Kentucky man pardoned by former Gov. Matt Bevin arrested on strangulation charge
A Lexington man has been charged with strangulation a year after then-Gov. Matt Bevin pardoned him on a conviction for killing his infant son.
Kurt Robert Smith, 36, was arrested on Friday by Lexington police on one misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree assault — domestic violence and one charge of first-degree strangulation, a felony, according to the Fayette County Detention Center website.
The citation in the case, released Monday by the jail, said a woman told police that Smith “threw her around during an argument” on Dec. 8, bruising her back and ribs.
The woman also said Smith had his hands around her neck “restricting her airway” while she was on the ground.
The officer said there were visible minor injuries to the woman’s back, ribs, chin and jaw.
The jail blacked out the part of the citation describing the woman’s relationship to Smith.
Smith was 17 in 2001 when he was charged with killing his 6-week-old son, Blake.
Smith initially claimed he had dropped Blake accidentally, but a medical examiner testified that the baby had been shaken violently and received blows to the head that caused a skull fracture and severe swelling of his brain, according to accounts from the time and a court record.
A judge sentenced Smith to life in prison in March 2002, which reportedly made him eligible for parole after 20 years.
Bevin issued an order on Dec. 6, 2019 commuting his sentence to time served and pardoning him, saying he had been punished enough for a crime that happened 18 years before.
“I am confident that he will become a productive member of society and encourage him to use his life experience to educate and help others,” Bevin said in the order.
The pardon was one of scores the Republican governor issued on the way out the door after losing his bid for a second term, many of them controversial.
Bevin’s order did not address Smith’s participation in a riot at Northpoint Training Center near Danville in 2009, in which inmates set fires that destroyed six buildings and damaged others.
It cost more than $18 million to rebuild the prison.
Smith was charged with taking part in the riot and with third-degree assault for allegedly hitting a guard with an object. He pleaded guilty to both charges as part of a deal for a five-year sentence to be served at the same time as his sentence on the murder conviction.
Defense attorneys argued Smith deserved the reprieve, saying the sentence was too harsh to begin with and that Smith had matured and worked hard to improve, getting his high-school equivalency degree and a career-readiness certificate and completing a job-coaching class in prison.
Smith also had gotten baptized and helped train more than two dozen dogs as part of a program in which inmates prepare dogs to be adopted, according to a clemency petition prepared for him.
“He is exactly the person the clemency and pardon power was created to help, and we are grateful that Governor Bevin considered his case and granted him relief,” Smith’s attorneys said at the time. “We are confident that society will not regret that decision.”
This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 7:39 PM.
