Prepared after lunch to listen to testimony put on by the defense, prosecuting attorneys and spectators in the courtroom were all stunned Thursday to hear V.I. Superior Court senior sitting Judge Edgar D. Ross instead announce that he was dismissing all charges against federal agent William Clark.
Clark, an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was facing second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and two counts of related weapons charges in connection with the Sept. 7, 2008, shooting death of Marcus Sukow.
The defense has claimed that Clark was sucked into a violent domestic dispute between Sukow and his girlfriend, Marguerite "Margie" Duncan, and opened fire only after being threatened by Sukow with a heavy-duty flashlight that Sukow allegedly also used to beat in Duncan’s car.
Conversely, the prosecution has argued that Sukow, though drunk at the time, had never threatened or assaulted Clark, but was instead about to step back when Clark started firing without cause instead of simply driving away.
Before the surprising turn of events, the trial had been going on for four days, starting with opening arguments Monday and running to about 11:45 a.m. Thursday, when the prosecution rested its case.
As is the norm in many criminal trials, Clark’s defense team, led this time around by V.I. attorney Kerry Drue, presented the judge with a motion for acquittal and argued that the government didn’t present sufficient evidence that Clark had willfully or deliberately murdered anyone or, in the case of the lesser included charge of voluntary manslaughter, killed Sukow after a quarrel or "in the heat of passion."
The judge, however, didn’t base his decision on the defense’s initial arguments. In fact, Ross said, he thought there was enough evidence to send the case back to the jury for deliberation.
But the problem lay in the positive identification of the body, meaning, the judge explained, that there was no definitive evidence showing that the dead man examined by V.I. Medical Examiner Dr. Francisco Landron about three days after the murder was actually Sukow.
Stepping up to podium, government attorney Douglas Sprotte referenced a certificate of death signed by Landron — whose testimony was recorded and played in the courtroom as a deposition on tape since he’s off island getting surgery — after the autopsy was performed. The document named Sukow, his time of death and what he died from, among other things, and Sprotte argued that it was an official document, not just "a time or a name on a piece of paper."
Ross, however, said Landron’s testimony — and by extension, the certificate — was inadmissible unless someone who knew Sukow, such as a friend or family member, could provide a positive identification. There was no one at the scene of the shooting that saw Sukow die, and the government didn’t call anyone to the stand who did — or was present during the autopsy that could "prove it was the same person," Ross added.
That includes officers at the scene who treated Sukow and rode with him in the ambulance, emergency medical technicians or anyone that treated him at the hospital, Drue argued later when she came back up to talk about the prosecution’s "chain of custody issues."
And it also includes the Police photographer Landron testified was in the room while the autopsy was being performed, along with whatever snapshots they took. Ross said it was not enough to rely on the testimony of Duncan, who prosecutors said saw Sukow get shot, was told at the hospital that he had died and "hasn’t seen him since."
After Ross said that he would be granting the defense motion for acquittal by dismissing the charges, there were a variety of reactions in the courtroom: surprise from the spectators, tears from Clark’s fiancé, smiles from the many federal agents who had come down to monitor the proceedings, and shock from both the government and Sukow’s family, whose mother, father and daughter had traveled from Missouri "hoping to finally get some justice," the family’s attorney, Rachel Morrison, said later.
And in a statement released later in the evening, Attorney General Vincent Frazer described the judge’s ruling as "unprecedented" on this issue.
While Ross took a 10-minute recess so he could bring the jury back in and announce the decision, Clark defense attorney Mark Schamel told his camp to stay calm and move quietly out of the courtroom. But it wasn’t long before they reached outside that the floodgates burst, with Clark, his colleagues and friends both crying and embracing one another.
Duncan and Sukow’s family, meanwhile, were grief stricken, and strode up to government attorneys in the hallway tearfully demanding to know what was going on. Speaking later, Morrison — who is representing the Sukows in an ongoing civil rights case against Clark — basically said the defense won on a technicality.
It was assumed by both sides that the inference was made that Sukow—and not some other random man killed at Mahogany Run on Sept. 7, 2008—died at the hospital that day and was subsequently autopsied by Landron, she said. Morrison added that Sukow never got a fair shake in court, and was portrayed by the attorneys as either "a drunk or a corpse."
"Nobody got to know him," Morrison said. "It was clear from the beginning that this man — and by that, I mean Marcus Sukow — never got a fair trial."
Ross broke the news to the jury around 1:45 p.m. and simply said that "as a result of legal proceedings" he was dismissing the charges against Clark. Several jurors raised their eyebrows as Ross closed out the trial and thanked them for their service.
Outside, the Clark camp was in top form.
"We are very happy with the ruling from the court, and we think justice has been served in this case," a smiling Drue said after hugging her mother. "I always thought this case was overcharged, and as there was additional investigation, it was clear that dismissal was the best course of action."
Schamel said later that the case should never have even made it to trial, or gotten the backing of the governor and attorney general.
"The people of the Virgin Islands deserve better than the leadership they got in this case," he said.
The attorneys explained later that the case cannot be retried since double jeopardy, which would prevent Clark from facing the same or similar charges after an acquittal or conviction, has come into play; and the jury, which was already sworn in, had been dismissed.
At this point, the government is looking at all the options before making its next move, which could include appealing Ross’s decision, according to a Justice Department statement.
"We respectfully disagree with the judge’s ruling," Frazer said in the release. "We believe the court record will reflect that the people showed a distinct and indisputable connection between the body autopsied by Dr. Francisco Landron and the man who was shot and killed by William Clark."
Frazer said the eyewitness testimony, coupled with Landron’s deposition and a relevant case law all backed up the government’s argument, but the judge decided to "exclude all the pertinent documents from evidence, thereby paving the way for the dismissal."
"While the Department of Justice does not have a vested interest in any particular outcome, other than to seek justice, we consider the outcome of this case to be very disappointing," he added. "We stand by the position that the outcome of this case should have been decided by a jury of V.I. residents, not by a single judge."
