die or go to prison for the rest of my life, on the other handy make up a story against smitty, who i didn t like, which one am i going to do? narrator: in 1990, smitty caught a break when the u.s. supreme court ruled that improper jury instructions had been given in many new orleans trials. smitty was granted a new trial. clive and tom now had a chance to challenge the state s case. what i think became very clear when you saw the whole picture of all of these statements, the major informants in the case had just made it up and they were the ones who did the murder. now, there s nowhere in smitty s military records does it show he has any specialized training involving explosives. i ve seen that bomb being made right there in the courtroom, and a mental midget could make that bomb. it didn t require no expert, but i never built a bomb. there was absolutely nothing
grandparents, all of that stuff was military at one time or another. i dropped out of high school. my dad says, you re either going to go in the service or you re going to go to school, but you re not going to live in this household unless you go to school, and so i said, sign the papers for me. i was a cocky youngster, and i went in the army when i was 17. and from there i went to vietnam, end of 1966. i was patriotic. i believed in the red, white and blue. i was fighting for america. i came back in december of 1967. announcer: smitty, like many returning veterans, felt isolated from civilian life and found a haven in the motorcycle club. being a soldier, you couldn t relate to people back on the streets. i d just as soon be around
as soon as she felt they left, she literally ran out the back door and ran to the neighbor s house. she s by the grace of god alive. you just want to grab her by the arms and shake her and say, what else happened? but when you got to the particulars of the individual that did the shooting, she was a little hesitant or withdrawn as to who it might be, and that to me was a red flag as to she knows this guy, she was deathly afraid. announcer: a friend that penny called for support soon arrived at the emergency room. they whit perred back and forth, and he eventually turned around to me and said, she knows who the shooter was. she called him smitty. we knew that smitty and this guy yankee always hung out together, so that puts them together, and more than likely at that scene. announcer: detectives knew smitty and yafrpnkee belonged t
a book that you re ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! announcer: in the spring of 1983, clarence smitty smith, the president of the outlaws motorcycle club in florida, was about to stand trial for a quadruple homicide in ft. lauderdale. mr. smith, how are you doing this morning? announcer: smitty s alleged accomplice, a biker known as yankee, had eluded authorities. public defender took on smitty s case. some of the outlaws were a bit rough around the edges. smitty as far as personality was concerned was not like that at all. i felt he had a compelling story to tell. my dad was ex-military.
organized crime, with a major battle targeting the outlaws. they performed theft, arson, and the dealing in stolen property and prostitution. and their willingness to expand and to fight their rivals is what s allowed them to flourish. narrator: dea agent charles falco was one of a handful of undercover federal agents to successfully infiltrate the outlaws. well, since florida is a main hub for cocaine coming from south america to the rest of the country, the florida outlaws would have had the power to distribute the coke to the midwest and east coast. so really the basis of outlaw power comes from the state of florida. narrator: smitty, as florida president, was viewed as a high-ranking target. when we as a society look at bikers in general, we think of a free-loving, free-spirited rebel