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Betty Smithey
Convicted of first degree murder

Betty Smithey’s story cannot be adequately told in a few words but has become one of the nearest and dearest undertakings of The Justice Project.

Betty was convicted of the first degree murder of a baby for whom she served as a babysitter in 1963. Although severely mentally compromised at the time, her lawyer presented no competency case at trial. No appeals were taken on her behalf. Instead, she spent her first years in prison in the Arizona State Mental Hospital. Many years before there was a Justice Project, our faculty coordinator, Professor Andy Silverman, at the University of Arizona, took a special interest in her plight. Although he could not win her release, her case was never far from his mind.

In 2003 The Justice Project succeeded in winning for her a recommendation of release from the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency. Her 40-year sentence far exceeded the sentences of now more than a generation of others whose crimes were far more culpable. Nevertheless, the Governor, without a statement of reasons, rejected her own Board’s recommendation.

The Project’s volunteers, however, have not been daunted. They have filed a petition for her release in Superior Court and there is reason to hope that when next this website is updated we will be able to describe the circumstances that have led to her release from incarceration.