Jury weighs if stabbing an attack or self-defense

Andre Rashodd Smith of Coatesville accused of killing Grayling Chambliss

WEST CHESTER » Both sides agreed on one at least thing in the opening statements Monday in the murder trial of a Coatesville man who police found injured and naked outside his girlfriend’s home: Andre Rashodd Smith killed Grayling Chambliss.

The attorneys for the prosecution and defense also agreed with the notion that there was turmoil in the house where Smith was staying the night that Chambliss ended up with a butcher knife sticking out of his chest even before the fatal stab was inflicted, and that the two were friends and fellow drug abusers.

But the motivation for Smith’s behavior that night was the issue that divides the two teams. To the prosecution, it was a PCP-fueled delusional rampage, in which Smith thought Chambliss was an agent of the devil who had come to attack him and he had to use violence to stop. To his attorneys, on the other hand, their client was acting out of self-defense to stop and unwelcome intruder.

“‘I can’t let the devil win,’” Assistant District Attorney Ryan Borchik, who is prosecuting the case with Assistant District Attorney Andrea Cardamone, quoted Smith as telling his girlfriend and mother and grandmother as he went downstairs to confront whoever was at the door the night of the stabbing. Further, Smith himself told police that he “knew that

in order to kill him, ‘I had to stab him in the heart,’ which is exactly what he did that night.”

When Chambliss pleaded, “It’s me, Dre, it’s me,” as Smith was attacking him, stabbing him five times in the chest and torso, the defendant responded coldly, “Nah. I told you,” Borchik told the jury panel.

But Assistant Public Defender Kelly Ann Jurs, who with colleague Assistant Public Defender James McMullen is representing Smith, said that Chambliss, a man with a criminal history, had put himself in harm’s way by refusing to stay away from the property after he’d been warned.

“Andre Smith is not guilty because he acted in self-defense,” Jurs told the six men and six women on the jury in Common Pleas Judge Anthony Sarcione’s courtroom. “He acted to protect himself, his home, and most importantly, his family.” She said a defense psychologist would testify that Smith, even though he suffered from mental health problems and drug abuse, “reasonable believed” that Chambliss was a threat to that security.

“He did what he thought he had to do to defend his home and his family,” Jurs said. “Mr. Smith killed Grayling Chambliss. He didn’t want to. He felt that he had to.”

Smith, 37, of Coatesville is charged with first-degree and third-degree murder, manslaughter, and possession of an instrument of crime. He has been held without bail in Chester County Prison since his arrest in 2016.

Badly injured in the fall he took after he jumped out a second-story window of the home he was sharing with his girlfriend, Earlene Williams, where the homicide took place, Smith sat in a wheelchair and listened impassively to the opening statements from the attorneys. His trial is expected to last through the week. If convicted of first-degree murder, he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.

Police arrested Smith in May 2016 for the death of his friend, 55-year-old Chambliss, who police found dead in the 300 block of East Diamond Street.

City police and Chester County Detectives said their investigative efforts determined that Chambliss had arrived at the house where Smith was staying before 1 a.m.

In his opening, Borchik said that Smith had been smoking “wet,” cigarettes doused with PCP, a powerful psychotropic drug that induces paranoia and hallucinations. Smith, he said, had begun to believe that the entire city of Coatesville was “out of get him,” and that this was the work of the devil. Williams had become so concerned that she called Smith’s mother and grandmother, who live in Philadelphia, to help her calm him down.

Borchik said that Chambliss had come to the house to repay a drug debt he owed Smith of $200. When Smith heard the door, he grabbed a 6-inch-long butcher knife from the kitchen and proceeded downstairs where he confronted Chambliss.

After stabbing him and leaving the knife in his chest, Smith ran back inside and began tearing up the house, breaking a toilet that began flooding the upstairs. He ran to a bedroom that he ransacked, and then leapt from the window, fracturing both ankles when he landed, naked. He crawled for about 70 feet from the home before he collapsed, and lay where police found him.

Borchik said the prosecution would call Williams and Smith’s mother and grandmother to testify, although he cautioned the jury he did not know what they would say about what happened that night. The description of events, however, the gave the night of the incident was captured on tape, and portions of the interviews could be played for the jury.

Jurs, in her self-defense claim, noted that Chambliss had come to the house once before that night and that Smith told him to leave and not come back. Williams, she said, was afraid of him after an incident in which he came to the house and displayed a gun while using cocaine.

She said that evidence would show that Chambliss had no cash on him when found that morning, and that there were traces of Smith’s blood in the house, suggesting that he had been in a confrontation.

She also said she would present expert testimony from Gerald Cooke, a forensic psychologist, that would show that Smith was acting under a reasonable belief that he was in danger. She acknowledged however, that Smith suffers from paranoia and drug abuse.