Associate Press

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RALEIGH— A Halifax County man sentenced to die for the poisoning death of his 6-year-old daughter has escaped the ultimate penalty.

Clinton Cebert Smith, 48, is the latest prisoner removed from North Carolina’s death row after a judge ruled the condemned man wasn’t capable of understanding his actions and under state law, those who are mentally retarded cannot be executed.

With Superior Court Judge John R. Jolly Jr.’s ruling, Smith will now serve life without the possibility of parole. But his attorneys are appealing his conviction in hopes of getting a new trial.

The Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham said Smith is the 14th prisoner removed from death row in North Carolina since the law was changed in 2001. Executions of the mentally retarded were banned in 2002 by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Smith was sentenced to death 10 years ago in Halifax County for killing his 6-year-old daughter, Britteny, with pesticide-laced Kool-Aid in 1996. Smith’s two younger children survived.

He has denied poisoning the children, but prosecutors had contended that Smith didn’t want to continue paying child support and was angry at his girlfriend for seeing another man.

Smith’s attorneys said the ruling gives them a chance to seek a new trial in a case where they believe the inmate is innocent. They say he can’t read or write, has an IQ at 70 or less and is limited in his life skills and couldn’t plan and execute the crime.

“The fact that he’s retarded eliminates him as a suspect as far as we’re concerned,” attorney Mark Montgomery told The News & Observer of Raleigh. But original prosecutor W. Robert Caudle II of Halifax County stands by the conviction.

“I think the steps that he took to carry out this heinous crime indicates that he certainly had the wherewithal,” Caudle said.

Court records show Smith went to Sylvia Cotton’s apartment in Scotland Neck while no one was there and left balloons and a mug that said “I love you.” Investigators said Smith also put a pesticide in Kool-Aid in the refrigerator and Cotton served it for supper on Jan. 16, 1996.

Cotton said before the children got sick, they complained about the taste of the drink and she sampled it and said it was gritty and bitter. She poured it out and made another batch.

Two of Smith’s co-workers at a farm said he brought the pesticide Di-Syston home in a paper bag. Investigators found a bag in Cotton’s trash and it tested positive for the poison.

But Smith’s new lawyers said there is doubt about his guilt.

A toxicologist hired by the state questioned whether the amount of pesticide found in the girl’s blood was enough to cause death or severe illness, but that information wasn’t given to Smith’s original trial lawyers.

Caudle said the information only raised questions and didn’t give answers and wouldn’t be of use to the defense.

The state contended that Smith had only borderline intellectual problems and wasn’t retarded.