Clyde Smith was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of David Jacobs
According to court documents Clyde Smith would fatally shoot and rob taxi driver David Jacobs
Earlier Clyde Smith would rob and murder another taxi driver Victor Bilton
Clyde Smith was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Clyde Smith would be executed by lethal injection on February 15 2006
Clyde Smith Photos
Clyde Smith FAQ
When Was Clyde Smith Executed
Clyde Smith was executed on February 15 2006
Clyde Smith Case
Convicted killer Clyde Smith was executed today for the 1992 fatal shooting of a Houston cab driver during a robbery. “I want to thank you all for being here and for your love and support,” Smith said to friends who watched from a nearby window. Smith, who was executed for the 1992 death of cab driver David Jacobs, did not acknowledge the relatives of another slain cab driver who were present for the execution. Seven minutes after the lethal drugs began to flow, he was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m. CST.
His execution was the fourth this year in Texas and the second of three scheduled this month in the nation’s busiest capital punishment state.
Smith confessed to the Feb. 7, 1992, slaying of the 45-year-old Jacobs, and a similar shooting and robbery six weeks later of another cab driver. But Smith said the confession was made under duress from police. “I realize how bad that looked, because the two were so similar,” he said of the two deaths. “But at the same time, I still maintain I didn’t kill those persons.” Smith, 32, was convicted of shooting Jacobs four times in the head and robbing him of about $100. “I wasn’t there when he was killed,” Smith said in a recent interview at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Polunsky Unit, home to the state’s death row. “I got there afterward.”
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday rejected requests to commute Smith’s sentence to life and to issue a 180-day reprieve. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the request for a stay about an About an hour before the scheduled execution today, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal in the case. Smith’s lawyers had challenged the constitutionality of the lethal combination of drugs used in the injection. Similar appeals in recent weeks have failed to halt two other executions carried out in Texas.
In earlier appeals, lawyers pointed out federal judges agreed Smith may have had poor legal help during his trial and that he suffered significant abuse as a child, which they say was not pursued by his trial defense team. “Nevertheless, … courts concluded that Smith must shoulder the consequences,” Clint Broden, Smith’s appeals lawyers, said.
At his trial, defense attorneys presented no witnesses. “I had no idea how the system worked,” Smith said from death row. “All I knew was what I saw on TV. It’s much different.”
Joe Owmby, who prosecuted the case, said defense lawyers “had nothing to work with except … to discredit the witnesses that we did have.” Two women, girlfriends of Smith, testified against him. One of his girlfriends called a crime tip line that led police to Smith. One of them said she was in the cab when he committed one of the slayings. “Things always went wrong when I was associated with people,” said Smith, who was 18 at the time of the deaths. “I didn’t actually kill anyone, but it’s possible I could be killed by the state.”
Owmby doesn’t believe Smith’s claims of innocence. “He is a cold-blooded, remorseless individual who could have contributed to society, but decided to take the lives of two people who were important to a lot of people just by being who they were — hardworking people who drove cabs and lived good lives in Houston,” Owmby said.
Smith, a Charlotte, N.C., native, had been in Houston about 10 months. His father lived in Houston and his mother in Mississippi. Smith dropped out of the ninth grade in Laurel, Miss., and once worked as a security guard. He has four brothers and a sister. From death row, he said the last time he saw a relative was 1991. He also has a daughter, about 18, who has no contact with him. “I didn’t want her to be exposed to this,” he said.
Next on the execution schedule is Steven Staley, condemned for the 1989 slaying of a Fort Worth restaurant manager during a botched robbery. Staley, scheduled to be executed Feb. 23, won a reprieve last year.