It was a case that had all of the intrigue – a red-headed boy-next-door looking defendant, turned racist gun-nut, who shot a black man claiming self-defense. But ultimately the jury failed to buy the self-defense theory and convicted Christopher Smith, 31, of second degree murder with enhancements, that put the likely sentence to 45 to life.It was November 3, 2009. Mr. Smith was driving with his then seven-year-old son in his truck, pulling a large trailer. He traveled to Jasmine Street in West Sacramento where his father lived, ostensibly to pick up an old couch that was sitting outside, to take it to the dump.
This was not an act of kindness, however. It was an effort to get $20 from his father, with whom he apparently had a somewhat rocky relationship. His father worked the night shift and was already in bed at noon, when his son arrived. When Mr. Smith approached him about the couch, he was in a bad mood, and told his son he would take the couch to the dump on one of the free dumping days.
It was upon leaving that Mr. Smith would encounter Gidd Robinson, roughly the same age and African-American, with a record of having a fiery temper himself. Mr. Robinson was walking down the street with two young children when he and Mr. Smith had some sort of confrontation.
According to Mr. Smith, Mr. Robinson raised his hands up, then Mr. Smith flipped him off and they would have words.
Instead of leaving, Mr. Smith drove to the end of the block, and seeing Mr. Robinson approaching, he turned the corner. Instead of driving off, he waited.
Mr. Smith said he saw Mr. Robinson still coming toward him at a good clip, perhaps 26 feet away. Mr. Smith then claims to have loaded his weapon.
Mr. Robinson approached the vehicle, and Mr. Smith claims he said, “What the f- are you going to do with that” and then raised his shirt to reveal a gun. Mr. Smith raised his weapon and fired a single shot, hitting Mr. Robinson in the upper chest near his armpit, and then drove off.
Mr. Robinson ran off, eventually collapsing. 911 was called and he was treated, but died in the ambulance en route to the hospital. Police found no sign of a weapon on him, nor did medical technicians, nor did investigators who combed the street and the route he took to the spot where he collapsed.
In the meantime, Mr. Smith immediately drove to the Elkhorn boat ramp, tossed the gun in the river and rubbed mud on his hands to conceal any gunshot residue. He was arrested on Old River Road as he was leaving the boat ramp.
According to his young son’s testimony, he was made to walk his father’s backpack down to the river. Mr. Smith tried to hide the backpack and soft gun case by the riverbank, and threw the weapon into the middle of the river.
Mr. Smith was then caught by the Sheriff’s Department in his vehicle, and eventually confessed to shooting Mr. Robinson but claimed all along it was self-defense.
The case was prosecuted by Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven, who would slowly but methodically demonstrate a number of inconsistencies in Mr. Smith’s story that eventually would unravel his self-defense claims.
The first problem is that it appears that Mr. Smith simply could have driven off. He took the stand in his own defense and was questioned about this. His answers were not fully convincing.
First, he argued that he was stopped around the corner, thinking Mr. Robinson would simply leave and go about his business. This may have been convincing except that he said his goal was to drive back around the block to get the couch from his father. This despite his father’s claims, at least originally, that he wanted no part of paying his son for the couch. Moreover, the couch was old and it would have been too heavy to load into the trailer with one person.
Mr. Smith claimed he had a small saw that could cut apart the coach, but the first time he mentioned that was on the stand, after listening to all of the testimony. He never mentioned it at the time of his arrest and lengthy interrogation.
Even if this explanation were correct, there was still the problem that he could have just driven off when Mr. Robinson was approaching the car and was about 26 feet away. His argument here was that there was not enough time to start the car and leave before Mr. Robinson would have been on him.
While it is true that Mr. Robinson would have closed that distance quickly, at that point he had no weapon drawn and it is unclear what he would have been able to do, even had he caught up to the car.
At this point, Mr. Smith loaded the gun rather than fled, fired the gun once and hit Mr. Robinson at point-blank range.
But even if that all is true, there are still problems with the story. It is unclear who precipitated the confrontation, and according to the self-defense theory, if Mr. Smith had started the confrontation, he could not claim self-defense.
Moreover, Mr. Smith did not call 911 after or before the shooting. Instead, he fled the scene and attempted to hide his involvement in the crime. He argued that he simply panicked at this point, and he testified repeatedly that this was the critical mistake he had made in judgment – trying to flee the scene.
The final problem with this specific defense, however, was the lack of a gun found on the victim. The defense made it a point to show that the police did not do a thorough search of the area. They looked on the side of the road, but the road was bordered by a levee and there was a fence at the top of the levee. The police admitted that they did not do an exhaustive search, but if the gun were discarded on the side of the road, it likely would have been found.
The bottom line is that, while it is true the defense does not have to find the gun, the prosecution has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing was not justified. The fact that the defense, with at least a reasonable amount of resources, never located a gun in the two years between the incident and the trial, I think suggests there probably was not a gun. Certainly, Mr. Robinson would have been hard-pressed, after being shot, to have thrown the gun very far and it probably would not have been his biggest concern anyway.
There is more evidence of deceit on the part of Mr. Smith, besides his abortive and failed effort to discard the weapon and remove evidence of his involvement in the shooting.
Mr. Smith claimed he was unemployed when he first talked to investigators following the shooting. It turns out he was a probationary employee of the River City Gun Store, and had been for some months. There may have been some gray area there, but he acknowledged that it did not look good to be an employee at a gun store.
When West Sacramento police searched Smith’s home, they found over 40 firearms. He had acknowledged that he had a “few” guns, in the interview with police investigators. That “few” turned into many, and they found literally hundreds of rounds of ammunition at his home.
Detectives also seized a computer which was later forensically analyzed by the District Attorney’s Computer Forensics Unit. That analysis revealed that Smith habitually visited numerous racist websites containing inflammatory pictures and articles about African-Americans.
The defense tried to downplay this finding in a number of ways. First, Mr. Smith’s ex-wife testified that they had friends who used the computer frequently, though neither of them could identify anyone specifically, nor find anyone else who frequented racist websites.
Second, the defense argued that he had gone to the sites during the course of discussions and class projects on racism, for a history class and a cultural anthropology class.
Third, he argued that they were having debates over racism in the 2008 election, and thus he had pulled up pictures of President Obama with chimps and monkeys.
However, the DA’s investigators showed these sites to be many and over a long period of time, not merely coinciding with the timing of his supposed classes.
Finally, he offered the “some of my best friends are black” defense, and had an African-American friend testify on his behalf. None of his friends reported that he ever expressed racist views to them or used racial epithets.
Frankly, of all the evidence that they had against Mr. Smith, this was least compelling. The prosecution could establish that the sites were visited, although they could not completely prove he was the one visiting the sites or the reason behind his doing so, nor could they link him to any overt acts of racism or establish this as a racially-motivated crime.
In all, there was a lot of time spent on this aspect of the case, when the key evidence was readily available in the choices that Mr. Smith made leading up to the shooting and immediately following the shooting.
This should be a clear-cut case, where the ability of an individual to legally obtain weapons for lawful purposes can lead to a disastrous conclusion. Mr. Smith had no criminal record. He was an ordinary person who got involved in a confrontation.
Mr. Robinson, as even the prosecutor took pains to show, was no saint. He had run-ins with the police, he had resisted arrest, he had a temper and he was involved in a rather serious assault case.
But the fact that Mr. Smith had a weapon, at his ready disposal in the heat of the moment, clearly clouded his judgment and, instead of taking the obvious step of leaving and coming back, he relied on his weapon to protect him.
Because of that, one man is dead and Mr. Smith’s life is now in ruins.
There is also the toll it took on Mr. Smith’s son, who witnessed the event and was involved in the cover-up. The police were extremely concerned with the way that his son reacted to the incident, becoming very stoic and lacking in emotion.
In all, this was a horrible and avoidable tragedy.
Mr. Smith will be sentenced on January 13, 2012, by the Honorable Stephen Mock who presided over the trial. Mr. Smith faces 45 years to life in state prison.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David. You indicated the victim was with two young children who I am sure will have lasting trauma from the tragedy also.
That’s true no doubt, although they were rarely mentioned in the proceedings where the son of Mr. Smith actually had to testify.
[quote]This should be a clear-cut case, where the ability of an individual to legally obtain weapons for lawful purposes can lead to a disastrous conclusion. Mr. Smith had no criminal record. He was an ordinary person who got involved in a confrontation.[/quote]
The ability of the individual to legally obtain weapons for lawful purposes did not lead to a disastrous conclusion.
Suppose I were to go into a dealership, buy a new car, and then run over people at farmer’s market. Would you say: the ability of myself to legally obtain a vehicle for lawful purposes lead to a disastrous conclusion?
The two are not comparable circumstances and thus the foreseeability is different.
[quote]The two are not comparable circumstances and thus the foreseeability is different.[/quote]
How? Most (especially without any criminal record) purchase a hand gun to protect themselves, not to murder someone, which can also be said of purchasing a vehicle.
What this article fails to mention is that two grand juries found it to be self defense in the spring of 2010. But an overzealous DA wanted a conviction rather than serving justice. Then took the same evidence from the second grand jury hearing and used it to get a preliminary hearing. My understanding is it can be one or the other. Not presenting the same case over and over until they get the inictment they want. Also the so called “victim” had more than a temper. He was violent. Part of his arrest record (the gang stabbing) and other arrests, anything about him being a violent gang member, and all the drugs at his house was suppressed. But so was the fact Mr. Smith legally owned weapons, but that still came out in court? Yolo County not playing by their own rules? Imagine that.
What did come out in trial but is not in this article is that Mr. Robinson abandoned his two small children on the side of the road, reagrdless of their safety, to chase down a another man several hundred feet down the street. No sane person would do that unless they were intending to harm another. Who leaves a four year old and in infant on the side of the road? Really? A man that is going to do harm and has the means to do it. Such as a gun.
Maybe the gun wasn’t found because a family member took his pants in the house so the the children wouldn’t see all the blood. Yet the pants weren’t bloody, but she left his bloody shirts in plain view. These kind of families enable/assist other family members that are criminals.
Fleeing the scene. I would too. Broderick is known as a very violent area, I know I wouldn’t stick around to find out if another person is coming back to defend this so called “victim”. Once you leave, you know you look guilty, even if you wee just forced to save your own life and your childs, you will look guilty. So yeah toss the gun. But that doesn’t make you guilty of murder, just panicked stupidity.
Three websites to research racism for school is not numerous. It is just a few. Amazingly enough, this expert could not say what percent of the hard drive was used total and out of that what percent was used to look at racist sites. He also found no postings by Mr. smith on these sites, because he was not a participating member. He had no emails that were racist or anything on his phone that was racist. The expert could barely recall other searches on the internet that were non racist subjects which would show how little those sites were truly visited. And estimates, not even close to an exact count of how many times these sites were visited. If he put in 200-300 hours on this computer I would think there would be something more concrete. But that amount of time gives them something non relevant to the case for the jury to focus on to make it seem like they actually have a decent case. Therefore, researching sites for school to be more informed in discussion and lecture topics made Mr. Smith out to be a horrible racist. Which has nothing to do with this shooting, this was to shock and predujice the jury.
My guess is that if Mr. Robinson was also a white man, the outcome would have been the same. It boils down to: an aggressive, violent man chases down another man as Mr. Robinson did, it wasn’t to say “hey let’s hang out and be friends, sorry for the misunderstanding”. It is because he has a violent criminal mentality. He isn’t going to let a few words or hand jestures go. Maybe he was going to victimize Mr. Smith and his son because Mr. Smith is a white guy that dared to flip him off back in his hood. Or maybe the race card shouldn’t have been played at all because it has nothing to do with this shooting. It really comes down to a violent criminal that should have been behind bars not on the street looking for potential victims. So why was Mr. Robinson due in court the day he died? I wonder if it had to do with the way he was very calm, approached another man in a bar, and then violently snapped. He brutally beat this other man. The video speaks for itself. It was not pretty nor were the wounds the other man recived. It was vicious, brutal, and showed the kind of violence he was capable of.
Had he shot or injured Mr. Smith, would he have left Mr. Smith’s son as an eyewitness. Mr. Robinson’s violent past speaks for itself. If he is willing to leave his children on the side of the road and not give their safety a second thought, so he can chase another person down to confront them, well that goes to show what kind of person he is. He would definitely care less about the wellbeing of another man’s child. Especially if that child could identify him. A man has the right to protect himself and his child.
Should Mr. Smith have left. He did. Several hundred feet down the street and around the corner. Out of sight, out of mind. Well that’s if the other person is normal, most people would leave it at that. Obviously Mr. Robinson was not one of those people. How was Mr. smith supposed to anticipate the other man was so intent on violence and would continue to pursue him. Sadly someone died. But that doesn’t make it murder. Since when are not allowed to defend oursleves in a violent situation. The answer is: when there is a DA’a office that is hellbent on getting a conviction knotch on their bedpost of self promotion. The more convictions, regardless of justice, the better chance of moving up in the legal world. OR……
It seems that Yolo County would prefer that they had been victims, so they could be the heroes who put away someone as violent as Mr. Robinson since they failed to do so before. But since they weren’t given the chance, they will then call him a victim so they can railroad the other man and have their conviction. Especially when the case is based on asking those that testify to assume things are the truth and hypothetical siituations. Then expect answers. If that was all they had I can’t believe this went to trial. But you plant those seeds of assumptions with the jury, the false racism, guns that were supposed to be suppressed, and overzealous prosecutors, then you have a recipe for a wrongful conviction.
I would also like to point out that just a few months before this occurred, the DA himself was being accused of being racist. I believe Ajay Dev (sp?) was sentenced to prison for close to 400 years. What better scapegoat than Mr. Smith to show how he is not racist. He will prosecute Mr. Smith by labeling him as a racist. Now the spotlight is off of him because he put away a racist murderer, therefore he is no longer racist. Even at the expense of Mr. Smith’s freedom. Politcal motivation??? Wasn’t this same DA accused of withholding evidence not too long ago?
I believe you wrote this April 27, 2010:
[b]”In Yolo County, we have seen scrutiny on the District Attorney’s office for what some have called overzealous prosecutions”[/b] My point exactly.
You also wrote:
[b]One thing that the Yolo Judicial Watch Project noticed immediately is that the DA really controls the message. There are high profile cases that the local media like the Bee, Enterprise, and Daily Democrat will send reporters to cover, but most of the time, they do not have the resources to do that. So the DA’s office sends out press releases. Not only do they choose which cases to highlight, but most of the papers re-print the press releases almost verbatim. And even when they do re-write the cases, they never attempt to get the other side of the story. That creates a reporting bias that paints a positive view of the office.[/b]
I am sure glad you got the other side of this story. I wouldn’t want to see verbatim that sheds that positive light on the DA’s office. Especially when they try to cover their butts by putting away a racist so they won’t be labeled the same.
You also wrote this on March 8, 2011. It goes to show the same ridiculous BS from this DA trying to label people as racist to get his conviction.
“Hate Crime?
For Mr. Ramirez, given the severity of the attack and Mr. Ramirez’ exposure to sentencing, pleading to charges that amounts to half the maximum time he faced was likely a wise move. However, the evidence in this case did not really support a hate crime charge.
As Defense Attorney Tracie Olson argued in a 995 motion to dismiss following the preliminary examination, “Even if it is assumed that Mr. Ramirez made the inflammatory statements to Mr. Singh – namely, “F- you, Osama Bin Laden” and “F- you, Iranian” – all witnesses agree that the statements were made contemporaneously with the assault and after the issue or disagreement regarding the money occurred.” Penal Code 995 allows for moving to dismiss if the preliminary exam produces insufficient evidence to be held to answer for the alleged crimes.
As she argued, “The law does not criminalize intolerant or bigoted language.”
Instead, “The law criminalizes actions that are motivated by intolerance or bigotry.”
“While Mr. Ramirez’s statements are circumstantial evidence of his motivation, this is the only evidence of a biased motivation that exists,” she continued.
Importantly she argued, “Mr. Singh never said that any passenger had made a racist comment to him during the cab ride. He never said that Mr. Morales made any racist comments to him at all.”
She therefore concluded, “To find, on the evidence presented at preliminary hearing, that a bias motivation was a substantial factor in bringing about the offenses would be to make a finding based on an inference that ‘derive[s] [its] substance from guesswork, speculation, or conjecture.’ “
There is a misperception that a hate crime simply emanates from the use of racial slurs in an attack. That largely ignores the nature of an attack which is based on an escalated conflict. Often in anger, people will find the most convenient line of insult, in this case, given the man’s ethnicity and religious attire, his ethnicity formed that basis.
But the law suggests that the motivation needs to be intolerance and bigotry. It may be that those slurs are an indication of intolerance and bigotry, but if that is all the evidence that exists, it is too thin to lead to a conviction.
In the end, Mr. Ramirez took the most convenient settlement he could get. Frankly, given the brutal nature of the attack – with or without a hate crime – he got about the right sentence, as did Mr. Morales, based on the evidence that came forth during the preliminary hearing.
However, I think it is a stretch of the available evidence to call this a hate crime. Mr. Singh probably would have been harmed just as much had he been white or Hispanic, given the nature of the dispute that arose and the actions of the chief defendant in this case.
Again, “Mr. Singh did nothing to provoke this vicious attack except to be from a different culture,” commented District Attorney Reisig. “Attacking someone because of their race, religion or other protected basis,” continued Reisig, “is not only heinous, but against the ideals we hold as Americans, and must not be tolerated.”
I would argue that Mr. Reisig, along with his Deputy DA Ryan Couzens, are misreading the evidence that came out during the preliminary hearing. Mr. Singh was not attacked because of his race or ethnicity. He was attacked for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and getting into a dispute over money with an unstable individual who will rightly spend the next 13 years behind bars. In the end, this was not an attack on the Sikh community or the Muslim community, it was an attack by an individual on an individual.”
The only difference is this is a self defense case.
Elaine
“How? Most (especially without any criminal record) purchase a hand gun to protect themselves, not to murder someone, which can also be said of purchasing a vehicle.”
I can see one distinction here. A vehicle has purposes that do not involve threatening, deterring the actions of or shooting another human being. These are the only purposes of owning a handgun. Just because a gun may have been purchased for the purpose of “self defense” does not mitigate that its only reason for existence is to potentially harm another human being. The motive for such use may be self defense, or it may be shear agression masquerading as self defense.
[quote]A vehicle has purposes that do not involve threatening, deterring the actions of or shooting another human being. These are the only purposes of owning a handgun.[/quote]
That is very odd, because I own several, and so did my dad. None of them were purchased for self defense or with the intention of ever harming another human. In fact, I don’t even keep any ammunition at home. I purchase ammunition when I go target shooting, and use it all before coming home. I have also used them to put down sheep that were chewed up by some coyotes or wild dogs, and to kill some rattle snakes that were to close to inhabited areas.
There are many reasons to own guns that have nothing to do with shooting another individual. I am constantly amazed at how many people don’t understand this, or simply don’t want to believe it.
A gun is simply a tool, like a car or a drill or any other physical implement. People constantly want to blame the tool in the situation with a gun rather than blame the person. However, if the same person in this case jumped out of the truck and beat the suspect with a baseball bat, with every other circumstance the same, nobody would be blaming the baseball bat.
Dgrundler
I believe that I was not clear in my post. I intended my comment only in direct reply to Elaine’s point about handguns purchased for self defense.
I grew up in a rural area and much of my food growing up was provided by my father by hunting. I myself was taught to target shoot. I am well aware that there are many reasons other than shooting another person to own guns. That was not the context in which I was writing. I will stand by my point that the only reason to purchase a handgun for “self defense” is with the thought of deterring, intimidating, of harming another human.
You will also notice that I passed no judgement on whether this is a good, bad, or totally neutral objective. I was simply pointing out the flaw in her analogy since cars have purposes totally unrelated to their capacity to cause physical harm.
DG: [quote]The bottom line is that, while it is true the defense does not have to find the gun, the prosecution has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing was not justified.[/quote]
Really? It would seem to me that the defense has the burden of proving up their defenses…—–> ERM, what say you?
In response to j0j0427 comments, I do not believe that there were 2 grand jury indictment hearings in spring 2010. Furthermore, there was not a consensus within the jury with regard to the outcome — it was a very divisive case.
Good point Barb, let me add, I did not talk to the jury after this verdict, but it took them several days to render their verdict, longer in fact than it did the Topete jury, so this was a tough case. I kept going back and forth on it in my own mind during and after the trial, it was a close call, in the end, I think the elements I mentioned tipped me away from self-defense and towards the defendant having a real serious lapse of judgment.
You know, reading the comments that were left ont this article really surprises me. All I continue to see is how everybody is bashing Mr. Robinson all because he has a temper and a criminal past. But does having a temper or a criminal past give anybody the right to shoot and kill him in front of his daughters? Granted, what happened with Mr. Smith’s son is horrible as well, but please do not down play a situation….2 men had a confrontation….one man pulled out a gun and shot the other. Mr. Smith didn’t know Mr. Robinson’s background, and regardless if the prosecution was able to prove it was Mr. Smith on his computer or not, nobody is stupid to believe that it wasn’t Mr. Smith visiting racial websites. I believe in my heart that what Mr. Smith did was his way of showing his son how to deal with people of the opposite race…and for that, Mr. Smith got exactly what he deserves.
mistyd:
First of all you are right he did not know of Mr. Robinson’s violent history which goes to show why he felt driving down the street and around the corner would or should be sufficient enough to end the confrontation. Also Mr. Smith did not shoot Mr. Robinson in front of his daughters. But he did shoot him in front of his son. The reason for this is Mr. Robinson disregarded the safety of his own children and abandonded them on the roadside to fend for themselves to continue this confrontation. Once again I must point out that it is several hundred feet down the road and around the corner. Mr. Robinson also has a history of arrests showing he has been the violent aggressor in the past. Race has nothing to do with this. If I was taken by suprise that someone pursued me that far with bad intentions, it wouldn’t matter what color skin they had, I would defend myself in any way possible. I believe that is exactly what Mr. Smith did that day.
Now aren’t you the same Misty Drew who was making threats against Mr. smith’s family? More specifically “Damn girl….I can’t believe they had the nerve not just to sit by us, but keep starin….that’s why she got told “what you lookin at” huh!!!! Don’t trip, the next step is to knock some teeth to take to my boy Gidd (and I’ll save you some too Bernice!) Love ya Jen….see you on the 30th for prelim!”
Oh my favorite is when you supposedly attacked him (Mr. Smith) while in jail. But the fact that he has been in protective custody the entire time he has been incarcirated makes me wonder about the validity of your statements. So really anything you say really has no substance. But it does show that not only Mr. Robinson, but company he kept has aggressive, violent tendencies.