
DATE: Saturday, June 14, 1997               TAG: 9706140266

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:  109 lines

A 10-YEAR WRONG - RIGHTEDFROM HER DEATHBED, JANICE SMITH CONFESSED TO HER SISTER THAT SOMEONE ELSE MAY HAVE PAID FOR CRIMES SHE COMMITTED.

A few years ago, Janice R. Smith bragged to her sister that she had committed four robberies but only served time for one.

Not until she lay dying of AIDS last year did Smith, in a conversation with her sister, finally express remorse that someone else may have paid for her crimes, the sister said.

When Smith's sister read a newspaper story this week about Jamie Hare's struggle to prove her innocence of a 1987 robbery, the truth dawned on her: She is convinced Hare spent nearly six years in prison for a robbery Smith actually committed.

On Friday, the sister and Hare, who has spent more than a decade trying to prove her innocence, met for the first time and talked about the ironies of the case. They shared an emotional hug and discussed how a 10-year-old wrong finally has been righted.

Both broke into tears as they looked at photos of the dead woman who links them.

``Oh my God, that's her,'' Hare said, looking at the framed snapshots of Smith smiling with family members on happier occasions.

Smith and Hare had run into each other while serving time in prison. At one point, Hare even confronted Smith, accusing her of committing the crime Hare was imprisoned for: the robbery of a Rodman Avenue convenience store.

Hare said Smith just laughed at her.

Hare lost all hope that Smith would ever come forward to clear her.

But 10 years later, she believes Smith may have found a way to do so from the grave.

The sister, who asked that her name not be published, expressed hope that Hare could one day forgive Smith.

When Smith's sister read the newspaper story about Hare this week, she called the lawyer who had represented Hare during her robbery trial. He gave Hare the woman's number, and Hare called her.

Both Smith's sister and Hare say righting the wrong will bring closure to the pain they have endured.

``I think it's a wonderful thing you're doing,'' Hare said.

The sister remembers Smith as a young girl with beautiful black hair and gorgeous eyes.

``She was my baby sister,'' she said. ``I carried her around on my hip.''

But Smith had a troubled adulthood. Twice the sister took her into her home, once for six months, once for six weeks. Each time, she said, she would have to ask her to leave after it became obvious she was using drugs.

``You don't know what this child's put me through,'' she said in an interview before Hare arrived. ``I look and I think, `How could she do anything like this?' ''

Smith's sister isn't sure what caused Smith to go astray.

``We were raised by the same parents,'' she said. ``My father was a minister. And my mother was an angel.

``And my mother prayed for her - prayed and prayed. I think she worried my mother to death.''

The sister said Smith told her of the robberies she had committed when they traveled to Florida for their mother's funeral a few years ago.

But only in the hospital did Smith express regret and remorse, the sister said.

``She was upset and she said she was scared,'' the sister said. ``And she said she just wished that everything would go away.

``And she had done things that she was not proud of and . . . she knew some of the things that she had done and somebody else was possibly - she never said right out, she said possibly - in trouble for it.''

From then on, she was mostly incoherent, drifting in and out.

But the night Smith died, her sister remembers she was trying to tell her something important. ``She was very agitated, like she wanted to say something.''

The sister remembers picking up a towel to wipe Smith's face and mouth as Smith kept trying to open her eyes and speak.

But she died before she could get the words out.

``She was basically a good girl,'' the sister said. ``She really didn't want to hurt anybody, but she always did.''

Hare failed in an attempt to have her case resolved in General District Court this week. She had sued the city and the former police chief, seeking $10,000 in damages for wrongful imprisonment. A judge dismissed the case because too much time had passed for the suit to be tried and because the government has immunity from prosecution in such a case.

Hare says she plans to appeal that decision.

Portsmouth attorney Robert Ricks plans to file a motion next week for a new trial for Hare based on new evidence.

``It's always a very difficult position,'' said Ricks. ``But with this most recent development with the sister of Ms. Smith, the deceased who actually robbed the store - that's pretty compelling.

``The law even gives a certain credibility to deathbed statements like that,'' he said. ``Certainly I, as another human being, give it great credibility.

``All that can be done is to ask for a new trial and let this new evidence be heard and if everything goes well, her name will be cleared,'' he said.

Hare and Ricks hope the case will send a message to the justice system that it is too easy for the innocent to be punished for crimes they did not commit.

Hare is adamant about pushing ahead for a new trial. But the healing has already begun, she says.

``I feel free already since this has come out,'' she said.

Smith's sister said she would like to think Smith is free now, too.

``She has to be,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: [Color photo]

MARK MITCHELL/The Virginian-Pilot

Jamie Hare, at right, hugs the woman who could help her clear her

name for a robbery she says she didn't commit, but for which she

served time in prison. The unnamed woman thinks it was her sister,

now deceased, and not Hare, who committed the crime.

[Color photo]

Janice Smith, above, met Jamie Hare while both were in prison.