Born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, the son of John Stephan Smith and Ann Elizabeth Owens,[1][2] Smith received a Graduate of Pharmacy degree from Columbia University in 1922.

[4] Smith was nominated by President John F. Kennedy on August 15, 1961, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated by Judge Phillip Forman.

His service was terminated on February 26, 1968, due to his death at Saint Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

[4][2] Smith was believed to have been the youngest federal court judge at the time of his appointment.

In 1959 he was called upon by Chief Justice Earl Warren to clear up a logjam that had developed at the Brooklyn Federal Court of the Eastern District of New York, and he brought the court's docket up to date in six months.