Judge throws out murder case
Published:Friday | October 29, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Puerto Rico (AP):A United States federal agent accused of killing his neighbour walked out of a US Virgin Islands courtroom a free man yesterday after a judge threw out the case on a technicality that defence attorneys raised.
William Clark, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was charged with second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter after the fatal shooting of Marcus Sukow on September 7, 2008.
Clark, a 35-year-old agent from Rochester, New York, had intervened in a domestic dispute between two neighbours, Sukow and his girlfriend, Margie Duncan.
US law enforcement officials, including the FBI, had requested the charges be dropped and warned that the case has had a chilling effect on federal agents in the US territory worried about liability in responding to crimes.
Judge Edgar Ross dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning his ruling cannot be appealed. The trial had begun Monday.
Defence attorney Mark Schamel requested the case be dismissed on a technicality: that proper procedure was not followed in identifying Sukow's body to the medical examiner.