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New York, 1:28 AM
Tue Nov 17
59 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/18/09
So, that lends more credibility to the claim he's a killer type that he grew up in a rented house?!
09/18/09
09/17/09
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09/17/09
ABC News reported that the suspect and the victim had exchanged e-mails in the morning of the day she disappeared. The emails were concerned with following rules and regulation in the animal center.
09/17/09
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09/17/09
People in 'happy relationships' can be pretty fucking smug, huh?
I just assume everybody is a philandering murderer, and so stuff like this is simply the other shoe dropping.
09/17/09
Shit. Now I want to lock me up.
Sorry, Mom.
09/17/09
Based on various news reports (girlfriend "rape" @16, yelling at some lady's 17 year old boy, being "controlling" to the GF, staircase yelling, etc.) and this murder, I'd make the case to look for something called Intermittent Explosive Disorder. It's an impulse control disorder with pretty decent biological correlates, where people act way way out of proportion to an inciting event. These are the people with road rage who will not just show you the finger, but hunt you down, stalk you, and make you fear for your life.
If this was indeed the case, perhaps a little Depakote or Prozac could have prevented this.
09/17/09
Thanks for messing up my point, Raymond Clark. Asshole. Oh, and for killing that woman too. That was also not cool.
09/17/09
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09/17/09
For Hamilton.
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09/17/09
"Name?"
"Bos'un's Mate"
"Occupation?"
"I'm a Gawker commenter."
"Dismissed!"
09/17/09
09/17/09
and you're right, if the cops have strong enough forensic evidence (the DNA, for instance), odds are this'll end in a plea bargain anyway.
I guess one might argue that the aggressive media coverage has so contaminated the jury pool, that if Clark chooses to cop a plea, he may only do so because a jury trial would yield a harsher sentence, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms.
09/17/09
This sort of thing is, at least in part, why the jury selection process exists, after all.
09/17/09
09/17/09
Connecticut is a small state; I think this is a national story; it's unlikely that most jurors would be unfamiliar with it. Many would lie about whether or not the news coverage had influenced them.
There also would be a motion for a change of venue; he can't be tried in the New Haven area.
09/17/09
I would not want to be tried by a jury of my peers for a crime like this. If I didn't take a plea, I'd go for a guy or a gal in a black robe.
From what we've heard so far, he is COMPLETELY unsympathetic. He might possibly have a nutcase defense, but that sounds hard to show.
09/17/09
edit: it would be admissible only if this case turns out to be sexual assault case.
09/17/09
Really, putting it on Gawker is not fair. This happens to every criminal defendant in every high-profile crime.
09/17/09
Let's see, based on what we know:
Tiny, adorable, very bright, high-achieving young woman gets the life choked out of her a week before her wedding and her corpse is stuffed into a wall by a guy whose job effectively may be cleaning cages.
BENCH TRIAL!
09/18/09
Clark would have to show, to a clinician's satisfaction, that he suffers from some DSM-IV mental disorder, of course, but NGRIs can also be unappealing to defendants because they still don't get to just walk out of court scot-free: depending on the disorder, they can simply be indefinitely committed to a psychiatric facility instead of imprisoned in a correctional one.
I don't know what kind of sentence he'd be facing under Connecticut's homicide statute (or whatever plea terms the DA might offer), but at least in some cases, doing jail time is actually preferable to claiming insanity because at least you know you're getting out.
(That point might be moot, of course, if he's looking at a life sentence, the death penalty, etc.)
That said, I completely agree that a change of venue motion would almost certainly be inevitable. And I'd naively argue that if jurors lied about being influenced by the news coverage, the defense could use that as grounds for a mistrial or appeal, but, of course, they'd have a hard time proving a juror lied about such a thing.
A bench trial or a plea deal are this guy's best bet, but I'm not sure a NGRI would necessarily be his best defense... and if the forensic evidence is strong enough, whether or not the media's coverage has contaminated a potential jury is sort of irrelevant.
Assuming, of course, he did it. If he's innocent... shit, that sucks.
09/17/09
09/17/09
This whole saga, honestly, has been one of the most pathetic moments in Gawker history, with the vague, self-important ramblings from the bloggers and the asinine, Nancy Drew theorizing about incredibly inconsequential things being "part of the bigger picture." (He was in the Asian Awareness club! Quelle horreur!) Yes, yes, you're all just like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window. Thank god we've Gawker commenters on this case, or we'd never get access to stunning info like "only psychos have Myspace." Truly, the height of criminology.
09/17/09
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09/17/09
I chuckled upon reading that. I think of that as the boilerplate NYT "class label graf."
They did, however, try to provide a more rounded picture of him now that he's a suspect.
Also: He had SWIRLY TATTOOS! ONE ON EACH ARM!
Sometimes being a reporter sucks.
09/17/09
I grew up in PUBLIC HOUSING!
09/18/09
09/17/09
"State police officers impounded Clark's red Mustang yesterday. They also took about 150 pieces of forensic evidence from the Yale lab, where he mostly did janitorial work."
Was he a janitor or technician?
09/17/09
[scripts.its.yale.edu]