Arrested Smitty News Today

Thats the way i felt. >> narrator: smitty had now been found not guilty of a total of five murders. clive and tom warned smitty that the government wouldnt be happy about twice losing to a president of the outlaws. smitty was now squarely in their sights. >> sooner or later there was going to be another round. what form or format it was going to take he didnt know. >> i was saying, smitty, you know, you have a big old knock on your back, there are going to be a lot of people who are very angry a...

>> announcer: after smitty was exonerated, prosecutors dropped all charges against his alleged accomplice, a still-missing yankee. but smitty was now a marked man. >> after being acquitted for the murders in ft. lauderdale, i had people with badges saying that they were going to get me off the street one way or the other. >> announcer: a few months later, police told smitty he could come to the station house to pick up his personal items from the investigation. >> well, im in the office signing ...

Lunch time and ask the waiter what it was that judge shea was working, and the waiter said it was vodka tonic and he had been drinking a lot of them. so obviously the first thing he did was going to judge shea and tell him a bunch of liberal people were counting the number of drinks he was having. so judge shea came into court after lunch furious with me, and so he had come up with this plan, which was to announce that he was biased against smitty and that he was biased against us as his lawyers...

And three others would be murdered. >> my stomach dropped to the floor. my heart, everything. i really feel like everybodys life was taken because i told. >> smitty believes that bridget like jj hall and carl hawley got a deal in exchange for testifying against him. >> she got busted herself out in arizona and said she was driving a mercedes-benz 90 mile an hour, naked, and almost rear-ended an arizona state trooper. she had cocaine with her. >> i wasnt offered anything from the government. i de...

Details that he was able to begin showing the fallacies and the falsehoods in his case, and i had never done an appeal of a capital case. it was terrifying. >> narrator: lorenzi knew he faced an uphill battle, so he enlisted the help of veteran appeals attorney clive stafford smith. >> i had worked on another capital case where i had needed a favor and tom lorenzi had very kindly helped me out. so when tom got roped into smittys case, he called me back and i sort of owed him a favor. >> narrator...

About em." >> narrator: smittys trial began in february 1985, and the main witnesses against smitty would be two fellow outlaw bikers from florida. these men had given the government information about the collins murder in exchange for reduced sentences in their other crimes. >> the main witnesses that the state relied upon were j.j. hall and karl holley. both were members of the outlaws motorcycle gang in florida. >> narrator: smitty felt hall and holley had it in for him because he demoted the...

>> narrator: the force of the explosion ripped apart the truck and robert collins. >> both legs were blown off essentially. most of his left hand, and then on the right hand two or three fingers. he lived for six hours or so but essentially died of the blunt force trauma and bleeding to death. >> holley and smith learned on the news that the explosion had happened and so they drove back immediately to florida, got paid and went their way. >> narrator: prosecutors decided not to charge smitty wit...

Named bridget, and shes naked. >> as i came around the corner, they had him down handcuffing him. i was scared to death. i didnt know what was going on. >> we asked him where yankee might be. he was gone, and we never saw him again. he kind of disappeared. >> and so they searched the house. says, "okay, youre under arrest." and i was taken in to the jail. >> announcer: smitty was charged with four murders and the attempted homicide of penny reed. he would face the death penalty. >> the police sa...

Had failed to show a motive for why smitty would kill penny reeds boyfriend grizzly and the others. bridget now filled in the blanks, describing a terrifying encounter with grizzly the night before the murders. >> i was leaving work that night, and i was putting my bag into the van. grizzly come up behind me and pushed me into the van. he hit he, held me down, took out his penis and jacked off on me and said "tell smitty thats for him." when i got home that evening, smitty knew something was wro...

In, hes convicted of the five murders hes previously been aquited of and hes acquitted of the one murder hes never been tried for before. smittys the only person in my experience and i think probably in the entire world who has been quatd of every single murder hes ever been charged with but is still serving the rest of his life in prison. >> clive feels the government abused their power to put smitty away. >> when the government uses that, theyre trying to kill people. no less than hall and haw...