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Smith's supporters calling for justice
He speaks by taped message at rally
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Published: April 5, 2009
Kevin Kelley darted out to cars stopped at a traffic light yesterday on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and handed out fliers about the Kalvin Michael Smith case.
Just up the hill, on the front lawn of Galilee Missionary Baptist Church, about 30 people attended a rally and listened to speeches calling for justice for Smith.
Kelley said that people in the cars were receptive, but some just didn't understand what was going on.
"A couple of guys asked me, ‘Was he here?'" Kelley said. "And I'm, like, ‘No, he's not here.'"
Smith, 37, is serving a minimum sentence of about 23 years in the 1995 beating of Jill Marker at the Silk Plant Forest, a store that was off Silas Creek Parkway. Smith, who was convicted in 1997, says he is innocent.
Smith asked for a new trial last year, claiming that witnesses against him were pressured by police and have since recanted. He also claimed that his trial attorney was ineffective. Judge Richard Doughton rejected his request in January.
Supporters played a taped message from Smith during yesterday's rally.
"I wish so bad I could be there with you," Smith said. "Today is a wonderful day because this is not a day and a gathering to feel antagonistic against the system. This is not a day to feel sorrow for me or to harden your hearts. To me, this is a gathering of a beautiful diverse group of people whom have come together in the pursuit of truth and justice."
As speakers had done before him, Smith asked people to remember and pray for Jill Marker.
Marker, who was pregnant at the time of the attack, was beaten repeatedly in the head. She was in a coma when she gave birth to a son. The attack has left her with permanent brain damage and in need of 24-hour care.
Yesterday's rally was organized by the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice, Mothers for Justice and the Ministers Conference of Winston-Salem and Vicinity.
Smith's case is the most prominent allegation of wrongful conviction in Winston-Salem since the Hunt case. Hunt was freed in 2003 after having been imprisoned for nearly 19 years in the 1984 killing of Deborah Sykes. A DNA test linked another man to the crime.
Smith's case was taken up in 2003 by the Innocence Project at Duke University's law school, and it was the subject of a five-part investigative series in the Winston-Salem Journal in 2004 that raised questions about the work of police and prosecutors in the case.
Hunt said that the rally was on April 4 for a special reason.
"History will show that Martin Luther King was killed on April 4, 1968, fighting for social justice," Hunt said. "That's why we're here. I am Kalvin Michael Smith. You are Kalvin Michael Smith. We're all Kalvin Michael Smith."
■ Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com.
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