Clark v. StateClark v. State
A jury convicted Jennifer Clark of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the death of Donald Clark.1 On appeal, Clark contends that her trial counsel rendered constitutionally
1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury‘s verdicts, the evidence presented at trial showed the following. Jennifer Clark was married to Donald, and they had two young sons, ages eight and ten. During the course of the Clarks‘s marriage, which ended in divorce four months before Donald‘s murder, Jennifer had at least four extramarital affairs. At the time of Donald‘s murder, Clark‘s most recent affair was with Yost, who was the son of Donald‘s best friend.
In January or February 2008, Yost was having difficulty getting along with his father and stepmother, so the Clarks allowed Yost—whose affair with Clark was unknown to Donald—to move in with them. Yost and Clark continued their affair without Donald‘s knowledge. On March 7, Donald called 911 in the middle of the
The day after the baseball-bat incident, Clark and Donald agreed to get divorced and went to the courthouse to initiate the process. Later that day, Donald confronted Yost about Donald‘s suspicions that Yost and Clark were having an affair, and Yost quickly admitted to it. Donald made Yost move out of the house, and Clark left to live with Yost at his grandmother‘s house. Around the same time, Clark discovered she was pregnant with a child whose father she later determined was Yost.
After Clark moved out of the house, Donald hired Danielle Young to move in and help him take care of the children. Young agreed and moved in with her two children. In early May 2008,
The Clarks‘s divorce was finalized in July 2008. Donald retained sole custody of their minor sons and became the sole owner of the house. In September 2008, Clark and Yost began living with Maddox. While Clark was living at Maddox‘s house, Donald would visit Clark with their children two to three times a week and repeatedly asked Clark to move back in with him, but she always refused. In October 2008, Clark asked Donald if she could come back home, and Donald agreed. The night before Clark returned to Donald‘s home, she asked Yost to help her hatch a plan to “get rid” of Donald. Yost responded by calling Clark “crazy,” and Clark did
In the early morning hours of November 18, 2008, Clark attacked Donald by bludgeoning him multiple times with an aluminum baseball bat as he slept. Yost was also present, and the children were asleep in the home. Clark then convinced Yost to help her move and dispose of Donald‘s body before she cleaned up and attempted to mislead Donald‘s family and friends about his whereabouts.
At trial, Yost testified to the following. On November 17, Clark instructed Yost to come to the Clarks‘s house very early the next morning, telling him that she would be ready with some clothes packed. Clark called him later that same day to instruct him to wait for her to signal with the back porch light to indicate when it was safe for Yost to come to the door. Yost went to the house as directed on November 18 and waited for the porch light signal from Clark. When Yost entered the house, he saw Clark retrieve the aluminum
Yost admitted that, after the beating, he tied two plastic bags around Donald‘s head. He and Clark rolled Donald‘s body in the bed linens and placed Donald in the trunk of Donald‘s own car along with his wallet, work boots, and the aluminum bat. Clark gave Yost the keys to Donald‘s car and Donald‘s cell phone. She instructed Yost to get rid of the items, the body, and the car, and to make it appear like Donald merely left home. Yost did not clean anything in the house before leaving in Donald‘s car.
Yost drove to a field, dragged Donald‘s body into the woods, and covered it with a camouflage blanket. He also disposed of Donald‘s wallet and work boots and the aluminum bat. Yost parked Donald‘s car at a motel in Forsyth, Georgia, and waited for Clark to contact him. Clark sent a text to Donald‘s phone stating that the children
During Yost‘s trial testimony, he acknowledged that he had pleaded guilty to murder, concealing the death of another, and tampering with evidence, and that part of his plea deal was to testify at Clark‘s trial. Yost also testified about several untruthful statements he had previously made to law enforcement officers during their investigation of the crimes. On cross-examination, he admitted to having two previous burglary convictions as well.
Maddox, Donald‘s sister, testified that Donald had a habit of calling her daily and she therefore became concerned when neither she nor the family had heard from Donald for two days. When Maddox called Clark and questioned her about Donald‘s whereabouts, Clark told Maddox that Donald appeared to have left during the night while Clark was asleep with their sons in an adjacent room and stated that Donald was “probably off with one of
After Donald‘s disappearance, crime scene investigators discovered the presence of Donald‘s blood and cleaning chemicals in
At trial, Clark testified in her own defense. She denied inviting Yost to the house on the morning of the murder. Contrary to Yost‘s testimony, Clark testified that on the morning of Donald‘s murder she was awakened by a “loud crack” and then saw Yost standing by the side of the bed wearing a ski mask and holding an aluminum bat. Clark recalled being so pregnant at the time that she could not sit up “without taking ten or fifteen minutes.” Clark told the jury that Yost began taunting and threatening her and the safety of her children if she told anyone about what Yost had done or if she did not do what he said. She said that Yost told her he was sparing her
Clark does not contest the legal sufficiency of the evidence supporting her convictions. Nevertheless, consistent with this Court‘s general practice in murder cases, we have reviewed the record and conclude that, when viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to find Clark guilty beyond a reasonable
2. In her sole enumeration of error, Clark contends that her trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective by failing to request that the jury be instructed that, in assessing Yost‘s credibility, the jury could consider his convictions for murder, tampering with evidence, and concealing the death of another—all related to Donald‘s murder—and two previous convictions for burglary, which were admitted through trial testimony without objection. Specifically, Clark contends that her trial counsel should have requested that the jury receive the following pattern instruction, tailored to the facts of her case:
In determining the credibility of [Michael Yost] and any testimony by [him] in court, you may consider . . . evidence offered to attack, cast doubt upon, and challenge [his] credibility or cause you to disbelieve [Yost]. This would include evidence of: [p]roof that [Yost] has been convicted of the offense[s] of [murder, burglary,
concealing the death of another, and tampering with evidence].
See Suggested Pattern Jury Instruction, Vol. II: Criminal Cases, § 1.31.40 (4th ed.);
To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a defendant generally must show that counsel‘s performance was deficient and that the deficient performance resulted in prejudice to the defendant. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687-695 (104 SCt 2052, 80 LE2d 674) (1984); Wesley v. State, 286 Ga. 355, 356 (689 SE2d 280) (2010). To satisfy the deficiency prong, a defendant must demonstrate that his attorney “performed at trial in an objectively unreasonable way considering all the circumstances and in the light of prevailing professional norms.” Romer v. State, 293 Ga. 339, 344 (745 SE2d 637) (2013); see also Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687-688. To satisfy the prejudice prong, a defendant must establish a reasonable probability that, in the absence of counsel‘s deficient performance, the result of the trial would have been different. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694. “A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.” Id. “If an appellant fails to meet his or her burden of proving either prong of the Strickland test, the reviewing court does not have to examine the other prong.” Lawrence v. State, 286 Ga. 533, 533-534 (690 SE2d 801) (2010).
Pretermitting whether trial counsel performed deficiently by failing to request a jury instruction regarding impeachment by prior convictions, Clark has not established a reasonable probability that, in the absence of counsel‘s alleged deficiency, the result of Clark‘s trial would have been different. Clark therefore fails to meet her burden of demonstrating prejudice, and her claim of constitutional ineffectiveness fails.
Specifically, Yost acknowledged during his direct examination that he had pleaded guilty to murder based on his participation in
The trial court charged the jury generally on credibility and impeachment of witnesses, and specifically that “[i]n assessing the credibility of a witness, you may consider any possible motive in testifying, if shown. . . . [Y]ou are authorized to consider any possible pending prosecutions, negotiated pleas, grants of immunity or
Clark‘s case is similar to Green v. State, 304 Ga. 385 (818 SE2d 535) (2018), where we held that, even assuming trial counsel was deficient for failing, among other things, to seek a jury instruction on impeachment of a “key State witness” by felony conviction, the
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.