Miami judge disqualifies prosecutors from Corey Smith's case

In an Order issued yesterday, the Judge disqualified two ASAs from Smith's case for unethical conduct.

Mar 07, 2024

Corey Smith was originally sentenced to two sentences of death after trial in 2004 following the jury’s nonunanimous recommendations for death by votes of 10-2 and 9-3. After Hurst, in 2017, the Florida Supreme Court granted Smith a new penalty phase. His case has been pending in the trial court since then, and the State again seeks to sentence Smith to death.

Just before his scheduled resentencing, Smith, through his attorneys, filed a Motion to Disqualify the State Attorney’s Office for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida, raising “over 20 years of allegations of misconduct.”

Smith also filed a Successive Post-Conviction Motion to Vacate Judgments of Conviction and Sentence of Death. In the Motion to Disqualify Rather than holding the retrial, the Court held an evidentiary hearing on Smith’s motions.

Yesterday, the Court issued an Order on Smith’s Motion to Disqualify.

While the Court did not grant Smith’s request to disqualify the entire State Attorney’s Office, the Court did disqualify two Assistant State Attorneys (ASA), writing:

First, the Court found that the letters regarding Tricia Geter “were likely not disclosed to the defense.” On this point, the Court said that ASA Von Zamft “and his team could not seem to fully grasp the gravity of the alleged lack of disclosure leading up to and during the original prosecution.”

The allegations on the second issue, the Court said, “are like a rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland . . . .” Ultimately, here’s what the Court wrote:

After the Court heard evidence and before oral argument, the Court heard “a recorded jail call from” Smith’s codefendant and the State’s witness from August 2022, in which the following exchange took place: