Ernest Smith, a former Member of Parliament for St Ann South West and a lawyer for dancehall artist Tommy Lee Sparta, died at the University Hospital of the West Indies on Wednesday night around 9 PM. He was 70 years old.
Sources say that the lawyer has been sick with cancer over the past year, but he was receiving medical treatment. His health, however, took a turn for the worse last week.
Ernest Smith has been Tommy Lee Sparta’s lawyer throughout a number of legal woes prior to the present case, for which he is serving three years for illegal possession of a firearm.
In 2018, Smith, who represented Tommy Lee Sparta, accused the police of breaching the dancehall deejay’s constitutional rights after he was arrested in Kingston and taken to St. James and held under the conditions of the State of Emergency that was in place at the time.
Smith had said that the artist was being harassed by the police, who continued to arrest him over the years.
Meanwhile, Smith is survived by his family members, including widow Lynette Royes-Smith, his son Ernest Jnr, and four daughters – Nesta Claire, Michelle, Celia, and Marsha.
The late lawyer is succeeded by his daughter Marsha Smith who followed in his footsteps as an attorney-at-law and also as a Member of Parliament for St Ann North East. She’s also State Minister in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service.
R.I.P. Ernest Smith.
