How Mavericks helped Dorian Finney-Smith secure father’s parole after 29 years in prison

Contractually, Dorian Finney-Smith’s seven-season Mavericks tenure ended on Feb. 6, when he was traded to Brooklyn as part of the Kyrie Irving-to-Dallas blockbuster.

Personally, Finney-Smith’s bond with the Mavericks franchise quietly has continued, evidenced Wednesday by a profound occurrence in Richmond, Va.

The Virginia Parole Board voted 3-0 to grant conditional freedom to Finney-Smith’s father, Elbert Smith Jr., who has been incarcerated for the last 28 years and four months of Dorian’s 30-year life.

“My whole family is in tears,” Finney-Smith told The News shortly after learning of the board’s vote. “It hasn’t set in; probably won’t until I see him out. I haven’t touched my dad since … ever.”

So compelling was Elbert Smith’s case that the vote’s outcome defied steep odds in a state with historically rigid parole standards. Before Wednesday, the board had granted parole in only 23 of 1,255 cases it had considered in 2023.

The news was an answered prayer after a generation of hopelessness for Elbert Smith, 52, and his family. By extension that includes the Mavericks, who helped Elbert’s son navigate a labyrinth of legal and political obstacles to get the parole board to consider the case.

At issue was not Elbert Smith’s guilt or innocence in a Jan. 25, 1995 slaying, but whether the board deemed his prison time and rehabilitation to be sufficient — and whether Dorian’s plans to help Elbert return to society are adequate safeguards for the community.

For his conditional release, which is expected to occur in the next few weeks, Elbert Smith largely can thank Dorian, Mark Cuban Companies chief of staff Jason Lutin and former Virginia attorney general Jerry Kilgore.

Mavericks’ involvement

Nearly three years ago, Finney-Smith explained his father’s circumstances to Lutin, a fellow University of Florida graduate who also holds a law degree from that school. Lutin spent months gathering background about the case and helping Dorian explore legal and political avenues.

They turned to Kilgore, Virginia’s 2005 Republican nominee for governor and a partner with the law firm Cozen O’Connor. He met with Elbert Smith in Virginia’s Wallens Ridge supermax prison and offered to represent him pro bono.

That was more than two years ago. In Virginia and other case-backlogged states, it takes months and sometimes years for prisoners to have their parole cases considered.

“Lutin’s the GOAT; he’s that dude,” said Finney-Smith, calling Lutin and Kilgore his one-two punch. “Jason told me, ‘You’re always family’ and he backed it up, for sure. He could have put it on the back burner, especially after I got traded.”

Elbert Smith’s parole hearing occurred while Smith was still a Maverick. In-season, in fact, between games.

The Jan. 25 hearing in Richmond, with parole board chairman and former Virginia Supreme Court judge Chadwick Dotson presiding, occurred the day after the Mavericks hosted Washington.

Coach Jason Kidd excused Finney-Smith from practice and the team flight to Phoenix so that Finney-Smith could travel to Virginia, accompanied by Lutin and Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison.

“We didn’t even know if we would be able to be in the room, but that didn’t matter,” Harrison said. “It was all about Dorian, for him to know that he didn’t have to fly there by himself; that his team was there to support him.”

Harrison and Lutin did in fact take part in the hearing, introducing themselves and explaining why they’d come. Kilgore also submitted written testimonials from Mavericks governor Mark Cuban, Harrison and other franchise leaders, all vouching for Finney-Smith’s character. Kilgore and Cuban have not yet responded to requests for comment.

Joining the hearing virtually was Indiana coach Rick Carlisle, Finney-Smith’s Mavericks coach for his first five NBA seasons. Carlisle described Finney-Smith’s rise from undrafted free agent to Mavericks starter and called him one of the most dedicated and reliable players he’s coached.

A key facet of the hearing was for Kilgore to present in detail how Finney-Smith and his family plan to provide Elbert Smith a stable home environment in Chesapeake, Va., as well as financial and emotional support and a job with the Finney Family First Foundation.

“Obviously we couldn’t say much about Dorian’s father because we don’t know him,” Harrison said. “But we could talk about Dorian and the amazing human that he is, all the beautiful characteristics that make him Dorian.”

With six months and a successful outcome in hindsight, Finney-Smith on Wednesday became emotional while recalling the trip to Virginia and the hearing.

He remembered confiding about his father’s plight to then-Mavericks assistant coach Jamahl Mosely. Mosely encouraged Finney-Smith to speak to Cuban, who advised Finney-Smith to meet with Lutin and told him the franchise would provide any support necessary.

“In basketball, players don’t usually bring up stuff like this, but the Mavericks are different as far as relationships,” Finney-Smith said. “Now I had to talk to five people I don’t know about things that were very personal to me, but I could feel the support in the room.”

Five people. The Virginia parole board at the time had five members. In the ensuing weeks, two members cycled out and have yet to be replaced, complicating and delaying Elbert Smith’s case. The hearing, though, obviously resonated with the remaining board members.

‘People like me don’t make it to the NBA’

Before the hearing, Finney-Smith submitted a letter to the board that in part read: “Hopefully this can paint a better picture of the man I love and the man I know he will be, and I will help ensure he is, if he is granted parole.”

Lutin, however, said it was Finney-Smith’s heartrending live testimony that caused chairman Dotson to become visibly emotional.

Finney-Smith described life without a physically present father, a person with whom, for 28 years, his interactions have been by telephone or through acrylic walls in prison visitor booths.

Dorian recounted how his single-parent mother, Desiree, worked multiple jobs in Portsmouth, Va., to provide for her six children. And how the family’s world was shattered when Dorian’s older half-brother, Ra-Shawn, was mortally shot at a high school party, with 15-year-old Dorian witnessing the tragedy.

At 16, while blossoming into a star at Portsmouth’s Norcom High, Dorian, too became a father. He played one season at Virginia Tech, then transferred to Florida, where coach Billy Donovan wondered why he seemed socially withdrawn.

Finney-Smith told Donovan of his brother’s murder and the anger and sense of abandonment he felt toward his father.

At Donovan’s urging, Finney-Smith returned to Virginia, got counseling and forged a closer relationship with Elbert. When Finney-Smith later went unselected in the NBA draft and considered quitting basketball, it was his father who persuaded him not to give up.

“People like me don’t make it to the NBA,” a tearful Finney-Smith told Dotson and the parole board. “People like me end up like my father. I should either be in jail like him or dead like my brother. I should not be where I am today.”

After the hearing, Finney-Smith and Harrison flew to Phoenix to rejoin the Mavericks. Harrison said Finney-Smith seemed upbeat and hopeful. Harrison’s takeaway from hearing Elbert Smith’s story, though, was wistfulness.

“Growing up, I’d seen and heard of these types of situations,” he said. “I thought it was sad. Just tragic.”

The following night, Finney-Smith had 18 points and 12 rebounds in a victory over the Suns.

Harrison said the decision 10 days later to trade Finney-Smith was difficult, but it was the only way the franchise could acquire a star of Irving’s caliber to pair with Luka Doncic.

On the night of the trade, Finney-Smith told The News that Dallas had become his second home and that part of him will always be connected to the franchise. The reporter told Finney-Smith he’d heard about efforts to get his father paroled and that developments seemed promising.

“From your lips to God’s ears,” Finney-Smith said.

Elbert Smith’s incarceration

Elbert Smith was born and raised in St. Louis, Mo. After high school, he enlisted in the Navy and was stationed in Norfolk, Va., where he met Desiree Finney.

Smith was honorably discharged with a rank of E-3, but he had difficulty finding steady employment in southeast Virginia’s Hampton Roads region.

He was arrested and convicted of distribution of cocaine, but had no record of violent crime. Desiree gave birth to Dorian in May of 1993 and became pregnant with the couple’s second child, daughter Monnazjea, in late 1994.

On Jan. 25, 1995, Elbert Smith, 23, and Diefen McGann, 34, went to a Virginia Beach auto repair garage to collect a debt from Willie Anderson II, 31.

According to court records and testimony, McGann and Smith each had a handgun. A skirmish ensued, with Anderson attempting to wrest McGann’s gun. Smith told police he lunged at Anderson with a knife, causing Anderson to let go of McGann’s gun.

McGann admitted to police that after regaining control of the gun, he fired the three shots at Anderson, who staggered outside, collapsed into a ditch and died.

McGann and Smith initially were charged with first-degree murder. McGann on April 10, 1996, accepted a plea deal for a lesser charge, voluntary manslaughter, and a five-year prison sentence.

Smith was offered the same deal, but his court-appointed attorney advised him to turn it down and go to trial, reasoning that it was McGann who fired the fatal shots.

On March 29, 1996, a jury convicted Smith of amended charges, second-degree murder and malicious wounding. He was sentenced to 44 years in prison.

More than a quarter-century later, attorney Kilgore wrote in his Jan. 25 memorandum and supporting documentation to the parole board:

“Mr. Smith has served a significant and sufficient time of incarceration. He has shown, through his recent institutional record and his successful completion of institutional programming, and as reflected in the letters of his family, that he is ready to lead a law-abiding and productive life.”

According to federal sentencing guidelines, the penalty for voluntary manslaughter — the charge that Smith could have accepted in his plea offer — “typically consists of 10 years or less of prison, fines or both.”

Prison isn’t supposed to be easy, but a five-year portion of Elbert Smith’s incarceration was particularly harsh.

In November 2010, he was placed in solitary confinement because, as a practicing Rastafarian, he refused to cut his hair to the allowable length under the prison system’s grooming guidelines.

While in solitary at Keen Mountain Correctional Center, Smith was accused of punching a correctional officer, causing his Feb. 2011 transfer to Wallens Ridge, one of Virginia’s twin maximum security facilities, each with solitary confinement wings.

For the next four-and-a-half years, Smith spent two years in solitary confinement at each supermax prison, Wallens Ridge and Red Onion. During both stints he spent 24 hours a day in a dimly lit 9-by-14-foot cell, except for one hour on shower or recreation days.

Showers were three times per week and recreation was supposed to occur five times a week — in an 8-by-14-foot fenced cage — although the latter often got canceled.

In May 2017, he filed a civil rights suit, alleging that he was deprived of due process without meaningful review or pathway to release from solitary confinement.

A district court granted summary judgment to the Virginia Department of Corrections, but in 2020 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit appointed Georgetown’s University Law Center to represent Smith.

The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s ruling and remanded the case, saying Smith “raised a genuine dispute as to the existence of a protected liberty interest,” citing the severity of his confinement conditions and the fact that he had no way out of solitary without cutting his hair.

“Despite significant adverse conditions, Mr. Smith did not turn to violence or rebellion,” Kilgore noted in his memo to the parole board. “Instead he utilized the legal system to ensure he had the opportunity to work on his correctional programming despite his placement in solitary.”

Path to freedom

Amplifying the challenge of Elbert Smith’s case, and scores of others in Virginia, was the state’s longstanding legal and philosophical stance on paroles.

Virginia abolished discretionary parole for felony offenders starting Jan. 1, 1995 — 24 days before Smith committed his offenses. The state required felony offenders to serve at least 85% of their sentence, similar to truth-in-sentencing laws that a wave of states passed in the 1990s.

It wasn’t until 2000, however, that the Virginia Supreme Court made it a legal requirement for jurors to be informed of the state’s no-parole statute. In many cases between 1995 and 2000, juries meted lengthy sentences under the mistaken belief that prisoners could earn early parole with good behavior.

That is why Virginia in 2020 opened a loophole for discretionary parole consideration for prisoners convicted between 1995 and 2000. But the parole grant rate remained low, less than 5%, then plummeted after Republican Glenn Youngkin became governor in January 2022.

When prison reform advocates criticize Virginia’s parole numbers, Youngkin and other political leaders counter by saying the stringent guidelines are a deterrent, noting that the state has the nation’s fourth-lowest violent crime rate.

Elbert Smith’s parole application and the Jan. 25 hearing in Richmond swayed the board to strongly consider his unique circumstance, but the review process continued as two board members cycled out.

Chairman Dotson interviewed the Wallens Ridge staff psychologist about Elbert Smith. In mid-March, board vice chairman Samuel Boone visited Smith at Wallens Ridge.

Finney-Smith said he tried to remain even-keeled when providing phone updates to Elbert. He didn’t want to raise nor dampen his hopes.

‘I don’t regret anything’

Finally, at 2:18 p.m. Wednesday, Finney-Smith received a text from Lutin. Finney-Smith had just finished a workout and was about to shower.

“Can you talk?” Lutin texted.

“I figured he wanted to link up for dinner or something,” Finney-Smith said.

Seconds later, Finney-Smith was in tears. After hanging up with Lutin he embraced wife JazMyne and their three children. Then he phoned his sister, who recently gave birth to her first child.

By the time Finney-Smith phoned grandmother Doris Smith, from whom he got his nickname, “Doe-Doe,” she’d already heard the news from another family member about her son’s impending release.

Finney-Smith spoke to The News without trace of bitterness about the past 28 years and four months, or the lengths that were required to get Elbert paroled.

“It’s a tough situation,” he said. “We went through a lot of things that I think probably wouldn’t have happened if he was around. There were a lot of things I could have learned earlier.

“But everything happens for a reason. He doesn’t regret anything. He says he needed that time to learn. So I don’t regret anything, either.”

Virginia Department of Corrections guidelines require a roughly two-week transition before Elbert Smith’s release. The first step is moving him to a different wing in Wallens Ridge. He will undergo counseling, as will the family members who will comprise his support system.

Ultimately he will move into a room in Desiree’s home.

“My kids get to meet their granddad,” Finney-Smith said. “That’s something he and I have been talking about, something he wanted to get home to.”

When the NBA season begins in October, Elbert Smith for the first time will get to see his son play in a game, albeit not for the franchise that employed Dorian for seven seasons and, despite trading him, remains in his heart.

“Even being in prison, my dad has always been there for me, somebody on the phone who won’t judge me, who will just listen to me vent. When I went undrafted, he was there for me.

“I’m happy he’ll get to see some of the fruits of my labor.

“I appreciate everything the Mavericks did behind closed doors, the whole situation. I’m always going to have love for Dallas and the organization.”

Twitter: @townbrad

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