🧾 The Gutter Report: Another Onondaga County Conviction Faces Scrutiny
When witness accounts shift, evidence conflicts, and later admissions emerge — the conviction of Deyontay Smith demands public review
🧠 What Onondaga County Secured — and Moved On From
Onondaga County, New York — In 2019, Deyontay Smith was convicted in Onondaga County Court of second-degree murder for the Christmas Eve 2017 killing of Jay Ford on Temple Street in Syracuse. He was sentenced to 25 years to life.
In 2021, the conviction was upheld on appeal — not because every factual dispute was resolved, but because appellate courts defer almost entirely to jury credibility determinations rather than re-examining contested evidence.
That legal finality did not resolve the contradictions in the case.
It simply closed the door on them.
🧑🏾⚖️ Deyontay Smith — convicted in an Onondaga County murder case now under renewed public scrutiny.
📂 What the Jury Was Asked to Believe
At trial, the prosecution’s case rested primarily on:
👁️ A single eyewitness who identified Smith as the shooter
🚗 Surveillance footage showing a Ford Taurus following the victim from work
🕒 Testimony placing Smith as the driver of that vehicle earlier in the evening
There was:
❌ No confession
❌ No murder weapon recovered from Smith
❌ No forensic evidence directly tying him to the shooting
Despite these gaps, the jury convicted — and the courts declined to look back.
🚩 A Key Eyewitness Whose Story Did Not Hold
The prosecution’s central eyewitness account raised immediate concerns:
🔁 The witness changed his version of events multiple times
🧑🏿 The initial description of the shooter was a dark-skinned male
📉 Later descriptions shifted in ways that aligned with the prosecution’s theory
Initial descriptions are widely recognized as the most reliable in eyewitness cases.
In this case, that first description did not match the man convicted.
🚸 Allegations Involving a Child Witness and Police Pressure
One of the most serious red flags raised by the family involves William Boyd, a relative of the victim:
📞 Boyd was the person who called 911
🏠 He lived on the same street where the shooting occurred
🩺 He attempted to render aid to the victim
According to Boyd and the family:
He initially stated the shooter was dark-skinned
His young daughter said the same
🚔 Police allegedly made repeated visits to the child’s school
🚫 Those visits allegedly occurred without parental consent
Boyd alleges officers attempted to influence his daughter to change her description to say the shooter was “light-skinned” to match another witness’s account
Boyd has stated he is willing to testify under oath regarding these events.
If substantiated, these allegations raise profound concerns about witness influence, child testimony, and due-process protections in an Onondaga County homicide prosecution.
🩸 Physical Evidence That Conflicts With the Narrative
Family-provided records and scene documentation show:
🧱 Blood leading through a backyard
🚧 Blood near or on a fence
🏠 Blood inside a residence
This physical evidence conflicts with the prosecution’s theory that the shooter pulled up, fired, and immediately fled.
That contradiction was never fully reconciled for the jury.
📱 Later Admissions That Point Elsewhere
Years after Smith’s conviction, another individual publicly admitted involvement in the shooting.
According to the family, those admissions:
Match the original eyewitness descriptions
Align more closely with the physical evidence
Undercut the certainty of the conviction obtained in Onondaga County
No full public review followed.
🎯 Rafael Jackson — codefendant connected to key unanswered issues in the prosecution’s theory.
🧩 Smith and Jackson — as the case raises broader concerns about reliability and review in Onondaga County.
🏛️ A Familiar Pattern in Onondaga County
The Smith case does not exist in isolation.
Through repeated reporting, The Gutter Report has documented a recurring pattern in Onondaga County prosecutions, particularly in serious felony and homicide cases — where convictions are secured despite unresolved contradictions and are later insulated from review through procedural deference rather than factual scrutiny.
That pattern was examined in depth in The Gutter Report: Onondaga County Under the Microscope — When Patterns Point to Systemic Failure, which highlighted how multiple cases in the county share the same warning signs:
❗ Eyewitness testimony that shifts over time, often becoming more certain as cases progress
❗ Physical evidence that does not cleanly match the prosecution’s narrative, yet is left unexplained for juries
❗ Allegations of improper police conduct that are raised but never meaningfully examined in open court
❗ Appeals resolved through procedural deference, not a re-evaluation of disputed facts
When the same issues surface again and again across different cases, they stop being coincidences and start pointing to systemic failures — failures that demand public attention, not silence.
⚖️ Defense Representation Under Repeated Scrutiny
Smith was represented at trial by Paul Carey, Esq.
Concerns about Carey’s representation are not limited to unrelated cases. In the Smith case itself, family members have raised specific, documented issues regarding what was not done at trial, particularly involving witnesses and evidence central to the prosecution’s theory.
According to Smith’s family, and as reflected in trial records reviewed by the family:
Key witnesses were not called, including the neighbor who called 911, attempted to revive the victim, and had known him for years — despite being directly involved in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
The victim’s daughter, whose initial description of the shooter differed from later testimony presented at trial, was also not called or meaningfully addressed by the defense.
Photographic evidence that the family says would have contradicted portions of Frank Watson’s testimony was not presented to the jury, limiting the defense’s ability to challenge credibility.
No request was made for a mental health or competency evaluation of Watson, despite trial testimony in which he admitted to drinking alcohol and displayed behavior the family describes as unstable and inconsistent.
These concerns focus not on hindsight disagreements, but on specific defensive actions that were available at the time and not pursued, particularly where credibility of the State’s key witness was central to the conviction.
Similar client-raised complaints about defense performance have appeared in other Onondaga County cases involving Carey, including:
👉🏾 The Gutter Report: The Syracuse Setup — What Happened to Nahkeen Lewis-Bush
👉🏾 The Gutter Report: Built on Testimony — When Evidence and Inference Don’t Align
These are documented concerns raised by affected families and defendants, not judicial findings. However, when the same defense attorney is associated with repeated cases in which clients later identify similar omissions involving witnesses, evidence, and credibility challenges, those patterns warrant public review — particularly in serious felony prosecutions.
The Onondaga County District Attorney at the time was William J. Fitzpatrick.
🏛️ Why This Conviction Must Be Re-Examined
This is not about retrying a verdict in the media.
It is about confronting a convergence of unresolved issues:
❓ An eyewitness whose account changed
❓ Allegations of pressure involving a child witness
❓ Physical evidence that conflicts with the official narrative
❓ Later admissions pointing to another possible perpetrator
❓ A broader pattern seen in other Onondaga County cases
Finality is not the same as justice — especially when new information surfaces.
📢 Our Position
The family of Deyontay Smith is not asking for favors.
They are asking for what the justice system promises but too often avoids:
A transparent, independent public review of an Onondaga County murder conviction that no longer holds up under scrutiny.
📣 Call for Public Review
We are formally calling for:
🔍 An independent public review of the Deyontay Smith conviction
🧾 Sworn testimony from William Boyd and other relevant witnesses
🧠 Examination of police interactions with child witnesses
📂 Review of post-conviction admissions and newly surfaced evidence
If the conviction is sound, it will withstand review.
If it is not, the public deserves to know.
Not for clicks — for clarity.
— Elliott Carterr, LFTG Radio
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