CHARLESTON, W.Va. (Court TV) — A man found guilty of murdering his family when he was 16 will stand trial again after the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia tossed his convictions.
Gavin Smith was convicted of murdering his brothers, mother and stepfather in 2020. (West Virginia Dept. of Corrections)
Gavin Blaine Smith was convicted on three counts of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder and one count of using or presenting a firearm for the deaths of his mother, stepfather and two younger brothers. The victims were all found shot to death in their Kanawha County home in December 2020.
Justice C. Haley Bunn wrote the Court’s decision striking the convictions, finding that the trial court erred by instructing the jury that Smith would be offered mercy in sentencing if he was convicted of first-degree murder.
Under West Virginia law, anyone convicted of first-degree murder committed when they were a juvenile is given mercy at sentencing, which means they are eligible for parole after 15 years. In cases where the defendant was an adult at the time of the crime, the jury is given the option of whether to recommend mercy.
Smith’s girlfriend, Rebecca Walker, was initially charged with first-degree murder but pleaded guilty to lesser charges of accessory after the fact as an adult. When she testified at Smith’s trial, Walker, who was 17 at the time of the crime and considered an adult, said that she had faced a potential life sentence if she had been convicted of first-degree murder. At the request of prosecutors, who were concerned the jury would think Smith could “be locked up for the rest of his life,” the trial judge explained West Virginia sentencing law to the jury.
Justice Bunn said the Court took no issue with the curative instruction, but said the trial court erred when it then reiterated sentencing law and guidelines during jury instructions.
“Despite attempting to argue that there was no prejudice, the State conceded that this penalty instruction ‘likely alleviated any jury question that someone who had not yet reached the age of [twenty] would not be forced to spend his entire life in prison with no hope of parole.’ In other words, this improper instruction eased any concern the jury may have had about forcing a juvenile to spend the rest of his life in prison.”
Smith’s sentence of three terms of life imprisonment with mercy plus 50 years, to run consecutively, was vacated by the Court’s order, which remanded the case back to Kanawha County for a new trial. At his first trial, Smith’s attorneys did not dispute that he had killed his family, but instead argued that he had not formed the prerequisite intent for murder.
