Former Lancaster County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jan Smith has agreed to a one year and one day suspension of his law license for misconduct in his handling of a 2017 fatal boating accident.
A three-judge panel, which was scheduled to hold a disciplinary hearing Monday, approved the agreement last week, according to documents from the bar.
The allegation stems from a plea deal Smith negotiated in the death of 31-year-old former Richmonder Graham McCormick, who drowned in Carter Creek off the Rappahannock River after he was thrown from a boat at night; his body was recovered the next morning.
John Randolph “Rand” Hooper, a friend of McCormick’s with whom he’d been staying, faced conviction of two felonies — involuntary manslaughter and failure to render aid — and one year imprisonment in a local jail, with another 14 years suspended.
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In telling McCormick’s family and a witness of the plea agreement, which they felt was too lenient, Smith “wrongfully and inaccurately suggested” that the judge overseeing the case at the time “had pre-judged the case,” according to bar documents.
In May, a bar subcommittee said Smith violated its rules of professional conduct by making “a false statement of fact or law” and engaging “in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation which reflects adversely on the lawyer’s fitness to practice law.”
Smith denied any misconduct in his initial June response to the bar demanding the hearing that was scheduled for Monday. Then last week, “upon the stipulations of misconduct,” he and the bar agreed the suspension was “an appropriate sanction.” The bar said the suspension took effect Thursday.
Because the suspension is over a year, the state bar said Smith would have to pass the ethics portion of the bar exam if he planned to return to practice law.
Smith has twice before received a public reprimand from the state bar for misconduct when he was a private attorney. In 2010, the bar found that Smith failed to file an appeal promptly, to communicate with his client, or respond to the disciplinary board during its investigation. In 2012, he was cited for similar failures to file timely appeals or suits on behalf of three separate clients.
Last November, Smith lost re-election after one term as the county’s prosecutor. His successor, Tony Spencer, was removed from the case after Hooper’s attorneys alleged his election was supported by McCormick’s family.
The plea deal was ultimately rejected, and Hooper withdrew his guilty plea.
King William Commonwealth’s Attorney Matthew R. Kite was appointed as a special prosecutor in the case.
A hearing is scheduled for Friday to set a date for trial, which will take place in Norfolk because of the coverage the case has received in Lancaster County.