Color me incensed! Jennifer Leigh Clark has swapped her first taxpayer-funded attorney for a second barrister paid for at your expense and is scheduled to appear in Lamar superior court Thursday seeking a new trial. Living conditions hereabouts deteriorated substantially when this West Virginia slattern moved here and it improved considerably when she was sent off to Pulaski State Prison where she is serving life plus 60 years for beating her estranged husband, Donald Clark, to death with a metal baseball bat in November 2008. She killed him with their two children sleeping in a bedroom just across the hall. Just months before, Donald Clark woke in the middle of the night to find Jennifer standing over his bed with the bat. He threw her out. She manipulated her way back into the home though she had no love for Donald. She admitted to having sex with three men and performing oral sex on another during the brief period she was back there. She manipulated one of those men, Michael Yost, into helping her clean up after the murder. For his trouble, he is serving life in prison. Donald Clark’s body was dumped in a cornfield and not found until Christmas Eve. Jennifer claimed he had gone missing. She lied through her teeth, deliberately misleading Donald’s frantic family and her own children. She never showed any remorse. Her temper flared often in the courtroom. Her claims of innocence were indefensible and the jury took only 40 minutes to find her guilty on all counts. Now, she wants a new trial and she wants you to pay for it. Her effort is legal but it shouldn’t be. The only reason any lawyer would take this case is to line his or her pockets with taxpayer cash. It amounts to unnecessary, excessive litigation. One way to stop such waste is to allow new trials in murder cases but only with the understanding that a second guilty verdict means a date with the lethal injection gurney after one week without further appeal. Such a stipulation would keep this unrepentant killer and others like her where they belong. Walter Geiger is editor and publisher of The Herald Gazette.
Be First to Comment