Jury decides against death penalty for murderer
A Palm Beach County jury on Tuesday recommended a life sentence for a man convicted last month of a strangulation murder near Lake Worth 30 years ago.
Under a Florida law revised this year, the death penalty cannot be imposed without a unanimous jury vote. The jurors voted 9-3 in favor of a life in prison term for Rodney Clark, and Circuit Judge Charles Burton immediately imposed that punishment.
While Clark smiled at his lawyers after the verdict, two of murder victim Dana Fader’s three children left the courtroom satisfied their long wait for justice was over.
“It’s done, behind us now,” said Kolby Manis, standing next to his older sister, Angela Fader Sampler. “We just wanted him off the streets. He’s not going to hurt anybody else for a while, at least.”
They were just 5 and 10 years old when their mom was raped and killed in the back seat of her car. A younger brother, named J.P., was three years old. After the slaying, the siblings were raised by different relatives, but they eventually settled near each other in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Earlier Tuesday, Assistant State Attorney Reid Scott argued Clark deserves capital punishment.
“There’s simply no place for him in society,” Scott said, displaying a photo of the 27-year-old lifeless victim after she was found. “He deserves the ultimate penalty.”
The case went cold until Clark’s arrest five years ago based on DNA evidence. The Jackson, Miss., man was found guilty at a trial last month.
“He chose to be the boogeyman on June 20, 1987, and chose to commit unspeakable acts on Dana Fader,” the prosecutor told the jury.
But Public Defender Carey Haughwout said her 50-year-old client — mentally scarred by childhood abuses and racism, along with more recent physical infirmities — never intended to torture Fader during the random attack.
“Is Rodney Clark beyond redemption?” she asked. “Is the evil so great and the act so horrible?”
The defense highlighted the testimony of Miami forensic psychologist Jethro Toomer, who said Clark suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other neurological problems that require prescription drug treatment.
“You’re not talking about a sociopath,” Toomer told the jury.
Before Fader died, she worked some days as a seamstress for her family’s upholstery business, and other days as a cashier at the Breakers hotel in Palm Beach.
Haughwout responded that she didn’t dispute “it was a terrible crime.” But she argued it wasn’t a murder with a high degree of suffering.
“What murder isn’t heinous?” the attorney said. “What murder isn’t cruel?”
After two hours of deliberations, the jury decided that Clark shouldn’t die for his crimes.