South Carolina man who killed state police officer pleads guilty, avoids death penalty

January 17. A South Carolina man pleaded guilty Friday to killing a New Mexico state police officer who stopped to help him last year after a flat tire.

A plea deal offered to Jeremy Smith by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Mexico removed the death penalty instead of life in prison.

The family of Officer Justin Hare, 35, told the Journal they wanted Smith executed for killing their son, a father of two, and stealing his police SUV and leaving him on the side of the highway.

“I still wish he was dead,” Jim Hare said outside the U.S. District Courthouse in downtown Albuquerque. “I want to watch them put him in a chair or something and we look into his eyes while he dies.”

Smith pleaded guilty Friday to carjacking resulting in death, aggravated assault with a firearm, kidnapping resulting in death, felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a stolen firearm in the March 15, 2023, incident. .

The minimum and maximum sentences, according to the plea agreement, were the same: never to be a free man again. Smith’s sentencing hearing is set for 90 days from Friday.

The death penalty is still an option for the 34-year-old elsewhere as he faces possible state and federal charges in the Marion, S.C., kidnapping and death of Phonesia Machado-Fore, 52, a paramedic.

The Marion County Sheriff’s Office called the plea an “incredible step forward” in a statement Friday and said “charges are still pending” against Smith in Machado-Fore’s death.

Authorities say Smith killed Machado-Fore and drove her BMW Cross Country to see an ex-girlfriend in Albuquerque, ending up with a flat tire on Interstate 40 near Tucumcari. After killing Hare, stealing his police SUV and crashing it, Smith got into the cab and stole the truck to drive to Albuquerque.

Bernalillo County deputies shot and killed Smith the next day during a pursuit in the West Side neighborhood.

State Police Superintendent Troy Weisler said Smith will “never breathe a free man again, and rightfully so.”

“There is no place in our society for cold-blooded killers like he is, a ruthless killer who took the lives of two of this country’s best servants,” he said.

“Guilty”

On Friday, the courtroom was packed with state troopers in full uniform, and amid a sea of ​​black and silver, Jim and Terry Hare sat between Alexander Uballez, the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico, and Jason Bowie, the cabinet secretary. State Department of Public Safety.

Smith, with a scruffy beard and short dreadlocks, stood next to defense attorney Devon Fuchs in a yellow jumpsuit with his hands and feet shackled. For the most part, Smith would only say, “Yes, sir,” in a deep drawl when asked about his understanding of the request.

“What’s in it for him?” U.S. District Judge James Browning asked Fuchs, citing the plea agreement. Fuchs responded that the possibility of the death penalty for Smith had been suppressed.

Uballez said several things are taken into account in overturning the death penalty: consultation with families and victims, and an analysis of the facts and the law, among other factors. Uballez said there is a motive in Smith’s case, but it is confidential. The final decision was made by US Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Hare’s mother, Terri Hare, said she was told a big reason was that Smith had special needs and was in a special education program as a child. Hair, a special education teacher herself, said she doesn’t feel the U.S. Attorney’s Office “took into account what an IEP is” and that shouldn’t have been a factor.

Hare said she wished they had made a different choice, adding that “we were upset.”

Federal prosecutor Jack Burkhead read Smith’s admissions from the plea agreement, tracing his journey from South Carolina to New Mexico. As he recounted how Hair was shot, carjacked and left for dead, Terri Hair wiped away tears, her lips pursed, her eyes staring straight ahead.

At one point, Uballez put a hand on Heir’s shoulder, and she looked across the room at Smith. During a typical retelling of his crimes, Smith appeared to close his eyes or stare at the table. Smith looked up fervently as Burkhead read, “All this I did,” describing the gunshot wounds to Hare’s head and neck.

Browning then asked Smith how he had confessed to the crimes. “Guilty,” Smith said in the same drawling voice heard in the video of Officer Hare asking, “I got a flat tire, can you help me?”

Outside the courthouse, law enforcement officials thanked local and South Carolina authorities for their work on the case, the Bernalillo County deputies who arrested Smith and the West Side gas station clerk who recognized him and called 911.

But Raul Bujanda, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Albuquerque office, complained that it was all bound to happen.

“I wish we weren’t here today. I would like such evil not to exist in our world, but it exists,” he said. “I would like to meet Justin and Phenicia. I would like to warn them about Jeremy Smith.’