The man convicted of raping and murdering 8-year-old Cherish Perrywinkle in 2013 will be back in court Tuesday as he seeks a new trial.
Donald Smith was found guilty in 2018 of killing Perrywinkle and was sentenced to death.
Investigators found that Smith abducted Perrywinkle by luring her into his van at a Northside Walmart in 2013. Smith was later arrested on Interstate 95 shortly before her body was found in a creek.
A status conference hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday for the 78-page appeal filed by his lawyers in April.
WATCH: News4JAX will stream the status hearing live. Press play above to watch.
Smith’s lawyers argue in the lengthy appeal that many errors were made in his trial that led to the penalty phase where he was sentenced to death.
The state argues that even if those errors were made, the evidence was overwhelming that Smith murdered Perrywinkle, and it would not have impacted the outcome of his getting the death penalty.
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Smith’s appeal argues that his original conviction isn’t valid because his former lawyers failed to remove a biased juror and failed to object to a 911 call and “digitally altered photographs.”
Back in May, the State Attorney’s Office filed a response to the motion for a new trial, arguing it should be “summarily denied.”
MORE: Complete coverage of Donald Smith’s trial and aftermath
Belkis Plata, a Jacksonville attorney not associated with the case, said Tuesday’s hearing is procedural, but explained Smith’s strategy.
“The job of the new defense attorneys is to poke holes in the work that the former defense attorneys did and try to show that it was so poorly done, that it negatively affected Mr. Smith, and he deserves to have another day in court,” Plata said.
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