Willie E. Smith

Willie E. Smith was the defendant in the first of the Attica Brothers cases to reach trial — the prosecutions the state brought against inmates after the September 1971 uprising at New York's Attica Correctional Facility. As The Black Panther reported (October 19, 1974), New York State Supreme Court Justice Frank F. Barger, sitting in Buffalo, dismissed the two counts of sodomy and two counts of sexual abuse the state had charged against Smith — who had been accused of attacking another prisoner during the rebellion — making his the first of the Attica indictments to collapse at trial. He was represented by Rochester attorney James L. Kemp.