DC Superior Court Judge Andrea Hertzfeld heard a victim’s impact statement as she sentenced a shooting defendant to three years on July 11.
On May 6, Isaiah Smith, 29, pleaded guilty to carrying a pistol without a license, and tampering with physical evidence for his involvement in a shooting that injured an individual on the 3500 block of 13th Street, SE on May 22, 2022.
Smith reportedly had been in a relationship with the victim who was found shot in the head. On the night of the incident, Smith fled the scene, and disposed of the weapon in the Potomac river. The victim, however, survived after being found by the defendant’s mother. She had bullet fragments surgically removed from her brain.
“On May 22, I was shot in the head by Isaiah Smith. We were drunk. I woke up screaming, alone, and no one was there,” the victim stated.
The victim has since experienced neurological difficulties due to her injuries. “I can hardly walk – my right leg doesn’t move the way it should. I can’t read and understand as well as I used to. I forget things. Everything takes effort now: talking, thinking, moving. Every day feels like survival.”
“[My kids are] too young to understand what happened but old enough to know something changed,” she said, “this is the impact: a mother who can’t mother the way she wants to.”
The victim also expressed her dissatisfaction, mentioning that it feels like her suffering isn’t adequately represented in Smith’s sentencing as he faces charges of carrying a pistol without a license and tampering with physical evidence, but not for shooting her. “I didn’t survive this for silence. I survived to speak for myself,” she said as she finished her statement.
“What you just heard is someone who was irreparably changed when she didn’t deserve to be,” said the prosecution. “The victim and her family are more than just a statistic. This is a case where the victim was shot in the head and miraculously survived, and is here to tell us about it.”
The prosecution also reminded the court that the defendant had fled the scene, leaving the victim.
“I don’t think there is anything that Mr. Smith could say to heal [the victim,]” said Smith’s attorney, Shawn Sukumar, who made arguments on Smith’s behalf. “He regretted every single minute” of his actions on the date of the incident, Sukumar continued.
Smith, who had been crying, made a short statement before Judge Hertzfeld. “What happened was inexcusable. I sincerely regret leaving [the victim] in that moment. She and I were in a good place,” and “leaving her was the worst mistake of my life.”
Sukumar mentioned the three years Smith had spent atoning for his actions by pleading guilty, being fully compliant with the court, and cooperating with the prosecution when he met to explain what happened during the night of the shooting. Without Smith’s confession, “the prosecution would have known very little about what happened in that room,” said Sukumar.
Sukumar called the incident “an aberration of an unexpected situation,” and “not the kind of thing [Smith] would have done in any other situation.”
Judge Hertzfeld imposed a sentence of 24 months for carrying a pistol without a license and 12 months for tampering with physical evidence, which will run consecutively. Smith will also be required to serve three years of supervised release and must register as a gun offender.
“I can’t get over the fact that you left her there,” said Judge Hertzfeld to Smith. “I don’t think that the way you behaved in the aftermath speaks of a true accident. That’s unthinkable.”
Hertzfeld maintained the stay away order at the prosecution’s request.
Sukumar requested a partial jail and home confinement sentence.
“This is one of those cases that keeps you up at night,” Judge Hertzfeld said, denying the request.
No further dates were set.
