| The Brady Smith Case.com |
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The Plea Bargain Accusations against Brady Smith had been made for awhile, but there was never good evidence to do anything about it. Now, there was finally audiotape implicating him. The expectation is that the audiotape will provide evidence of his guilt for the solicitation charges, and he can then be prosecuted for any other victims that come forward. Without physical evidence, Smith's word would be seen as more credible by a typical jury pool than his accusers. It all hinged on the audiotape supporting a guilty verdict on the solicitation charge. At the time of the charge, there were 4 known boys with claims against Smith. Piland brought four counts against Smith, involving only three of the boys:
Each of these counts carries a minimum 3 years in prison, and maximum of 7. The average sentence for these crimes in Illinois is 4.3 years . So, if convicted of all counts, he would face a minimum of 12 years, an average of 17.2 years, and a maximum of 28 years. Because two of the counts are aggravated abuse, the judge has the discretion to sentence the offender to additional time in prison beyond the maximum. Recently, in Livingston county, (north of Bloomington) a similar case of a teacher sexually molesting 3 ten year old girls was prosecuted, and the offender drew an initial 30 year sentence, which was later overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court to life imprisonment. In that case, the girls were younger, so the charges were more serious, but the sexual acts were either the same or less serious than the Smith case. See here for information about that case. Instead of prosecuting the case, John Piland allowed Brady Smith to plea bargain, because he thought the audiotape was vague (see below). He allowed him to have a stipulated bench trial, where Smith only had to legally agree that there was enough evidence to convict him, not that he was guilty of any crime. Even Smith himself told a news reporter there was enough evidence to convict him., so it doesn't appear that Smith really had much to bargain with. During the trial, the prosecution referred to the boy who wore the wire as an "alleged" victim. What kind of prosecution uses the term "alleged victim" during a trial to make their case? Piland believed and still does believe that the audiotape was too vague to be compelling on the solicitation charge. The transcript is available here, so you can decide for yourself. It is true that there is a TV on in the background, and that Smith does not convey in anatomically specific language what he is asking for. Smith sometimes makes references to the TV program during the conversation, so Piland believes that it isn't clear whether Brady is responding to the TV or to the youth. Let's examine what is happening in the tape:
Brady is negotiating with a boy on how he is going to earn some money. It is something he can do late at night, involves "laying there" on a bed and it isn't anything innocent, or he would come out and say what it is. The boy mentions sex three times, and twice Brady replies affirmatively, and once accuses him of having a recording machine and being "slick", without correcting what the boy said about sex. Even though the TV is on, and Brady makes reference to it right after one of his affirmations to sex, he was negotiating the whole time. Would a Julia Child TV program distract him so much that he wasn't aware of his own responses? If you were negotiating with a boy about paying back money, would you respond affirmatively if the word "sex" were offered, and if you accidentally did, wouldn't it immediately be followed by a "wait, what did you say?". I don't believe that a jury of 12 adults would have reasonable doubts about what was going on. The Plea Bargain Nonetheless, Piland believes it was so risky that getting a guaranteed felony conviction was better than the chance of Smith being removed from the community to serve prison time. It is true that the felony conviction guaranteed that Smith could no longer teach or be in an occupation that involved kids, and that is a good thing. Of course, that would have happened on a conviction without a plea bargain too. Piland has said a number of times that this was a "career death penalty", and in speaking to him personally, he said this was his objective in the case - to remove Smith from teaching in schools. This is a fine objective, but it shouldn't be the only objective. By analogy, if a city councilperson embezzles money from the city, does losing his access to the public till address the problem? If a stock broker bilks people out of their life savings, does losing his license give justice to those he robbed? This type of bargaining is exactly the type of thing that causes people to lose faith in our justice system, and confirms to the African American community that crimes against them are not punished as harshly as crimes against whites. Compared to the the Livingston County case, it is hard to argue that justice is being applied fairly. By Smith agreeing there was enough evidence to convict him and thus receiving a felony, the prosecution's objective was met, and Smith got the following deal:
Contact with Minors Clause It is standard in many areas that sex offenders are not allowed contact with ANY minors during a probation period. Piland said that he couldn't structure an agreement that would be unenforceable, since not allowing contact with any minors would mean Smith couldn't go to the grocery store or the mall. But the plea bargain Smith got was very different from not being allowed to go to the grocery store (which Mr. Piland knows offenders don't get in trouble for anyway). The abuse mostly happened at Smith's home, and it was well known (in the black community at any rate) that he often had young boys at his house. Knowing that sex offenders have a very high rate of recidivism, and still agreeing to allow contact with any minors but with the 3 in the suit sends the wrong message about how seriously the State's Attorney is trying to protect the community. Luckily, Macon county (who handled his probation) required him to sign terms that disallowed contact with all minors, which Brady believed was not part of the deal, and prompted him to contact his lawyer. And as it turned out, Smith did continue to have contact with minors at his house during his probation, which Macon County reported to Piland, and which Piland did not subsequently bring charges against Smith for. (Note that because Macon County required no contact with minors, Smith was in violation of probation here, even though Piland didn't require it as part of the plea bargain). Strength of Dismissed Charges The criminal sexual abuse charges and the other solicitation charge were dropped as part of the plea bargain. Dismissing the other solicitation charge would be a standard part of negotiation, but dismissing the sexual abuse charges does not make sense to me. Piland believes the sexual abuse charges to be "exceptionally weak" and says he only brought the charges forward to "provide a context for the solicitation charge". He did not elaborate why he thought the case was weak, other than the general answer for all these cases: that the witness was a troubled black kid, and lacked credibility. Interestingly, when interviewing Piland, he repeatedly minimized the charges that were brought forward. He made sure that I knew
If Piland needed to provide context for the solicitation to later dismiss, he already had a case - the one from 1996. Charges were not brought forward for that case because there wasn't enough evidence - it was his word against Smith's, and there were no other kids that had come forward at that time to allege abuse. This case had a lot of strengths. When asked about abuse from the police, the boy immediately told them about it. Smith had admitted to buying 2-3 thousand dollars worth of gifts for the boy, of which the boy had some receipts for. The boy had not been in trouble with the police, as the boy from 1996 was. Coupled with two solicitation charges and another sexual abuse charge from 3 other boys, plus an audiotape, it simply doesn't make sense to bargain your most serious charge away. What did Smith have to bargain with? Who Got the Better Deal? Finally, if we look at this deal from the point of view of Brady Smith, what is the best outcome you could hope for? You have been caught negotiating with a 14 year old for sex and there is an audiotape of it. Another boy claims you solicited him, and two other boys claim you molested them, and one of them has receipts for gifts you bought him, and came forward as soon as he was asked. Frankly, there are no other terms of a plea bargain that would have been better for Smith. On every point, he wins: No prison time, minimal probation, minimum costs, minimum no-contact, dismissal of the most serious charges, and not even required to admit guilt. The one thing that was accomplished was a felony conviction that prevents Smith from having a job with access to children. This did not seem to provide much deterrent to Smith, as he was continuing to have contact with minors at his house within a few months of the trial, buying them shoes and whatever else they wanted. Even Smith himself is reported to have said "he beat that case", which reveals what he thought of the bargain. In my opinion, the plea bargain ended up being an attempt to prevent future abuse, without trying at all to provide justice for the crimes that were committed. And, it was an attempt that failed, given Smith's continued illegal interaction with minors. Next: The Conflict of Interest
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