Tuesday's Internet Edition, September 07, 2010.
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News editor - A Copperas Cove man currently serving time in prison for a 1994 aggravated robbery case has had his sentence commuted.
Governor Rick Perry recently commuted the sentence of Jack Glyn Smith, 28, to time served after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and the judge and prosecutor in the case recommended such action.
Smith was serving a 10-year prison sentence after being convicted of aggravated robbery in 1994. He was one of three people who participated in the crime, but he cooperated with the police and prosecutors in the case.
Copperas Cove Police Department Daniel Austin said Smith robbed a 7-11 convenience store with several other men. The shotgun carried by one man was discharged, he said.
Smith’s case was the first in Coryell County in which a juvenile was certified to stand trial as an adult, said Austin.
Austin said Smith was arrested after he wrecked his vehicle on Topsey Road., right outside the city limits. Austin and Roger Faught, now Coryell County Sheriff, interviewed Smith after he was transported to the county jail.
Faught said Smith agreed to cooperate with them and showed them where the gun used in the robbery was buried, in a pasture off FM 1113. “We wouldn’t have found the gun without him,” he said.
In exchange, Smith was offered a plea bargain that was to result in seven months in jail, two months in prison and 10 years on probation. After Smith’s attorney missed the deadline for filing a motion for a new trial, as had been anticipated under the plea agreement, the trial court lost jurisdiction and Smith began serving a straight ten-year sentence.
The judge in the case, Phillip Zeigler, Coryell County District Attorney Riley Simpson and Sheriff Roger Faught also urged the governor to commute Smith’s sentence to time served. Faught intervened at the urging of Smith’s mother. “Smith wasn’t a bad kid; he just got into the wrong crowd,” said Faught.
Faught also said Smith wasn’t supposed to be in prison for this long. “He was dealt a bad hand of cards,” he said. “His attorney didn’t do his job.”
The governor’s action means Smith will be released as soon as the Texas Department of Criminal Justice can process the paperwork for his release.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 15 - 3 to recommend that the governor approve Smith’s commutation request.
Smith was also sentenced on charges of burglary of a habitation, which occurred in 1993. He received a five-year sentence in that case.