April trial set for Donald Smith

April trial set for Donald Smith
Welcome to a Biomedical Battery specialist of the Smiths Battery
An April 4 trial date has been set for Donald James Smith, the man charged in the abduction, sexual assault and strangulation of 8-year-old Cherish Perrywinkle.
Circuit Judge Mallory Cooper set the date Tuesday on the recommendation of prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Smith, 59, faces the death penalty.
The trial will occur nearly three years after Smith was arrested in the June 2013 crime.
The case has gotten bogged down because of the need to examine so much evidence and because the public defender had to withdraw as Smiths’ original lawyer because the office also represented another man facing Death Row who said he has incriminating with battery such as Smiths WZ50C2 Battery, Smiths WZ50S Battery, Smiths WZS50F2 Battery, Smiths WZ50C6 Battery, Smiths WZ50C6T Battery, Smiths WZ50C66T Battery, Smiths WZ-50C6 Battery, Smiths WZ-50C6T Battery, Smiths WZ50F6 Battery, Smiths WZ-50F6 Battery, GE DASH2500 Batteryevidence against Smith in another death.
Prosecutors said they weren’t interested in talking to that inmate, Randall Deviney, but the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee ruled that the public defender still had to withdraw from both cases due to the “inherent conflict” that existed.
Private attorneys Julie Schlax and Charles Fletcher took over Smith’s defense and are being paid by the taxpayers.
Schlax also indicated Tuesday that an insanity charge might be their defense when she requested permission to employ a psychiatrist to examine Smith before the trial begins. Cooper did not rule on that motion, but hiring psychiatrists with taxpayer money to examine a defendant is routine in death-penalty cases.
Cooper also indicated she wanted to rule on a motion to move the trial from Jacksonville because of the excessive media attention at the next pretrial hearing. That motion hasn’t actually been filed yet but routinely occurs in murder cases that garner a large amount of media attention, with the judge almost always denying the motion by saying he or she will attempt to seat a jury locally first.
The next pretrial hearing will occur the week of Nov. 2.
Smith is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual battery. He is a registered sex offender who was released from prison three weeks before Cherish was killed.
He is accused of befriending Cherish, her mother, Rayne Perrywinkle, and siblings at a Dollar General store in June 2013 and convincing them to go to Wal-Mart on Lem Turner Road in his van after offering to buy them clothes and food.
Perrywinkle told police that Smith offered to buy the family hamburgers at the McDonald’s inside the Wal-Mart.
Cherish went with him to get the food, and they did not return.
Cherish’s body was found near a creek off Broward Road the next morning.
Larry Hannan: (904) 359-4470