Teen charged as adult with attempted murder

PALMER — A 17-year-old boy has been charged as an adult with attempted murder after prosecutors say he severely beat his girlfriend.

According to charging documents, the incident leading to the charges happened in May, but Jamie R. Smith, 17, wasn’t charged until a grand jury convened June 14.

“Jamie Smith is charged with an assault of his girlfriend. She was flown by helicopter to Providence Hospital and underwent surgeries and treatment there,” the prosecutor handling the case, Trina Sears, wrote in an email Monday.

Smith faces three charges — assault, attempted murder and evidence tampering.

The assault charge alleges he used a weapon in the act, in this case a bottle and his own hands and feet. The attempted murder charge is an unclassified felony, the most serious type of crime in Alaska, in the same category as murder and rape.

Usually in cases like these the assault and attempted murder charges refer to the same act and are both charged in order to give a potential future jury the option of the lesser assault count if jurors don’t believe the case adds up to an attempted murder.

As for why a 17-year-old is being charged in adult court, Sears said that’s what the law requires.

“Ordinarily, he would be charged as a juvenile given his age, but because of the seriousness of the charges in this case he has been automatically charged as an adult per Alaska statutes.”

Juvenile court cases are generally handled in a much less public forum with rules about disseminating information about them and with defendants referred to only by their initials on court calendars.

The last time a minor was automatically waived into adult court because of the severity of the crime was in February when William Samuel Carson Robinson, now 17, was charged with shooting and killing his father in Meadow Lakes.

According to court records, Smith was arrested soon after the grand jury charged him with attempted murder. His bail was set at $20,000 and he was ordered to find a third party to watch him while he’s out.

As of Monday afternoon, jail records listed him as being held at the Anchorage Correctional Complex.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.