Broken Doll (21 page)

Jaquette was quick to counter Vanderlee's assertions. “It's our position that indeed whether an aunt and a brother have affections that are for the defendant is a factor that could be considered,” he said. “The fact that he is loved by his aunt and his brother, that they don't want to see him die, that it would be painful to them, is a fact about the defendant which bears upon the decision.”

“This argument,” interjected Vanderlee, “is simply to get sympathy from the jury, and that is one of the reasons that it has been disallowed in the federal courts.”

“Not in this case,” Jaquette told Thorpe. “Obviously, sympathy is not the issue, mercy is, and mitigating circumstance is, and I think it qualifies as being under this definition that we will probably be using for mitigating circumstances, and indeed a definition the court has already read to the jury, or at least a portion of it has already been read to the jury, that it comes full square under that concept. It says something about the defendant—about the character of the defendant.”

“Well, then,” asked Vanderlee slyly, “can I also get into character evidence?”

“In rebuttal, sure,” said Thorpe.

“Whoa,” called out Jaquette, “we should talk about that. If they testify that they love him, is his rebuttal that they really don't love him?”

The three looked at each other, shrugged, and Thorpe noted that he had not yet heard the cross-examination.

“You said we could get into future dangerousness,” said Vanderlee, changing the subject.

“I said you could argue it, ” Judge Thorpe corrected her, “but not put in evidence about it. I ruled that you may not put on any evidence, because you said you weren't going to in the first place.”

“Right.”

“Why should they not,” asked Thorpe, turning toward the defense, “be allowed to argue future dangerousness?”

“Because they can only argue things for which there is evidence to support,” Jaquette replied. “He will be imprisoned with adults and no one seven years old is going to be anywhere near him.”

“Correct,” said the judge. Jaquette nodded, as would a student passing a test, and the jury was brought in to decide the fate of Richard M. Clark.

“You have been reconvened for this special sentencing hearing,” stated Judge Thorpe. “At the conclusion of this hearing, you will have the duty to determine what sentence answering the following question shall impose:

“Having in mind the crime of which the defendant has been found guilty, has the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that there are not sufficient mitigating circumstances to merit leniency?

“If you unanimously answer yes to this question, the sentence will be death. If you do not unanimously answer yes, or if you unanimously answer no, the sentence will be life imprisonment without the possibility of release or parole.

“The state bears the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that there are not sufficient mitigating circumstances to merit leniency. A reasonable doubt is one for which a reason exists, and may arise from the evidence or lack of evidence.

“It is such a doubt as would exist in the mind of a reasonable person after fully, fairly, and carefully considering all the evidence or lack of evidence.

“Only if after such consideration you have an abiding belief that there are not sufficient mitigating circumstances to merit leniency, then you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt. A mitigating circumstance may be any relevant fact about the defendant or the offense, which although not justifying or excusing the offense, suggests a reason for not imposing the death penalty.

“You will be given a more specific definition of the phrase mitigating circumstances later on during these proceedings. You are to keep an open mind, and you shall not decide any issue in this sentencing phase until the case is submitted to you for your deliberation by the court.

“During your deliberations, you should consider anew the evidence presented to you in the first phase of this case, you should also consider any evidence offered and received during the sentencing hearing. We will now have opening statements from counsel, first for the plaintiff, Ms. Vanderlee.”

“Your verdicts in the first phase of this trial bring us here to the sentencing phase of the trial,” she began, “and as the judge just instructed you, the question that you will now have to answer is, having in mind the crime of which the defendant has been convicted, has the state proven to you beyond a reasonable doubt that there are not sufficient mitigating circumstances to merit leniency. That is the question you will be asked to answer in this stage of the case. The state is permitted, in this phase of the case, to only get into three areas of evidence. Those three areas are all of the evidence from the guilt phase or the first phase of the trial. The second portion of evidence the state will be able to admit to you is the defendant's criminal history or his record of convictions.

“You will hear about his prior convictions through certified copies of documents called judgment and sentences. The defendant's criminal history consists of several felonies and some misdemeanor convictions.

“You will hear about a May 28, 1988, unlawful-imprisonment conviction that the defendant has. Detective Diane Berglund will testify that that conviction involved the unlawful restraint of a four-year-old girl, a neighborhood girl known to defendant, who he restrained by tying her up in his garage.

“You will hear about a felony conviction from October 11, 1988, for taking motor vehicle. The defendant was convicted of that, and served time in the county jail as well. You will hear about a second-degree burglary conviction the defendant committed here
in
Snohomish County. You will also hear about a felony conviction that the defendant committed for the crime of attempting to elude a pursuing police vehicle. And also, as part of that crime, the vehicle that he was attempting to elude the police in was a stolen vehicle, so yet another taking of [a] motor vehicle. And Mr. Richard Clark also has some misdemeanor convictions for third-degree theft. He's got two of those and for vehicle prowling.

“You will also hear some evidence in this case about Roxanne Doll. You will hear evidence about what kind of child she was and why her family misses her so much. Mrs. Doll-Iffrig will testify that Roxanne was a trusting, friendly child, that Roxanne liked to ride her bike, that was her—one of her last accomplishments. In fact, she will testify that Roxanne liked to read, that she liked dressing up, and that she liked playing with her pets and her favorite pet was her cat.

“At the conclusion of the state's case, the defense may choose to put on evidence, but they do not have to. And after that, the state may, if necessary, put on witnesses to rebut evidence presented by the defense. And at the conclusion of the evidence, I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, the answer to the question that you are asked to answer will be yes, the state has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the defendant does not merit leniency, and that the appropriate sentence in this case is a sentence of death.”

Vanderlee sat back down, and Judge Thorpe turned toward Jaquette and Scott. “Does the defendant wish to make an opening statement at this time, or reserve?”

“Your Honor, we will reserve our opportunity to make an opening statement,” replied Jaquette.

“Very well,” said the judge, and he returned his gaze to the prosecution. “You may call your first witness.”

Ronald Doersch arose. “The state calls Detective Diane Berglund.” The entire 1988 case of Richard Clark's unlawful imprisonment of Feather Rahier was presented before the jury, beginning with Diane Berglund, and including Officer Dwight Snyder, Julie Gelo, and even Feather's mother, who was flown up from California. Feather was subpoenaed to appear, and a warrant was issued for her arrest, but she managed to elude all attempts to locate her.

Following the jury's total immersion in a matter resolved almost a decade earlier, Judge Thorpe intoned: “We will now have opening statement for the defendant.”

William Jaquette stood to address the jury. “Thank you, Your Honor. Counsel, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the night of March 31, 1995, Roxanne Doll suffered immeasurable terror and immeasurable pain. She lost her life and thereby lost the opportunity that a full life, full of experiences, would have brought her. She also was a great loss to her family, and you heard the evidence about the pain and suffering that her parents and her brother and sister have endured. I am not here to try to diminish that pain and torture, but what I am here however to do is to ask you to consider the question of mitigation.

“I'm here to tell you why it is that given that, Richard Clark does deserve leniency,” explained Jaquette, “that there are sufficient mitigating circumstances to merit leniency, and that the sentence that Richard Clark should receive is a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“You've heard about Richard Clark's itinerant lifestyle. You heard about the events as they unfolded on March thirty-first into April, in the early days of April, including the amounts of alcohol and drugs that the defendant and many of the others involved in this case consumed. To that evidence, we intend to add some additional evidence this morning about Richard Clark's life.

“The memories of the witnesses are going to be varied,” he said, “because it stretches over a period of twenty-eight years.” For the first time, jurors would hear about the tragic upbringing of Richard Mathew Clark—an upbringing that the defense presented as a mitigating circumstance. Jaquette reminded the jury again that the defense did not need to prove mitigating circumstances—they were presumed. The prosecution must prove the absence of mitigating circumstances.

“Richard Clark was born on August 18, 1968. His mother was named Kathy. And at the time of Richard's birth, she was married to George Clark Junior. Although George Clark does not believe that Richard is his natural child—and he has made that clear to Richard in the course of his upbringing. Sometime shortly after Richard was born, his mother, Katharine, took a job in eastern Washington driving a truck for a canning company, a vegetable-canning company or something in that order. And Richard and his brother and his sister, older brother and sister, were left under the care of Carol Clark, one of the witnesses who you already met in this case.

“That went on for a period of time, months, maybe a year or so, and then Kathy Clark came back to—from eastern Washington to western Washington—moved into the family home and began to take charge of her family. She had a couple of relationships in that period of time, but when Richard was somewhere around three or perhaps four, she met and married Bob Smith. Bob Smith came from Arlington and it wasn't long before the family moved back to the Arlington area, and there they lived for a period of time, either in Arlington or Darrington in two or three locations in that area. During this time, the family had a very hard time economically. Kathy Clark, Kathy Smith now, worked at the Reinell boat company, but she broke her neck and was disabled and unable to continue work.

“She received labor and industry payments, but that wasn't very much,” he said. “Bob Smith did not work and the family had a particularly hard time in making ends meet. They did odd jobs and picked berries and cascara bark, and not surprising to you, I'm sure, they poached a deer or two in order to keep meat on the table.

“Both Bob and Kathy Smith were abusers of drugs and alcohol,” he elaborated, “specifically marijuana and alcohol. This was something that was known to the children in the family. Bob Smith was an abusive father. He emotionally and physically abused the children, especially Richard and his older brother, George. He subjected them to humiliations. He made them do work out in the yard, which was meaningless, picking up rocks out of the ground, putting them into one pile, and when they were in one pile, moved the pile to another place.”

Jurors listened in rapt attention, visualizing the severe physical and mental abuse suffered by the Clark children under Bob Smith's iron rule. Jaquette described brutal beatings that left bleeding welts and open sores.

“He beat them with a poker; he beat them with an electrical cord; he beat them so badly from time to time that they bled. One day, Richard went to visit his aunt Carol, who has always lived in Everett. Carol found that he was so badly beaten that he couldn't sit down, he couldn't lie down, he couldn't sleep for two days; he was bruised all over the back of his body. She called Kathy and Bob and said, ‘If I see this again, I'm going to call the authorities.' Well, she didn't see it again, because Richard was not permitted to visit Carol for a period of two years.”

Jurors, previously unfamiliar with Richard Clark's background and upbringing, listened intently to Jaquette's well-constructed, succinct, yet emotionally evocative narrative. “One month after Richard's fourteenth birthday, his mother was killed in a single-car accident on Highway 9.” As this event was the prelude to the most pivotal moment in Clark's young life, the attorney allowed the heartrending implications to sink in before continuing.

“This was a devastating blow to Richard. He was crying—he cried every day about it. Then,” said Jaquette with ominous finality, “at some point, he stopped. He simply closed himself in, never responded to that event again, and began his own career of alcohol and drugs.”

He told the jury how the fragmented and emotionally fragile family members, deprived of the singular source of their united identity, drifted off in their own aimless directions. “Richard was only fourteen, and he got moved in with this relative and that relative. He stayed with George Junior, who was named for his father, husband of his mother at the time of his birth. He moved in with and stayed sometime with Carol Clark, and he spent sometime with his maternal grandparents, the Fellers, in Lake Stevens.

“Nothing was permanent,” said Jaquette sadly, “and nobody took on the job of being a parent. Richard did not finish school, and has kind of been on the street ever since that time. We are going to bring in two witnesses to discuss Richard Clark's life. One will be Carol Clark, whom you've already met in the trial phase of this case, and the other will be George the second, not George Junior, the father, but George the second, who is the brother, the older brother of Richard.

“By your verdict in the trial phase of this case, you have removed the presumption of innocence,” acknowledged the defense. “However, as we begin this penalty phase, and as it goes toward deliberation, Mr. Clark carries with him the presumption of leniency. I would ask you, at this point, to keep an open mind as you hear the rest of the testimony; as you hear the instructions from the court, and the arguments from the attorneys. Then I'll have another opportunity to come up here and ask you to sentence Richard Clark not to death, but to a life in prison without the possibility of parole. Thanks.”

“You may call your first witness,” said Judge Thorpe.

“Your Honor,” said Jaquette, “the defense first calls Carol Clark.”

The emotional Carol Clark told the entire story of Richard's life, confirming Jaquette's pretestimony remarks. She gave specific examples of the deprivation and discipline, acknowledging her own efforts to provide a healthier, stable environment for the children. Her testimony—emotional, sensitive, and heartbreaking—set the tone for Clark's penalty phase.

Following Carol Clark came Richard's brother George Clark II. In painstaking detail, and with great emotional pain to the witness, he related the beatings, bruises, and belittlement suffered by his brother and him at the hands of Bob Smith—the alcoholic tyrant who ruled the family with iron fists, electrical cords, and a fireplace poker.

George testified to the “marks that looked like cut marks, but they were welts that busted open” all over Richard Clark's body. “When I got to be in my teenage years,” said George, “I got too old for the electrical cords and belts, as far as getting beaten. He then went to fists, and I believe Richard was hit with Bob's fists also.”