Philip Smith survived a shooting at a Northside barbershop in 2013 with a bullet lodged in his back and wounds to his jaw and chest. He carried that bullet, and the infections it caused, for 13 years — until he died this week in Cincinnati, according to his mother, who says the man responsible is still free.
Rachelle Smith told FOX19 that she woke up from her own surgery this week to learn that her son had died. “I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe it,” she said. Smith was her only son and first child, and she described him as a good father, a good student, and a basketball star who once had a full scholarship to North Carolina before the 2013 shooting upended his life.
A Wound That Never Fully Healed
Doctors amputated both of Philip Smith’s legs at some point after the shooting, and he spent the following 13 years fighting infections tied to the injuries he suffered that day at the barbershop, per the FOX19 report. He survived the initial attack in 2013, but his mother says the toll of the bullet lodged in his back never went away. He died Wednesday, August 19, in Cincinnati.
The man convicted in the 2013 shooting, Tracey Washington, was found guilty of felonious assault and has already served his sentence — he is now free, the station’s report notes. Rachelle Smith wants Washington off the streets and says the original punishment no longer matches what her family has lost. “You can’t give my child back,” she said.
Will Prosecutors Pursue Murder Charges Now?
The Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office was asked whether it plans to upgrade Washington’s charges to murder now that Smith has died, and the office indicated it will respond soon, according to the same account. Whether that happens may hinge on a legal wrinkle specific to Ohio: under Ohio Supreme Court precedent set in State v. Carpenter and reaffirmed in State v. Dye, prosecutors are barred from filing murder charges after a victim dies of initial injuries if the defendant already entered a negotiated guilty plea — unless the state expressly reserved the right to bring additional charges on the record at the time of that plea. The First District Court of Appeals, which holds jurisdiction over Hamilton County, applied that same rule in State v. Stiles, upholding the dismissal of a murder indictment against a defendant whose stabbing victim died 18 months later because the original plea deal contained no such reservation…