court instead of the rather strained\r\nconstruction of the prosecution,” King said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nLula Smart has been tried not just once<\/a>\r\nbut\r\ntwice<\/a> before, both mistrials.\r\nWTXL\r\n\r\nin its story today<\/a>\r\ndid mention that:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThis is the third time Smart’s case has gone to trial.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAs I wrote before this third trial started<\/a>:\r\n

\r\nWill three strikes against the prosecution make it give up on trying to convict the Quitman 10+2?\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nI ask again:\r\n

\r\nDear prosecutor, when is enough enough?\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nOh, right, Tucker wrote:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nBrooks County District Attorney David Miller didn’t participate; one\r\nof his assistant district attorneys is a member of the school board.\r\nBoth are white. Miller couldn’t be reached immediately on Wednesday.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWith the local DA recused, the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of\r\nGeorgia took over the case. Director Lalaine Briones was lead\r\nprosecutor for the state.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nOK, all you prosecutors:\r\nwill you stop wasting our taxpayer money now?\r\n

\r\nThree strikes and you’re out.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lula Smart cleared by a jury in third trial. Third strike by the prosecutors: they’re out! Will they stop wasting our taxpayer dollars now? Katheryn Hayes Tucker, Daily Report, 17 September 2014, Acquittal in Trial Over Absentee Ballots, Lula Mary Smart was acquitted on 19 felony charges of voting irregularities Wednesday following a month-long trial […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[49,70,8,19,20,1526],"tags":[1587,8721,8728,8701,8709,8702,8710,12,5142,1586,8834,1527,7919],"class_list":["post-10580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections","category-ethics","category-georgia","category-history","category-law","category-quitman-10","tag-brooks-county","tag-elections","tag-ethics","tag-georgia","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lula-smart","tag-quitman","tag-quitman-10","tag-quitman-102","tag-quitman-12"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-2KE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10580"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10582,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10580\/revisions\/10582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}