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What happens when a brilliant legal career collides with a hidden addiction and a fear of failure that won’t let go? Our guest, former attorney and longtime pastor James W. Smith, takes us inside the spiral from weekend poker to a desperate bank robbery—and the surprising path back through accountability, faith, and service. It’s a raw, human story that moves from a dye pack exploding in a getaway car to quiet hours in a mental health ward where a new life began to take shape.
We talk about the difference between image and integrity, and how the decision to plead guilty became a turning point rather than an ending. James shares how humility was forged bagging groceries and pumping gas after release, how seminary first closed the door and then opened it, and how a historic church embraced his leadership for over three decades. He also explains his 11 years as an approved Continuing Legal Education sponsor teaching ethics, mental health, and substance use to attorneys across North Carolina—proof that credibility can be rebuilt when character leads.
James’s books—Deal By Me: Golden Opportunity Blown and Deal By Me, Second Edition: A Self-Evaluation—trace the rise, fall, and rebuild with uncommon honesty. His most striking insight: the engine under his worst decisions wasn’t a lifelong compulsion, but a deep fear of failure that pushed him to “fix” the unfixable. From practical counsel on staying focused and staying ethical to a moving tribute to a mother’s tough love, this conversation offers hard-won wisdom for anyone wrestling with addiction, shame, or a second act that feels out of reach.
If this story resonates, share it with a friend, follow the show, and leave a review. Your support helps more people find real accounts of redemption, resilience, and the everyday choices that change a life.
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Thank You for Listening, I hope you enjoyed this episode and that it encouraged you. Please like, share, and leave a review.
00:29 - Sponsor And Guest Introduction
00:51 - From Attorney To Bank Robber
06:44 - The Heist, Escape, And Surrender
10:10 - Mental Health Evaluation And Awakening
13:38 - Calling To Ministry And Sentencing
17:34 - Life After Prison And Restored Rights
18:59 - Building A New Path With CLE Work
23:33 - Seminary, Pastoring, And Long Tenure
26:36 - Marriage Story And Family
30:08 - Writing The First And Second Books
35:05 - Wisdom On Focus, Ethics, And Humility
38:55 - Where To Find The Books And Closing
WEBVTT
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Hello everyone, thank you again for joining me.
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Episode of the Doors Tours.
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So this episode is sponsored by the Adu Audio Group, which inspires and uplifts for discussion, testimonies, and teachings, equipping listeners for meaningful conversations.
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On today's episode we have King Smith who is a former practicing attorney, former compulsive gambler, ex-offender who served five years in federal correctional institution of armed bank robbery, a former North Carolina State Bar abused sponsor of continuing legal education CLE for 11 years.
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He's a retired pastor of an historical missionary Baptist church in Durham County, North Carolina, where he served for almost 32 years.
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He is also also free but Deal by Me Golden Opportunity Bloom.
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Deal by me second edition.
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The third one is a self-evaluation.
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And come let us reason together.
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He's married and has have two golden things.
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Thank you so much for coming the show today.
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Thank you so very much, Darcy, for having me.
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Absolutely.
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I want to ask you, you know, come out, you know, with this question first.
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How did you go from a practicing attorney to a bank robber?
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That's a very good question, uh Darcy.
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I I haven't ha asked me quite like that, so really I appreciate that.
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Like I say, it's a very interesting question, and I'm gonna try to answer it this way.
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You know, when you get involved with certain things, and I had gotten involved in poker, playing poker.
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I I I started right after I started practicing law with other lawyers and bondsmen and barbers in the area, all professional people.
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And I got to the point where we were doing it every weekend.
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I was loving it, but I knew when to help fold, I knew when to hold.
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And, you know, won money, I lost money.
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But uh I was always able to borrow money from my friends.
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They were able to borrow money from me.
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So if I lost$1,500, I knew when to get up.
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If one,$15,000,$2,000, I could go home.
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I knew how to do that.
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Eventually the the poker game got to be love more than anything else.
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And got to the point where I didn't know how to get up or didn't want to get up.
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And I went further and hole, further in the hole, further in the hole, lost properties, lost my home, lost my wife for five years, and when I knew anything, I had hit rock bottom.
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And of course, I think that that experience got me to thinking, uh, how do I get here?
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And of course, I got depressed.
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I uh one morning got up and went to the office.
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First, I got my uh 22 caliber pistol, went to the office, and sat there and was really to the point of committing suicide.
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And uh I'm an only child to sing a mom, and I started thinking about my mom, and that kind of kept me from doing that.
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I eventually kind of left the office and started riding around, and I got on 85 and thought about suicide again.
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As a matter of fact, letting the truck hit me in the back, uh just stopping abruptly.
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Uh, but then I thought I might be maim and I didn't want to get in that position, so uh I kind of abandoned the situation.
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And I ended up in a little town called Oxford, North Carolina, at a restaurant and was eating because it was about 10, 30, 11 o'clock in the morning.
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And uh while I was eating, I looked out the window and I saw the CCB uh bank.
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That's the Central Carolina Bank at the time.
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And my mind just started roping.
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You know, if I could just get in and get me about$50,000,$100,000, I could pay off all my debts to everybody, and I could go back, you know, like nothing had happened, and it would be all over.
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It's crazy thinking now.
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So don't think I understand how stupid that is in hindsight.
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But that's what happened.
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And I went through some changes.
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It was hard to do with what I did now, you know, because I rode around in the city, rode around in the city, was just thinking about it and thinking about it.
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And then all of a sudden I just said, hit with it.
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You know, get caught or not, pull right up to the bank door, ran in and asked for the money, and I came out.
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That's how I got from a lawyer to robbing a bank.
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Yeah.
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Do you recall at this point what did you come out with as far as the money goes once you robbed that bank?
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And how did we end up getting caught?
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Well, the way I uh when I came out, I didn't know how much money I had at the time.
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Uh but it the experience was so interesting because uh I had left the bank and went for about maybe a half a mile, and uh I got stopped by a uh police officer.
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And you have to understand that I had run for district court judge.
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I was well known in the five county area.
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Uh everybody knew me, all the police officers knew me, so he stopped me.
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I I uh just uh first of all, let me get before that stop.
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Uh the money had the bag had uh obviously what you call one of his dye in it, so it exploded.
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So I stopped and pulled to the side, took the bag out, threw the bag out across the field because it was so much fume in the in the car.
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And I just sat there for a while.
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And while sitting there, the police officer came up, and obviously he could see me halfway crying and, you know, and he asked me what was wrong.
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I said, uh, I'm okay.
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And he said, You sure?
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I said, Yeah, I'm fine.
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And he just told me to go ahead on.
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He said, Okay, we'll go ahead on, because he knew me, you know.
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Okay, go ahead on.
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I went on, and I went probably about another half a mile, uh, maybe a little less, and I got stopped again by a highway patrol.
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And uh he sat in the back waiting for a while, finally got out.
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I I got out of the car and was uh standing at the back.
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And of course, uh he finally got out and came up, was coming up toward me when the same police officer who had stopped me before came by and said, I just stopped him, he's okay.
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And so he told me, get it back in the car.
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I said, okay, go ahead on.
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And I left that tank.
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Now, what was interesting about this, because I realized then that, you know, they knew who it was, that uh they knew it was me.
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And so I went straight to my former partner's office and and called a law lawyer, law friend, told what had happened, told my uh receptionist, my former secretary, uh, what had happened.
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Nobody could believe it.
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And of course, by the time my lawyer friend came up, uh called a couple of my other friends, a little doctor who came over to examine me.
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And by that time, a swarm of uh officers came in, wanted to know if I was there.
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They said yes, and that I was ready to turn myself in.
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And so that's what happened.
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I turned myself in, and of course they put me under a$100,000 bar.
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They came to you for 15 years, and then you went to, you know, you got out after five.
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What was that experience like?
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And did, you know, did faith play a role during that time, or was that later in life when faith finally came into you know being a part of your of your life?
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Okay.
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Well, I've always been a Christian.
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Uh I was a my mom was very dedicated, committed Christian.
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Took me to church every Sunday school, so I knew about church work.
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Um and of course, even when I was playing poker, I knew my mom liked to go to church.
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She wasn't driving.
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I would even come back on Sundays to take her to church and then go back to the poker game.
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That's how uh, you know, I committed my mom was.
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But after uh I was placed in a$100,000 bond, uh, I was sent to, Judge sent me to the Mental Hospital, Dorothy Dixon Mental Hospital, for a six week observation.
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I guess you can understand that.
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Here's this prominent lawyer uh in the area and who's committed this crime, something had to be wrong with him.
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So they sent me to the middle hospital for six weeks' observation.
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It was during this three weeks that I stayed there that I really my faith began to kick in.
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And uh I started thinking about how in the world did I get here?
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You know, how did I allow myself to do what I did?
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And uh I made commitments then that look, uh all the stuff I was doing is over with.
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I'm finished with it.
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I'm finished with playing poker, all the crazy stuff I was doing, the heavy drinking, the womanite, everything you could possibly think of, I'm finished with it.
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And I made that commitment while there in the middle hospital.
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So when I got out, I stayed with it.
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Nothing changed me.
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I was the same person, and uh I had about six months while I was out that I was really reflecting.
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I was had people praying for me.
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I went to church uh to almost everything, prayer meetings, because I was really, really into it.
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And I felt a call uh to ministry.
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But in the missionary Baptist Church, uh, you have to do what we call an initial sermon.
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And so I talked to my mom about it, and she said, Well, you need to talk with your pastor.
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So I went and talked with my pastor probably about a month prior to uh my going in for sentencing.
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And he said to me, said, Well, you know, he talked with me.
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We had a nice long talk, and he said, Well, now if you really feel like the Lord has is calling you, you need to go out on and do your initial sermon.
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So I told him, I said, no, I don't want to do the initial sermon now.
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I'd rather wait until I get out because I don't want people to think that I'm going through all of this to try to get my sentence reduced or to get out of it.
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My mind had been made up, even when I was at the middle hospital.
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I wanted to get everything behind me.
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So I was pleading guilty.
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I wasn't fighting anything.
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I wanted to just get it over with because I knew where I was going afterwards that my life was going to be totally different.
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And so he says, the Lord might have something for you to do while you're confined.
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And uh he said, so I would go on and accept this, accept it, go out on the initial sermon.
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And so he set up a date for me uh at the church.
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I preached on that Sunday, first Sunday in January 1982.
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The Monday following that Sunday, I went to court in Fayetteville, North Carolina, federal court, received my 15-year sentence.
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I was fine.
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I had no problem whatsoever.
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I just knew I was gonna go in because at that time they said that if you did one-third of your time and you had good behavior, then you could get out.
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So I knew I wasn't gonna do it in more than five years.
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I already knew it, you know, because I I won't go get into any trouble.
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I wasn't gonna do anything, and I wanted to get it behind me, and that's what I did.
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Yeah.
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Now we know that people while they're in jail, you know, if um they can learn law and they can study law, but I'm assuming now that you are are you what's your um what what are you under?
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Are you are you considered a convicted felon?
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Is it misdemeanor?
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What is what are what is it what was it as far as that goes?
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Well, uh obviously uh I'm a convicted felon.
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Okay.
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Uh, but uh I had all of that uh taken care of by the clerk when I got out.
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Uh after I finished my parole, uh I was under, you know, I got out five years, so ordinarily you would have uh an additional ten years on parole.
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Okay.
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But I didn't have I didn't do an additional ten years on parole.
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I did only two years, and the probation officer uh terminated my uh parole or uh whatever you were, and so I didn't have to uh serve any more time on parole.
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So after I got the parole over, uh the clerk of court, uh uh I don't know what the word you would call it right at this point.
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I'm not thinking, but anyway, signed an order, granted me my full cit citizenship back.
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So I was able to vote.
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I've been voted, I can do everything that you uh talk about doing, even though I might still have the status of a convicted felon, but I don't have that problem.
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Are you are you able to study more?
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Did you want to go back into doing that or are you not able to?
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Well, I uh never really thought that I want to really go back into oh, I consider it one time, and I uh made an application, but in the process, they asked so many questions about what you did and what have you.
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And as I was getting into the process, I just didn't want to rehash all of that stuff again.
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Okay.
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So I just abandoned it.
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But I did decide that I wanted to share my story and do some work with lawyers across the state.
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So that's how when you said that I did continual legal education.
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How that came about, uh, I was in uh Henderson, North Carolina, and one of my law friends uh told me that he said, Smitty, you have a great story.
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Lawyers would like to hear about your story, you know.
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And he said, why don't you try to become a sponsor of continued local education for the North Carolina State Bar?
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And he said, as one of the person who was doing it who's been disbarred, and um I I didn't know the person, I knew of him, and he said he's doing a great job and doing really good.
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And so I told him, I said, well, um, his crime is not violent.
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You know, my crime was violent, so I didn't think that the bar would allow me to do it.
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And I came home and talked to my wife now of, as a matter of fact, Julie would be 35 years if we would have been married, and said, talk with her about it.
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She said, Well, you don't have your license anyway, so you got to lose.
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And so I uh uh sent my information in, not sent my information in.
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I first talked with the bar, and they asked me, had I talked with Jim Blackburn, that's the other person who was disbarred.
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And I told them no.
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So they asked me, well, you might want to talk with him.
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So I I did.
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I talked with Jim, and he told me what to do.
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I prepared paperwork like he told me to do, send it into the bar.
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And they told me they would be getting in touch with me within the next week or two.
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I think about three weeks.
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And of course, at the end of that third week, I ain't heard anything from them.
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I thought they would, you know, was probably denying me.
00:18:37.330 --> 00:18:42.930
But I started thinking about it, and I said, hmm, oh, they don't have a good picture of me.
00:18:43.090 --> 00:18:50.769
So they see this African-American uh person who had robbed a bank, and that's just not a good picture.
00:18:51.170 --> 00:19:04.690
So I decided that I was gonna get dressed, you know, put on my three-piece suit, take a shave, got good haircut, and all that stuff, and I was looking dapper like I did when I was when I was practic when I was practicing law.
00:19:04.850 --> 00:19:15.810
And so I went over to the state bar office and I asked them, I was in Raleigh, I asked them, can I talk with somebody in the uh Conchieving Legal Education Department?
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And so that they said, yeah.
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So they called uh up there, and this uh lady came down, and when she came down, I could tell then that her whole demeanor had changed when she looked over and saw me.
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And she came over, she said, Dr.
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Sniff, she said, uh, you will hear something from us within the next uh three to five days.
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Uh I said, okay, thank you.
00:19:42.850 --> 00:19:52.370
Then the next three to five days, I got this letter saying, uh, congratulations, you've been approved as a sponsor of Continual Legal Education.
00:19:52.610 --> 00:20:03.650
I talked to Continued Legal Education, Ethics, Mental Health, and Substitution to all the lawyers, black, quiet, all of them across the state for 11 years.
00:20:03.810 --> 00:20:06.690
I would still be doing it right now had it not been for COVID.
00:20:06.850 --> 00:20:11.570
But when COVID came in, you know, I didn't want to continue to travel and go to different offices.
00:20:11.730 --> 00:20:19.810
But if I had been aware of Zoom like I am now, I would still be doing it, but uh I I left when COVID came in.
00:20:19.890 --> 00:20:22.049
But I had been doing it for 11 years.
00:20:22.370 --> 00:20:26.610
So that that was my connection with the North Carolina State Bar.
00:20:26.769 --> 00:20:28.529
So they respected me.
00:20:28.690 --> 00:20:41.330
Uh but going back through the process, I just didn't want to have to rehash all of the ugly stuff that I did, and obviously they require you to go and ask you step by step, this and that.
00:20:41.650 --> 00:20:43.730
And I just didn't feel like doing that.
00:20:44.130 --> 00:20:50.610
How did you get into I mean you talked a little bit about it before you went into prison?
00:20:51.410 --> 00:21:01.730
When you came out, how did you get started again in ministry and did the way people view you, did they how how was that?
00:21:02.049 --> 00:21:03.330
What was that like?
00:21:03.650 --> 00:21:05.570
You know, I that's a good question.
00:21:05.730 --> 00:21:07.009
Very good question.
00:21:07.410 --> 00:21:12.210
I I I always felt like I had pretty good respect.
00:21:12.690 --> 00:21:16.450
Most of the time, I think it was people just not understanding.
00:21:16.610 --> 00:21:18.850
They thought something had to have happened.
00:21:19.009 --> 00:21:25.410
You know, I'm not boasting, but I had a a very, very good reputation as a lawyer.
00:21:25.570 --> 00:21:29.890
You know, I I tried rape cases, murder cases, you know.
00:21:29.970 --> 00:21:32.850
I so my reputation was was really, really good.
00:21:33.009 --> 00:21:36.610
I was just into gambling, you know, at the time.
00:21:36.850 --> 00:21:43.570
And so that's what uh uh I gather whenever anybody would talk to me.
00:21:43.730 --> 00:21:46.850
Some people would say to me, lawyer, we never blame you.
00:21:46.930 --> 00:21:53.570
You know, we blame those older uh uh guys that you were were playing with, you know.
00:21:53.810 --> 00:21:56.690
You were young, and I was, I was the youngest of the crowd, you know.
00:21:57.410 --> 00:22:02.210
They should have helped you and should have just kind of been more of a mentor to you.
00:22:02.450 --> 00:22:10.769
So nobody never really uh showed some kind of disdain for uh what I had done.
00:22:11.009 --> 00:22:20.370
Um but I came out when I first came out and went to the halfway house, you had to have a job.
00:22:20.690 --> 00:22:39.009
So the next day I got up and went to the courthouse here in Durham, where I'm living now, went to the courthouse, and I saw one of the most uh famous lawyers, criminal lawyers, who I had known and who knew me worked very well, uh, in the courthouse.
00:22:39.250 --> 00:22:44.130
And I said, I went to him, I said, Betty, we we his name was C.C.
00:22:44.210 --> 00:22:45.009
Buddy Malone.
00:22:45.170 --> 00:22:48.210
I said, I said, Betty, you know, I need a job.
00:22:48.450 --> 00:22:52.690
I said, I uh, you know, I gotta have a job to stay where I am.
00:22:53.090 --> 00:22:55.250
And he told me to come out the next day.
00:22:55.330 --> 00:22:58.930
I went by the office the next day, and he gave me a job on the spot.
00:22:59.090 --> 00:23:08.930
Okay, so I was working as a law clerk in the law office for uh six, uh, yeah, it was a good six years.
00:23:09.330 --> 00:23:23.250
And during that process, uh I decided that I would make application because I was my ministry was still on my heart, I would make application to uh seminary, and so I did.
00:23:23.810 --> 00:23:31.810
Uh applied to Southeastern uh Theological Seminary, and they didn't accept me.
00:23:32.049 --> 00:23:41.170
Uh and of course uh it bothered me a little bit because I thought if anybody would understand and give me a chance, it would be a seminary.
00:23:41.570 --> 00:23:44.289
But I I didn't let it stop me.
00:23:44.610 --> 00:23:49.970
I applied the next semester, and the next semester they accepted me.
00:23:50.130 --> 00:23:59.730
Okay, so that was a good, uh I always tell people, you know, you can never give up, you know, just hang in there and keep doing what you know you ought to be doing.
00:23:59.970 --> 00:24:18.850
And uh in the process, uh, my seminary studies, uh church became available here in in Durham, and there were, you know, some people who knew folks in the church who knew me and uh who just was very impressed with what I was doing.
00:24:19.090 --> 00:24:21.730
And they recommended me to the church.
00:24:21.970 --> 00:24:25.490
Uh and of course, they called me at the church.
00:24:25.730 --> 00:24:34.450
Uh it was something that folks really couldn't understand, you know, how you, you know, a missionary Baptist church got a bank robber as their pastor, you know.
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But that was what I was doing, and I stayed there for 32 years.
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Uh good congregation.
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