‘Hunter and the hunted.’ Smith found guilty in deadly SC prison mob riot, gets 45 years

A Lee County jury on Friday found Michael “Flame” Smith guilty of being part of a mob that assaulted and killed fellow inmate Cornelius McClary in 2018 during a wild gang brawl in a deadly prison riot that killed seven inmates.

The verdict — after less than an hour’s deliberation — came on the afternoon of the fourth day of a trial at Lee County’s 115-year-old courthouse in downtown Bishopville. It was the first trial of any inmate charged in the April 15, 2018, Lee Correctional Institution riot, one of the nation’s deadliest prison riots in the last quarter century, and it featured stark testimony underscoring the brutality of prison life.

Trial Judge Ferrell Cothran Jr. gave Smith a 45-year sentence — 30 years for the mob killing, to be followed by 10 years for possession of a weapon by an inmate. Smith also received a 5-year sentence for conspiracy, to be served concurrently with the 40 years total for the first two charges.

In 2015, Smith was convicted of attempted murder in the shooting of University of South Carolina freshman Martha Childress, who was paralyzed for life by a stray bullet from a stolen Glock that Smith — drunk and high on marijuana, according to evidence at his trial — fired on a crowded nighttime Five Points sidewalk. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, but the conviction was overturned in 2020 by the state Supreme Court. He has been held since then at Richland County’s Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.

This week’s trial in Lee County marked the first time major events of that night have been aired publicly and in such detail in a formal setting. The riot at the maximum security prison took place in three different dormitories, but testimony and evidence in Smith’s trial focused mostly on what happened in his building.

Since Tuesday, prosecutors had put up eight witnesses; the defense only one — Smith, 31, who took the stand Thursday and told the jury he stabbed McClary to death in self defense. Crucial evidence in the prosecution’s case included prison surveillance videos from multiple cameras that showed a crucial two minutes leading up to McClary’s killing.

Smith’s self-defense description of events was ridiculed Friday morning during arguments to the jury of eight women and four men by prosecutors Barney Giese and Margaret Scott. They painted Smith as a vengeful killer who stabbed and struck a helpless, unarmed McClary as he lay on the floor of a prison dorm bleeding from some 90 previous stab wounds. Smith was part of a pack of Blood gang members that chased McClary, who was trying to get away, prosecutors said.

“It looked like a bunch of sharks attacking poor Mr. McClary,” Giese told the jury, pointing to evidence from prison videos that Giese said showed Smith, a Bloods gang member, pushing through a crowd of fellow Bloods to follow McClary, who had tumbled down a staircase. At the stairs’ bottom, Smith stabbed McClary, a member of the Crips gang, in the back, hit him and stabbed him again, Giese said.

Smith was motivated by vengeance because a fellow Blood had been killed earlier that night in another prison dorm, Giese told the jury. Giese sneeringly reminded the jury that Smith had described himself as a “man of peace” while on the witness stand. “A man of peace goes the other way,” Giese said.

Scott told the jury that this was a case of “the hunter and the hunted ... predator and prey,” and McClary was the prey.

Quoting the French philosopher Voltaire, Scott told the jury that, “To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth,” and the truth is that on that night, “Smith... stabbed McClary over and over again. He (Smith) wasn’t scared that night — he was on the prowl.”

Earlier in the week, pathologist Janice Ross, a prosecution witness, testified that McClary had been stabbed 101 times, some of the wounds just cuts but others resulted in death.

Defense attorney Aimee Zmroczek emphasized to jurors the testimony from Smith that he had been in fear of his life during the multi-hour riot, and that a friend of his had been stabbed to death earlier that night in another prison dormitory.

Zmroczek also blamed the S.C. Department of Corrections for failing to keep inmates in a safe and secure environment. “I will say until I’m blue in the face, yes, SCDC caused this.” The department’s failures included the lack of good locks on doors that might have prevented the killings, she said.

Zmroczek also told the jury that although Smith had pushed his way to the front of the group of Bloods during the incident with McClary, Smith was actually trying to calm things down.

Smith was charged with assault and battery by mob, first degree, resulting in death as well as conspiracy and possession of a weapon by an inmate. The jury considered each charge separately and found Smith guilty of each one.

During the riot, seven inmates were killed and 22 were seriously injured. Smith is the first of the 47 inmates indicted as a result of the riots to go on trial. Eleven others have pleaded guilty to various charges. Besides Smith, 12 other defendants were charged with the same mob offense. Of those, four have pleaded to lesser charges, and charges are pending against seven. One inmate facing those charges has died.

McClary was 33 at the time of his death. He had been serving a 31-year sentence for crimes including burglary and assault and battery and was scheduled for release in 2032, according to news accounts.

During his argument to the jury, Giese stressed that although McClary was an inmate, he had a right to life. Giese even quoted from English poet John Donne: “Each man’s death diminishes me / For I am involved in mankind. / Therefore, send not to know / For whom the bell tolls / It tolls for thee.”

Just before Smith was sentenced Friday, Giese read a letter from McClary’s mother, Marilyn Wilson, to the judge.

“I still suffer from the pain, anxiety and depression as my only child was taken from me,” Giese read. “My grandson must grow up without the dad he loved so much... I keep asking how someone could be so cruel as to take a life like that. My child was no animal to be slaughtered.”

After the trial, Corrections Department Director Bryan Stirling stood with Giese’s team of prosecutors and their staffs, telling the media that safety for inmates has improved at Lee Correctional Institution and more upgrades are on the way. At the time of the riot, all 1,000 inmates at the prison were classified as maximum security, but now only 30 percent of the population has that status. The rest are medium security, Stirling said.

Inmates, even those serving long sentences, have a chance to do good, said Stirling. “There’s always a chance for these people to change.”

The case was investigated by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and the Corrections Department.

Giese, a former 5th Circuit solicitor, was specially retained by the Corrections Department and 3rd Circuit Solicitor Ernest “Chip” Finney to prosecute Lee County prison riot cases. Assistant prosecutors were Scott, Stephen Lunsford and John Conrad. Scott and Lunsford are special assistant attorneys general who work for the S.C. Department of Corrections; Conrad is an assistant state attorney general. Lee County is one of four counties in Finney’s circuit.

Giese said that under cross examination, Smith was shown to not be telling the truth. “A lot of times, when any witness — especially the defendant — tells an untruth, the jury just doesn’t believe anything else the witness says.”

In dismissing the jury, Cothran, who had throughout the trial instructed the jury not to talk to anyone about the case, told them, “Now you can talk about it with anybody you want to.... Thank you for your service.”