Miami-Dade prosecutors made it official this week, telling a judge the state will no longer move forward with its death penalty phase in the trial of a former gangland leader and convicted murderer Corey Smith.
At a brief hearing before Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Andrea Ricker Wolfson on Wednesday, the state said it studied the more than two-decades-old case and determined too much time had passed and too many witnesses had dried up or died to try to successfully re-litigate.
Wolfson then gave the state and Smith’s defense attorney Allison Miller until the first week in February to come up with a plea deal. She told attorneys that if a deal wasn’t in place by then, she’d likely set up a hearing date for the defense motion to vacate the murder charges against Smith.
The Miami Herald first reported the state’s plan to stop moving forward with Smith’s death penalty on Sunday.
READ MORE: State no longer seeking death penalty in trial of convicted gang leader and murderer
Smith was convicted in federal court of drug and firearm charges in 1999. He was indicted by a Miami-Dade grand jury a year later on 17 counts for crimes committed in connection with Liberty City’s violent John Doe drug gang. The group got its name from the toe tags tied to unidentified bodies at the morgue.