the Kingdom of Hawaii on January 14, 1893. On January 17, he was appointed to the executive council (the new cabinet) of the Provisional Government of Hawaii under president Sanford B. Dole, the son of his former teacher. Dole's stepmother, Charlotte Close Knapp (1813–1874), was the widow of Smith's uncle Horton Owen Knapp (1813–1845), who had been a missionary teacher himself on Kaua'i. Smith was Attorney General of Hawaii from the creation of Provisional Government through the Republic of Hawaii. On December 18, 1895, he became a member of the board of health, and later its president. He had no formal training except for having a father and brother as practicing physicians. Murder in the family His brother Jared Knapp Smith was shot dead on September 24, 1897. It was suspected to be in retaliation for ordering patients suspected of leprosy to have tests that might send them to exile in Kalaupapa. Similar tensions had ignited the Leper War on Kaua'i four years earlier. His former law partner Kinney sailed to Kauai island and was appointed special prosecutor. A native Hawaiian suspect, Kapea Kaahea, was arrested, tried on November 13, 1897, and found guilty of murder in the first degree. Instead of waiting for next scheduled term of the circuit court, a special session had been called. Honolulu English-language newspapers said "there seems no doubt of the guilt of the chief prisoner" even before the trial. The objections brought to the Supreme Court of Hawaii were quickly rejected on February 3, 1898. Kapea was hanged on April 11, 1898. The rushed nature of the prosecution was thought to be an attempt to show the United States that the government was in firm control. Only a few months later, in July 1898, the Newlands Resolution annexed the islands. Of the four executions for capital punishment between 1889 and 1903 in Hawaii, all four were of non-whites within a four-month period. Return to private practice In August 1898, Smith offered to resign, but although now annexed, the old republic government continued to operate. On March 20, 1899, he was replaced as attorney general by Henry Ernest Cooper and returned to private practice. Smith was elected to one term of the Territory of Hawaii Senate from 1907 to 1909. Smith was a trustee of the Kamehameha Schools, founded from the estate of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, from 1884 to 1886 and from 1897 to