Killer dodges death

The State Supreme Court rules that Richard Mathew Clark must be given new sentencing trial

By Scott North

Herald Writers

It was only a few minutes of testimony during a 32-day murder trial, but what the jury heard in April 1997 was enough to win a second chance at life for an Everett man convicted of the brutal rape and killing of a 7-year-old girl.

Timeline of Roxanne Doll killing: From her disappearance to suspect’s conviction

The state Supreme Court on Thursday tossed out the death sentence for Richard Mathew Clark, 32, who was convicted of abducting, raping and murdering Roxanne Doll of Everett.

By a 5-3 vote, the court ruled that the penalty phase of Clark’s trial was flawed because jurors were told too much about one of the defendant’s prior crimes.

"I think that there’s no justice for the victims," said Roxanne’s father, Tim Iffrig, who now lives in the Edmonds area. "I mean, they’re giving him a second chance. My daughter wasn’t given a second chance."

What’s next?

Convicted child murderer Richard Matthew Clark will be returned to Everett for a second trial to determine his punishment. No date has been scheduled. Under state law, he faces life in prison without release or a second death sentence.

In April 1995, Clark, then 26, kidnapped Roxanne from her south Everett home. Her body was found a week later, dumped down a brushy hillside in north Everett, not far from the defendant’s home. An autopsy showed that she’d been raped and repeatedly stabbed.

Jurors heard weeks of testimony about how Clark was connected to the killing, including evidence about the results of genetic tests that showed the slain child’s blood was found in his van and on one of his shirts, and Clark’s semen inside her body.

Jurors deliberated less than a day before finding Clark guilty of Roxanne’s murder.

The next day, prosecutors urged the panel to rule that Clark should die. As part of their case, an Everett police detective was called to testify about how in 1988 the defendant was convicted of unlawful imprisonment after he abducted a 4-year-old neighbor girl. The child was later found tied up with a sock in Clark’s garage.

The jury was entitled to know about that conviction, but not the age of the child or her relationship to Clark, Justice Richard Sanders wrote in Thursday’s ruling.

"We fear such evidence was too likely to short-circuit the jurors’ reasoning and inflame their passions," the justice wrote.

That’s news to two of the jurors who voted that Clark should die. Neither man even recalled the testimony.

It wasn’t the age of the other girl that prompted jurors to choose the death penalty, said juror Howard Colby, 83, of Bothell. It was what Clark had done to Roxanne.

"I think that the evidence that was presented to us, plus the photographs of what was done to that little girl, influenced us more than anything else that could have been brought up. Because there was some pretty graphic things that were done to her," he said.

Another juror, who spoke on the condition that his name not be published, said he doesn’t remember even hearing about the 1988 abduction until after the trial and the death penalty verdict, when Superior Court Judge Richard Thorpe met with jurors to debrief them about the case.

"It kind of pisses me off," the juror said of Thursday’s ruling. "I didn’t go through 32 days of that to have my decision overturned just because of a prior conviction."

Snohomish County prosecuting attorney Jim Krider was scheduled to meet this morning with the slain girl’s family. He issued a brief statement Thursday saying that his deputy prosecutors will push for a another sentencing trial for Clark as soon as possible. Clark’s underlying conviction was not affected by Thursday’s ruling.

Unless the death sentence is reinstated, Clark faces life in prison without possibility of release.

One of Clark’s appellate attorneys, Suzanne Elliott of Seattle, said she spoke with her client about the ruling and "he’s exceedingly relieved, obviously."

She had argued that Clark deserved to have his conviction and sentence tossed out, alleging that errors were made at several stages in the case, including the judge’s decision to require the defendant to be hobbled with a leather strap during trial, a restraint that was hidden from jurors.

The court rejected all of Clark’s claims, except for the contention that jurors were prejudiced by learning more than the barest details of his 1988 conviction.

Elliott said she respects the effort jurors made, but the state’s death penalty law also mandates that the Supreme Court scrutinizes each case.

"If we are going to as a community and society live with the death penalty, the least we can do is require scrupulous fairness when it is imposed," she said.

She said that if anybody should be blamed for the outcome of Clark’s trial, it is the prosecutors who insisted that jurors be told more details about Clark’s 1988 crime involving the other child.

Thorpe said he wasn’t surprised by Thursday’s ruling because the state Supreme Court knows that its rulings are subject to review by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which many lawyers view as being generally opposed to the death penalty.

The judge said there was little else he could say about the case, except to note that death penalty trials are very time-consuming.

Roxanne’s father said a simpler solution would be moving Clark into the general population with other convicts.

"That’s their home," Iffrig said. "Some of them live there the rest of their lives. They don’t want a sicko rapo in their home."

He said he learned of Thursday’s ruling from his now ex-wife, Gail Doll, who called him at work. Iffrig said he was in the break room with co-workers, but had to leave and go behind the building so he could cry.

"We’re talking about my baby girl," he said.

This is the second Snohomish County death sentence to be tossed out by the state’s high court in two years.

In 1999, justices ruled that the death sentence was flawed for Charles Ben Finch, convicted of the 1994 murders of a sheriff’s deputy and a blind man, because jurors saw Finch restrained by handcuffs and with a nylon strap hobbling his ankles.

A second sentencing trial was started in September 2000. But it came to a bizarre end about a month later when Finch, then 51, hurled himself off a balcony at the county jail in a suicide attempt. The fall left Finch paralyzed and in a coma. Nonetheless, jurors continued to deliberate and voted 10-2, with most favoring death.

The verdict meant Finch faced life in prison without possibility of release. But after regaining consciousness, he declined medical treatment and died of his injuries on Christmas Eve.

Chuck Wright of Mill Creek, president of Families and Friends of Violent Crime Victims, said the group supports the court system and understands that the rules must be followed and "we can’t take a life without fairness."

Still, he said that his heart goes out to the families of crime victims who are forced to go through another trial.

"For the victims, this can be cruel and unusual punishment," Wright said. "The courts can’t rule for cruel and unusual punishment for victims, only for offenders. Maybe that is a shame."

You can call Herald Writer Scott North at 425-339-3431

or send e-mail to north@heraldnet.com.