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- [S106] The Mountain Press, 18 Feb 2006.
SEVIERVILLE - One day after U.S. Rep. Bill Jenkins, R-Rogersville, announced his retirement from the 1st District U.S. Congressional seat, a local Republican and local Democrat picked up petitions to fill the position.
Al Schmutzer Jr., who decided not to run for reelection as District Attorney this year after 32 years in the office, picked up a petition Thursday to run for Congress in the Republican primary on Aug. 3.
He said Thursday that he is "still studying" the situation and doesn't have any further comment on his plans right now.
Schmutzer ran unsuccessfully against Jenkins and other candidates in 1996 for the Republican nomination for the 1st District.
Candidates have until April 6 to decide whether to run and return their petitions.
- [S142] Newspaper Article, Smoky Mountain Herald, 23 Feb 2006.
Long-time District Attorney General Al Schmutzer, Jr. has picked up a petition to run for the first district congressional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives now held by 10-year veteran U.S. Rep. Bill Jenkins.
“I have picked up a petition to run,” Schmutzer said on Wednesday, “but I haven’t made any decisions yet.”
“I’m still looking at it,” he said.
Sixty-nine-year-old Jenkins has held that seat since first elected in 1996. Schmutzer was also a candidate for the 1996 race but lost out to Jenkins in the Republican Primary.
In December last year, Schmutzer formally announced his retirement from his position with the Fourth Judicial District effective at the end of his term, in September. Schmutzer has served in that seat for 32 years.
At the time, Schmutzer decided it was time to step aside and let someone else take over the reigns. He also cited financial reasons for the move as he’s now eligible for retirement. “It doesn’t make sense financially for me to continue, as I’m presently eligible to retire and receive 75 percent of my salary at the end of this term. If I were fortunate enough to be reelected, I would not only be working for 25 cents on the dollar but would continue to pay over $3,000 a year into the retirement system, which amounts to over $25,000 during the next term.”
District Attorney General Schmutzer has tried a number of high profile murder cases and helped set up the East Tennessee Victim’s Rights Task Force. He’s an outspoken critic of the sentencing laws in Tennessee and a strong advocate for victims’ rights.
Candidates have until April 6 to turn in their petitions to run in the State Primaries.
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 12 Aug 2006.
I have been with Al Schmutzer Jr. since 1980 in different capacities. I started as receptionist/secretary when his other administrative assistant, Rita Ellison, took maternity leave. I was trained for about eight weeks and then stepped into Rita's shoes while she was on leave.
At that time, I was young and somewhat intimidated by General Schmutzer. However, over the years we have developed a close working relationship. I respect General Schmutzer very much.
One of my favorite Americans is Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States (1809-1865). I feel he said it best: "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." With the position of district attorney general comes a lot of power, and General Schmutzer has been tested and stood true to his values.
Lincoln also said, "Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow, the shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing." General Schmutzer's reputation in the community is like the shadow, as in the above quote, but those of us who have worked closely with him understand that he, like the tree, is the real thing.
The matters we deal with daily are very serious and stressful. General Schmutzer has tempered that with a management style where staff members were like part of an extended family. We worked hard but also joked and had fun.
The bottom line was, if you did your job, you had no one looking over your shoulder, but if you didn't do your job you had to account for the consequences. As a result, his office is known to be one of the best district attorney's offices in the state.
It has truly been an honor working with him over the past 26 years.
Judy McMahan
Administrative Assistant
Letters to editor
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 28 Aug 2006.
Al Schmutzer recalls his 32 years as DA
By: JEFF FARRELL
Staff Writer August 28, 2006
SEVIERVILLE - After 32 years as district attorney general, Al Schmutzer has been boxing up the contents of his office.
He decided not to seek re-election this year. Jimmy Dunn, his friend and long-time assistant district attorney in Cocke County, will take over the office on Friday.
It's a bittersweet time for Schmutzer. A few days after he leaves, he'll be going to Montana with his wife, Cheri. He says it'll be the first time in 32 years he'll be out of contact with the office.
"I'll be able to go out there without having to worry about that," Schmutzer said. "That'll be an unusual feeling." Pretty much every day, he said, there are some decisions that can only be made by the DA.
Schmutzer was born in Washington to Al Schmutzer Sr. and the former Rowena Emert of Sevierville. His father served in the Navy during World War II. Upon his retirement, the family decided to come back to Emert's home to raise their son. He lived in Sevierville from the age of 3. His dad eventually owned the hardware shop where Rowena's father had been a partner. His mom stayed home.
Schmutzer attended Sevierville Elementary and Sevier County High, where he played football on a team that went unscored upon for seven games.
It was an idyllic time to grow up in Sevierville, he said.
"When I was growing up the whole town was my playground," he said. "I played from one end of town to the other and my mother always knew where I was."
He already liked to hunt and fish, the same hobbies he enjoys to this day. He and his brother kept a boat under the railroad crossing near downtown; they hunted in woods not far from their home.
"My goal has always been to keep the community as safe as it was when I was growing up," he said.
He went on to Sewanee, where he played football for Coach Shirley Majors. He spent a couple of college years deciding what to pursue when he choose political science with an eye toward law school. "My mother said I would make a good lawyer because I argued all the time," he said.
After completing law school, his choices came down to joining the Navy or the FBI. The day he was set to take his physical for the Navy, he got a letter from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover saying he'd been accepted into the bureau. He decided it was the better use for his training.
He might have made his biggest catch in the first year of his career in Boston. That's when he met a farm girl from Kansas working as a flight attendant. He's been married to Cheri for 36 years.
After a year in Boston, he was moved to New York City where he worked mostly in Brooklyn. This was during the Vietnam war, and many of the cases he investigated involved draft dodgers and protesters.
It was Schmutzer who finally caught Father Phillip Berrigan, a Catholic priest and former Army officer who had become a leading antiwar activist. Berrigan and his brother, Daniel, were wanted for destroying a draft board and other charges related to his protests. The FBI was especially anxious to catch one of the brothers after Daniel slipped away from a rally where they thought they had him.
When they got a tip that Father Berrigan was at a Brooklyn church, Schmutzer and his partner were told not to come back without him. "If we hadn't gotten him, I'd have been in big trouble," Schmutzer said.
Schmutzer found his man in a hidden door of a walk-in closet. When the priest living at the house said the closet was used to hold old records, Schmutzer didn't believe him. He kicked the door open, reached into the dark space and grasped a ponytail.
"I told him he didn't know just how glad I was to see him," Schmutzer said with a smile.
Berrigan later was accused of plotting to blow up the passageways that run under the Capitol building and to kidnap Henry Kissinger.
As Schmutzer's three-year stint with the FBI ended, Cheri was pregnant with their first child. They didn't want to raise a family in New York, so the Schmutzers came to Sevier County.
"There was no greater sight than to see these mountains again," he said.
He went into private practice with Bob Ogle.
"I learned more from him concerning trial law than any other single individual," Schmutzer said. "He was like a second father to me." Gary Wade, who is soon to be sworn in as a justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court, was a partner there as well.
Four years later, a split formed in the local Republican Party. Schmutzer decided to run for DA. He didn't campaign in Sevier County. He was advised to go to the other five counties then in the 4th Judicial District.
Come election day, he said, "I had this cold feeling in my stomach that I was going to lose my home county." He won by a wide margin.
"I don't know how many people told me they voted for me because of my dad," he recalled.
He started out in a small, two-room office with a part-time secretary and one part-time assistant DA. At the time, victims of crime or their families often hired special prosecutors. Schmutzer had done that in a murder case the year before the election.
"One of the things I promised the voters was, they shouldn't have to hire special prosecutors,' he said.
That promise meant a lot of work. Once time the jury didn't return a verdict until 5 a.m. He went home, shaved and changed his clothes and returned to try another case that lasted until 3 o'clock the following morning.
"That first year was pretty demanding," he said.
During his second Christmas in office the Red Lantern murders occurred in Cocke County. A phone call at 4 a.m. awakened him to the news that four people had been killed in a shootout at the Red Lantern tavern.
Cheri woke the kids and they opened presents before he headed out. He got back in late that night, missing most of Christmas Day and the prime rib dinner he'd purchased. But it paid off, as his prosecution of that case helped show Cocke County residents he was serious about dealing with lawbreakers there. A jury convicted the surviving shooter, Rusty Denton.
Schmutzer has sent four to death row over his career; three cases have been reversed during the appeals process over issues unrelated to guilt. Those cases might be the most emotionally charged for a prosecutor, but almost all involve a certain amount of emotion.
"I always say there's no winners in a criminal case, only losers," Schmutzer said.
It's difficult to send any case on to a jury, Schmutzer said, because no one ever knows how 12 people will react. But after 32 years he knows it's the jury's job to convict - not his.
As he gets ready to leave the office, Schmutzer said he's happy he's only moving into a semi-retirement. He has already said he would serve as a special DA prosecutor in cases where the local office has a conflict of interest or can't pursue a case for other reasons.
"I don't feel like I'm just totally walking away," Schmutzer said. "I like that."
* jfarrell@themountainpress.com
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 28 Aug 2006.
Schmutzer's influence carries from assistant to adversaries to judges
By: JEFF FARRELL
Staff Writer August 28, 2006
Al Schmutzer says he made a habit of hiring the best people he could find.
The office of assistant district attorney general is often a stepping stone for ambitious young lawyers looking for trial experience, and Schmutzer has influenced many respected attorneys who are now in private practice. Other former assistants have moved on to become federal prosecutors and judges.
He meets at a local restaurant every month to talk with his old assistants; he plans to continue that tradition.
Rita Ellison, just elected circuit court clerk, was the secretary for the DA's office through many of those early years.
"We worked really hard and Al worked just as hard as the rest of us," Ellison recalled..
At one point she had to keep a photograph of a contract killer in her drawer. He had been hired by some people who weren't happy with Schmutzer's efforts to clean up Cocke County.
It was Ellison's own resourcefulness that allowed another situation to end safely. A mountain of a man came in to see Schmutzer about a gun that had been confiscated, but what concerned Ellison more was the gun he had with him. Thinking quickly, she told the man office rules called for him to give up his gun before going into the DA's office. He did, and he got to see Schmutzer. When the meeting ended, the man again asked about the weapon.
"By the time we got him subdued, it took all of us," Schmutzer said.
Another of Ellison's favorite stories concerns Schmutzer's effort to use all his time efficiently. That includes dictating notes into a recorder while he's driving. It was efficient, Ellison said, but it could lead to some precarious moments.
One day he was driving back from Cocke County behind a truck loaded with chickens. They hit a bump and some of the chicken pens toppled off the back of the truck - right in front of Schmutzer, who was still speaking into the microphone.
"Evidently there were chickens going everywhere," Ellison, who had to transcribe the comments on the tape, said. There were a few words she couldn't understand because of the sound of his car swerving to miss the poultry in the road.
"He just started back and never missed a beat," Ellison said. "We played that for the whole office."
Judge Rex Henry Ogle has seen Schmutzer as both judge and adversary. Before moving to the bench, Ogle sometimes represented defendants Schmutzer was prosecuting.
"My impression from both sides is pretty much the same," Ogle said. "Al has been a very forceful and determined prosecutor. No one can accuse him of inadequately representing the victims of crimes. As a lawyer or a judge, I have never seen a better lawyer than Al."
Two things set Schmutzer apart, Ogle said.
"One is his ability to prepare and put cases together in a manner that most jurors and judges can understand."
He also praised Schmutzer for the DA's impartiality in deciding which cases to pursue.
"The greatest compliment I can ever pay him is that I've never seen him fail to prosecute someone because of politics or prominence and I've never seen him prosecute someone on the basis of politics or prominence," Ogle said.
Circuit Court Judge Richard Vance has also seen another side of Schmutzer. He was the first full-time assistant DA. Not only were they serving a larger area and keeping Schmutzer's promise to prosecute each case, they also worked directly with law enforcement on investigations. It would be several more years before they would hire an investigator.
"Really most of us became more like family than just employees," Vance said. "It was a really positive situation for us."
In the courtroom, he said, it's Schmutzer's preparation, focus and strong personality that made him effective.
"He's one of the most dynamic trial lawyers I think I've ever seen," Vance said.
The man who will take over Schmutzer's office is another success story. Jimmy Dunn has served as an assistant district attorney general for 16 years.
"I'm proud of him," Schmutzer said. "Jimmy's been with me 16 years. He'll do a great job. It'll be a smooth transition."
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 28 Aug 2006.
Rocky Top murders draw national attention to Sevier
By: JEFF FARRELL
Staff Writer August 28, 2006
Ask people around the Sevier County Courthouse about the most notorious cases they've seen, and the Rocky Top trial is bound to come up.
Just last year Court TV, the Associated Press and other national media covered District Attorney General Al Schmutzer's prosecution of an amusement park manager for a death on one of the park's rides. But The Rocky Top case brought national attention at a time when there were no specialized cable news networks. It would later be profiled on A&E's "City Confidential."
"It probably made as much news as any case I had," Schmutzer said.
The case had elements to create a frenzy in the media.
Four drifters came into Gatlinburg to Rocky Top Village Inn, owned by one of the writers of the song "Rocky Top." They brutally murdered two employees at the hotel, Melissa "Missy" Suttles Hill and Troy Dale Valentine.
The case is also known for the look of its prime suspect. Edward "Tattoo Eddie" Harris got his nickname for the ink that covered his body long before tattoos became so widespread.
Along with Harris and his girlfriend, another couple added their own notoriety to the case. Rufus Doby was a transvestite who went by the name "Ashley Silvers." Doby and his lover, Joseph DeModica, testified against the other defendants.
DeModica, without a plea bargain, turned on Harris and Harris' girlfriend, Kimberly Pelley. He told the jury in Harris's case the two killed both victims.
Schmutzer recalls it was one of the rare times he used a co-defendant's testimony against the other defendants.
"We try not to use co-defendants and I seldom do, but in that case we had no choice," he said. "We had enough evidence to charge the four, but if none of them had agreed to cooperate, we would ultimately have had to release them."
Doby later turned on DeModica, pleading guilty and giving testimony on Pelley as well.
The case drew so much media attention that each trial was held in a different location. Harris' trial was here, while DeModica's was in Jonesboro and DeModica's was in Chattanooga.
"That was the only one that had to be moved to three different jurisdictions," Schmutzer said.
All four suspects were convicted. DeModica died in prison; Doby was released last year. Pelley is still serving a life sentence. Harris got the death penalty; the sentence was later reduced to life without parole after an appeals court determined he was mentally retarded.
* jfarrell@themountainpress.com
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 28 Aug 2006.
One convicted drug smuggler still on run, on Most Wanted list
By: JEFF FARRELL
Staff Writer August 28, 2006
Al Schmutzer likes hunting and fishing, but "the one that got away" from him is a man who remains atop U.S. Marshals' 15 Most Wanted list after almost 20 years.
Not that it was Schmutzer's fault. He successfully prosecuted Gerald Hemp for masterminding a drug smuggling operation that ended in 1981 when TBI agents found a plane loaded with 614 pounds of cocaine at the Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge Airport.
Hemp escaped after being transferred from Tennessee to Florida, where he was moved to a minimum-security jail and allowed to go to a dentist's appointment without an escort. Schmutzer never heard about the transfer or the escape until another office asked him to question Hemp a few weeks later, and he started trying to find the man he spent two years putting in jail.
Hemp remains on the most wanted list almost 20 years after he escaped. It still rankles Schmutzer.
"Every now and then I'll get word that he's somewhere around the country, but he never gets caught," Schmutzer said.
The case was a sensation. It was the largest drug seizure in U.S. history at that time. Hemp, acting under the alias of Gerald Whittier, was a colorful character who had ingratiated himself into the community.
He paid cash for everything, including generous donations to local charities. He told neighbors he had been a mercenary in a foreign war and didn't want the IRS to know how much money he had. And he was in negotiations to buy the airport when TBI agents came to check on a flight that had landed there in 1981.
Hemp disappeared, only to be caught in Florida after 18 months on the run.
Schmutzer prosecuted him on the local charges and won a conviction and a 40-year sentence, but Hemp had served only a small part of his sentence when he escaped.
"A lot of things evolved out of that," Schmutzer said. "I got the Legislature to pass a bill requiring the Department of Corrections to notify the prosecutor before transferring a prisoner, but that's like closing the door after the cow got out of the barn."
* jfarrell@themountainpress.com
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 28 Aug 2006.
Hawk trial once again brings national attention to Sevier County
By: JEFF FARRELL
Staff Writer August 28, 2006
Amusement park manager prosecuted for woman's death
SEVIERVILLE - Al Schmutzer knew every decision he made as district attorney general would not be popular.
That might never have been as clear as it was last year, when he prosecuted the manager of a Pigeon Forge amusement park after a woman died when she fell from one of the rides.
The case drew national attention, including coverage by the Associated Press and Court TV, which reported it was the first prosecution of its kind.
Schmutzer knows the decision to prosecute didn't make him popular with some business owners, especially in a community in which tourism is the main industry.
"No one said anything directly, and I really appreciated that," he said. "I could feel the undercurrent just by the fact that few people wished me well knowing that case was coming up."
Police found that someone had disabled safety measures on the ride, called the Hawk. Defense attorney Bryan Delius argued that the measures had been set that way at the time of purchase.
Schmutzer argued that manager Charles Stan Martin was ultimately responsible for seeing to it that the ride was safe. By allowing it to run with safety measures disabled, he caused the woman's death, Schmutzer said.
He charged Martin with second-degree murder. A Sevier County jury convicted Martin of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.
Schmutzer said he doesn't think the case hurt tourism here. In fact, he said, it may have helped.
"I think it sent out a message that we're not going to let things like this go on," he said.
Ultimately, though, he said the trial represents a dilemma that can often face prosecutors: Though elected, they can't make decisions based on public perceptions.
"Your decision to prosecute or not to prosecute can't be guided by politics," he said.
* jfarrell@themountainpress.com
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 28 Aug 2006.
Schmutzer survives hitman, tackles prostitution, crime in Cocke County
By: JEFF FARRELL
Staff Writer August 28, 2006
Cocke County has long suffered a reputation as a lawless part of East Tennessee.
That reputation was at its peak in 1974, when Al Schmutzer first took office as district attorney general.
He set out to change things in the neighboring county.
Cocke County residents didn't always have faith that the establishment would clean things up. It took one of the bloodiest nights in their history to change that thinking, Schmutzer said.
On the Christmas of his second year in office, he got an early morning wake-up call: Four people died in a shootout at the Red Lantern bar in Cocke County. The shooting apparently started when an escapee from Brushy Mountain went looking for revenge on four brothers he believed had ambushed him while he was out.
A local man, Rusty Denton, helped the escapee find his targets. When a patron pulled a gun and killed the fugitive, Denton shot and killed him.
When police arrived, Denton was the only shooter left alive to prosecute. With Schmutzer in charge, he was convicted.
"That was a watershed case," Schmutzer said. "People in the county thought he'd never get convicted because of his connections, and when he did the good people over there realized they had a new judge and a new D.A. that were going to try to get things done over there.
"Since then I've had good luck with juries over there."
During the case, he realized some of Denton's friends were watching Schmutzer's Sevier County home. Schmutzer was bedridden with a back injury as he prepared for the trial and was having witnesses come to his home. They eventually found that the defense team knew of all the witnesses interviewed - and the only way they could have known, Schmutzer said, was by watching his home.
Cleaning up Cocke County still took a lot of time and effort. An organized crime syndicate from St. Louis was active in the area, with a prostitution ring that ran through Cocke County. Some of their "truck stops" didn't even feature gas pumps, Schmutzer said.
He worked with state authorities to get them out. Undercover TBI agents would drive to the stops and wait for a prostitute to approach. Once that happened, they would radio other officers who would descend on the operation and shut it down.
"We stayed after that, we padlocked places and finally got a handle on it," he said.
Schmutzer made some powerful enemies as he worked to clean up the county. Authorities told him a contract killer was hired to bring him down.
"It was a contract for $20,000, which I thought was a little low," Schmutzer said.
But he did take it seriously. Although they never met, the contract killer's picture is still seared into his memory.
"It was rough for a while," he said. "I can still see his face today, I looked at the picture so often."
Whenever a car passed by his home slowly, he would look to see if it was the hitman. He was especially concerned about his family. The contract was only for him, but he knew others could be victimized if they were around when the hitman showed up.
Schmutzer said he believes other law enforcement agents convinced the group that hired the hitman that it would be bad for business to come after him. The hitman died a few months later, himself the victim of a shooting in Ohio.
"It made me more determined," he said of the incidents. "They weren't going to run me off."
* jfarrell@themountainpress.com
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