Biography
Karl Smith was 27 at the time of the Griffiss action and a member of the Jonah House resistance community in Baltimore. He had previously been imprisoned with James Cunningham for 60 days for trespassing at the Trident plant in Bangor, Washington, before they both joined Jonah House.
Karl Smith’s first-person account in the March 9, 1983 Nuclear Resister names Karl Smith among seven Capitol rotunda antiwar protesters who refused a $10 bond and were held overnight before arraignment the next afternoon. The printed account calls the arrest January 20 and also places it hours before the State of the Union; the official Reagan Library dates that address January 25, 1983. The precise arrest day is therefore unresolved. The sixty-day sentences imposed on Smith, Rumpf and Frank Carver were suspended, not sixty days actually served.
Separate Pentagon and Griffiss custody records
The appellate opinion names Smith among the seven Griffiss defendants and dates their action and arrest to November 24, 1983, correcting the previously stored November 23. It specifies his concurrent three-year terms and identifies Judge Howard G. Munson. United States v. Allen, 760 F.2d 447, opening factual account. The original August 2, 1984 Nuclear Resister reports that sentence was imposed July 16. Neither source establishes Smith's initial jail-admission date or exact final discharge day, so those fields are left unknown. Contemporary sentencing report, front page.
The original May 9, 1984 Nuclear Resister separately reports that Smith served 30 days in the D.C. Jail after conviction for blockading Pentagon doors during the preceding December's Holy Innocents actions, was released May 4, and then headed to the Griffiss trial. This is recorded as a distinct case, not the end of Griffiss imprisonment. No admission day is back-calculated. Pentagon release report, printed page 6.
The former 60-day total is removed from the Griffiss record: the existing biography associates that duration with an earlier Bangor trespass case, not this prosecution. The July 18, 1986 Nuclear Resister lists Smith among previously listed prisoners who had been released, but does not give his individual discharge day. That publication date is not entered as his release date. No independently identified photograph has yet been verified. Contemporary released-prisoner roster, printed page 3.
Official federal endpoint identified
Karl Smith's own solidarity letter in The Witness, April1985, indexed primary text identifies01268-052 and Griffiss Plowshares7. That uniquely documented number visibly matched KARL SMITH in the authorized official BOP locator on October12,2026 and supplies July11,1986 as its custody endpoint. The earlier original recently-released newsletter was already visually reviewed. No portrait is provided by the locator; missing identified reusable photograph and other earlier individual episodes remain unresolved.
April 1981 White House conviction report
The October 30 issue individually names this defendant among five convicted for pouring blood at the White House on April 15,1981, with destruction of federal property and unlawful-entry charges. Veasey alone took immediate sentencing; Mike Miles, John Sheils, Karl Smith and Sally Kearsley were scheduled for November 19 sentencing. That future hearing is not recorded as an event that already occurred. This report supplies no individual physical jail-admission or release endpoint for the April case and does not merge it with a later banner, Pentagon or Plowshares prosecution.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 8, October 30, 1981, original page 1.
Earlier D.C. jail custody in the January 1982 issue
Original page 2 individually names Karl Smith among three people remaining in prison at the D.C. Detention Center and prints a six-month term. This is a reported actual custody point during the earlier White House-era prosecution, not the later 1983 Griffiss action or the thirty-day Pentagon term ending in May 1984. It does not supply the initial physical-admission day, a sentencing day or actual release. The six-month announced term is not independently established completed time served. A separate case candidate preserves this earlier imprisonment without copying a status or publication date into admission.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 10, January 17, 1982, original pages 1–6.
Separate earlier White House imprisonment
The January 17, 1982 newsletter individually lists Karl Smith as actually held at the D.C. Detention Center under a six-month term. The December 12, 1981 issue independently identifies him among the jailed White House blood-pouring defendants. This is a distinct earlier imprisonment, not the 1984 Pentagon term or the Griffiss prosecution. Exact admission, sentencing and actual release dates and the completed total remain unknown; the six-month imposed term is not entered as time served.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 10, January 17, 1982, page 2; No. 9, December 12, 1981, page 1.
Contemporary anti-nuclear custody report
The Washington D.C. jail roster lists John Shiel (ten months), Mike Miles (six months), and Carl Smith (six months), all due out April 18, 1982. The April 18 date was still a forecast in this April 15 issue, not a report of actual discharge; no release date or served duration is inferred from it. Carl/Karl spelling is retained with the separately established identity, not treated as a new person.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 11, April 15, 1982, original pages 2.
Initial Griffiss custody ended December 12, 1983
The Thanksgiving at Griffiss report individually names Karl Smith among seven resisters who entered Griffiss Air Force Base on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1983. All seven were initially held on an Air Force bus, then remained in Syracuse City Jail until their December 12 arraignment, when they were released on their own recognizance. This establishes an initial eighteen-elapsed-day interval, not continuous custody through any later July 1984 sentence or final federal discharge. The next court appearance in January was future and not a release date. All existing later proceedings and endpoints must remain separately preserved.
The Nuclear Resister No22, December 16, 1983, original page 3.
Karl Smith’s first-person account in the March 9, 1983 Nuclear Resister names Karl Smith among seven Capitol rotunda antiwar protesters who refused a $10 bond and were held overnight before arraignment the next afternoon. The printed account calls the arrest January 20 and also places it hours before the State of the Union; the official Reagan Library dates that address January 25, 1983. The precise arrest day is therefore unresolved. The sixty-day sentences imposed on Smith, Rumpf and Frank Carver were suspended, not sixty days actually served.
The Nuclear Resister No.15, March 9, 1983, PDF pages 13.
