The case created tensions between the city and the district attorney, who criticized the decision to allow Mr. Smith to remain on the payroll for the last three years. But Mr. Bailey reiterated on Friday afternoon that “this is not a conviction against the Montgomery Police Department.”

There have been at least a dozen fatal police shootings in Alabama since 2015, according to a database created by The Washington Post. In February, an officer who killed a 21-year-old black man he had mistaken for a gunman was ultimately not taken to trial.

“This is a tragedy that we must not forget, we must learn from it, and move forward together to do everything in our power to make sure something like this never happens again,” Steven Reed, Montgomery’s mayor, said in a statement.

“Better training could prevent a tragedy and prevent crime in general,” he added, saying he would examine police practices. “One family’s wounds will never be fully healed.”

A national movement for racial justice, Black Lives Matter, was ignited when Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York were killed by white police officers in the summer of 2014. Since then, there have been several more high-profile cases across the country in which a black man was killed by a white officer.

Jason Van Dyke, a Chicago officer, was sentenced to seven years in prison in January for murdering Laquan McDonald. Last month, Amber Guyger was sentenced to 10 years after murdering Botham Jean in his Dallas apartment. Ms. Guyger was off duty at the time of the shooting.

The verdict in the Alabama case was the culmination of a winding judicial process.

Eight judges had recused themselves in the case, which was relocated from Montgomery, where protests broke out after the shooting, to Ozark, about 85 miles southeast, in the majority-white Dale County. There had been concerns that news media coverage of the case could taint the pool of jurors.