A removal trial for suspended Coal County Sheriff Jason Smith remains on the schedule for April 27 after all because a district judge has denied a negotiated plea agreement, saying the decision of the state’s multi-county grand jury cannot be disregarded.
On Nov. 20, grand jurors recommended Smith be removed from office on accusations of oppression in office and habitual drunkenness. The next day, the grand jury indicted Smith with two counts of misdemeanor charges of assault for allegedly shoving his wife and punching a deputy’s husband July 26.
Smith, who denies the allegations, was suspended Dec. 11 by District Judge Mark Campbell following a Dec. 1 vote by Coal County commissioners to suspend Smith that was later invalidated.
On Dec. 17, Campbell denied a motion to set aside the suspension, which argued it had been entered without a formal motion by the state and without a hearing. The removal trial was later scheduled for April 27.
Court records filed March 30 in Coal County District Court show Smith pleaded no contest to a single misdemeanor count of assault and battery and received a 90-day deferred sentence along with unsupervised probation, with supervision fees waived. The second misdemeanor charge was dismissed under the plea agreement.
Documents show that, on April 2, a negotiated agreement between the state’s special prosecutor — former district attorney Chuck Sullivan — and Smith was sent to Campbell for approval. Sullivan has since resigned to work for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.
The agreement specified the state would dismiss the removal proceedings after Smith agreed not to seek reinstatement of his position until his deferred sentence was completed.
But in an April 7 order denying the agreed dismissal, Campbell wrote the prosecutor’s office “ostensibly submitted this matter to the multi-county grand jury to make the decisions about the allegations surrounding Mr. Smith.”
“The grand jurors reached a conclusion after they listened to multiple witnesses, and they made the determination that Mr. Smith should be removed from office as the sheriff of Coal County,” Campbell wrote. “The prosecutor assigned to the case to handle that trial cannot unilaterally decide to disregard the findings of the multi-county grand jury and acquiesce to a dismissal of the removal action.”
Campbell ordered that, if the prosecutor’s office is unable or unwilling to comply with the findings and directives of the grand jury, then the office can ask the Attorney General’s Office to reassign the matter. He wrote that the removal case “remains set for jury trial” 9 a.m. Monday, April 27, at the Coal County Courthouse “for a jury to decide the issues that are the subject of this removal action.”
Leslie Berger, press secretary for the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office, said Wednesday the case is staying with Sullivan’s former District 18 office, which is currently being led by Assistant District Attorney James Green.
Green outlined his plan in a statement Wednesday, although he suggested he could choose to abandon the removal proceeding altogether.
“My office is going to keep the removal action case, and the plan is we’re going to keep our side of the bargain, and if the judge forces our hand, dismiss it prior,” Green said. “That’s the previous administration’s deal, and out of good faith, we’re going to follow through with that deal.”
Smith’s attorney of record for the removal case, Billy Coyle, did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
