(Editor's note: The author's brother, Richard W. Smith, brought suit against the University, claiming that the it and the University Judiciary Committee violated his due process rights. Smith had been convicted by UJC of assaulting College student Alexander "Sandy" Kory in the fall of 1997, and in the spring of 1999, was suspended by Pres. John T. Casteen III. Smith lost the lawsuit. The following letters were edited for grammar and punctuation, but not for content.)
My name is Kathleen Smith, and I am Richard Smith's sister. I was a student at the University up until last spring. I was a first-year student when this whole thing started and who knows how old I will be when it's over.
I have read countless articles printed by The Cavalier Daily and have yet to find one that actually has the facts straight. Instead, I have seen my brother portrayed as an animal and my father portrayed as a "mafia-esque" man who abuses his power. In addition, I saw flyers calling for the lynching of my brother and witnessed a pathetic attempt at a protest rally calling for his expulsion.
There have to be more important things to protest about. All of this was over one punch - yes, one punch - and a kick which did not make contact. There was no actual broken jaw but rather two teeth that required a root canal. Richard served 21 days in jail, did 400 hours of community service, and paid restitution for not only the dental work but also for therapy.
He has never said that what he did was right - he lost his temper, it happens to the best of us. I have seen fights worse than that happen at U.Va. and I also know, because of the Freedom of Information Act, of University Judiciary Committee cases involving acts that were much more violent where the punishment was nothing more than suspension in abeyance.
We weren't allowed to state that information in court, though. In fact, we weren't allowed to use a lot of evidence, but we still made our point and, more importantly, Richard and my father told the truth, which is what they set out to do.
The trial transcripts clearly show that everything Richard charged the University with is true. Richard did not attend the hearing on Nov. 21, 1997 because he believed it to be canceled. Vice President William Harmon told Richard and my father that the trial would be canceled after they met with him and presented him with reasons why they would not be prepared and could not possibly get a fair trial. In my opinion, they would never have gotten a fair trial because of all the negative publicity which they had already received.
There were many reasons for this, and I would like to state a few: They were sprung with a list of surprise witnesses on Wednesday before the trial, including James Camblos, the prosecuting attorney in Richard's criminal trial, who we later found out through discovery had been helping one of the UJC prosecutors make the case against Richard, Harrison Kerr Tigrett and Bradley Kintz.
There was impending civil litigation - meaning, we were waiting for Alexander "Sandy" Kory to sue, which is really what the whole thing is about in the first place. I highly doubt that he would have pressed charges against Richard had he not found out who my father was [Editor's note: Smith's father is Frederick Smith, Chairman of Federal Express' holding company]. The fact that he offered to drop all UJC claims against Richard in exchange for $500,000 and that he now currently has a $1.5 million dollar lawsuit pending against Richard, Tigrett, and Kintz, is proof enough of that.
When Harmon testified in the trial this October, however, he said that he had told Richard and my father that he would recommend that the trial be postponed, because he did not have the power to postpone it. Once again, however, through discovery, we recovered an e-mail from Harmon to Amanda Morrow - one of the top people in the UJC at the time - telling her to do whatever was necessary to postpone the trial. Morrow shared this email with John Hevner, the UJC trial chair, who opted not to share it with the panel of judges when they decided whether or not to try him in absentia. Hevner testified in the October 2000 hearing and it is actually quite funny because he conveniently "could not remember" a lot of things that he stated in his deposition.
In addition, the UJC most definitely is inadequately trained considering most of the members did not know who they answered to in the administration. One member even went so far as to say that the UJC was not bound by the constitution of the United States.
Upon reading the transcripts one can see that The Cavalier Daily lead editorial from Thursday Oct. 26, 2000, which claims that the University is a self-governed body, is false. According to the depositions and testimony of Harmon, University President John T. Casteen III, and some members of the Board of Visitors, rulings of the UJC mean nothing because Vice President Harmon has to approve or dismiss all rulings.
So, he has the power to dismiss findings of the UJC but he doesn't have the power to postpone a hearing in the first place. I guess that's what the defense was claiming anyway. Also, in the end, it was Casteen, not the students, who sanctioned Richard.
Student self-governance did not win anything in the trial, because even though Richard didn't "win" his lawsuit, you can bet on the fact that the way the University, and in particular the UJC and Honor Committee, are run, will be changing. In fact, the UJC orientation has already changed somewhat.
They are unfair and biased ways of dealing with student disciplinary problems. For example, more than 90 percent of those sanctioned by the Honor Committee are minorities. Therefore, in a way Richard did win, because he stood up to student self- governance and exposed it for the mockery that it is. If The Cavalier Daily wants to go on believing that the University has this impeccable system of student self-governance, that's fine, but the facts state otherwise. I just thought that you might be interested in hearing a few of the reasons why this system does not work the way it is currently set up. For more information you can also go to The Washington Post online edition and look up the expose they did on the Honor Committee last spring.
Finally, there are two last things I would like to say. First, I am not writing this because I am against student self-governance, in fact I think it is a great concept. But it does not work the way it is currently set up. No one would expect it to when not even the Vice President of Student Affairs follows the honor code.
Secondly, I am not writing this in an attempt to evoke pity for my brother, because Richard will be just fine - not because my dad has money, but because not only is he an intelligent and good person, but also because he can live with himself and in the knowledge that he told the truth. No, he didn't win, but did you really expect him to? Richard's trial was in Charlottesville, where the judge was a U.Va. graduate and the jury of his peers consisted of six women (two of whom had significant ties to the University) and two men who were all much older, most definitely had prior knowledge of the case, and were given, in my opinion, poor jury instructions by the court.
(Kathleen Smith is Richard Smith's sister and a former University student.)
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