Within hours after Brewton resident William Douglas Smith pleaded guilty Wednesday morning to multiple sex crimes against young boys we began receiving telephone calls questioning why someone who molested so many young boys got off with a 20-year sentence.
Most of the people we talked too felt the least he should have received is life, while others said he should be taken out on the front lawn of the courthouse and shot.
Smith was scheduled to be tried by a jury Wednesday morning in Brewton on two counts of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 12 on two young victims. The jury had been selected. Then he changed his mind.
He not only pleaded guilty to those charges, but he pleaded guilty to sodomy I, sodomy II and two counts of enticing a child for immoral purposes. He basically received 20 years on each count, which will run concurrently for basically a 20-year sentence.
Does William Smith deserve to spend the rest of his life in prison? I think we can all agree to that.
But we also support the plea agreement worked out by the district attorney's office. Smith wasn't the only person on trial. Two young boys would have been forced to take the witness stand and relive the horrors they endured at the hands of Smith.
After this trial about four more young boys would have been forced to take the stand to testify about how Smith sodomized them and enticed them.
These young boys, now teenagers, would be forced to relive something we all know they want to forget.
Smith hurt them once, the judicial system didn't need to hurt them again by putting them on the stand.
Smith is going to prison. He still has a case pending in Florida.
It would have been nice to see him sentenced to life in prison but these young boys didn't deserve to be forced to relive those nightmares.
