Murder conviction upheld in Talkeetna shooting

WASILLA — A convicted murderer will stay in prison for the time being, Alaska appellate judges have ruled.

In November 2012, superior court judge Eric Smith sentenced Samuel E. Clark, 45, to 50 years in prison for the October 2010 slaying of Dirk Fast, 53, in the Latitude 62 tavern in Talkeetna. Clark’s attorneys had argued self-defense during his trial, saying mental illness led the Talkeetna resident to shoot Fast, and that he ought to be convicted of manslaughter, not murder.

Several witnesses testified that Clark yelled that Fast had killed his family and “appeared deranged” shortly after the shooting. The shooting ended an apparently civil conversation between the two men.

Clark sought to have the conviction overturned, citing an acknowledged error on Smith’s part. Smith instructed the jury to find Clark guilty of manslaughter only if Clark had “intentionally knowingly, or recklessly caused the death of Dirk Fast and … the circumstances did not amount to Murder in the First or Second Degree.”

Smith did not direct the jury to ignore the manslaughter charge if they found Clark guilty of the first-degree or second-degree murder charges, according to an opinion written by judge John Suddock for a three-judge appellate panel. As a result, the jury found Clark guilty of first- and second-degree murder, but not guilty of manslaughter.

Smith tried to correct the situation, Suddock wrote.

“Judge Smith immediately recognized the potential inconsistency of these verdicts,” the opinion reads in part “Without announcing the verdict, he summoned the parties to a bench conference, where he stated that the verdicts were technically, but not actually inconsistent, in light of his failure to give the jurors a ‘stop instruction.’”

When the defense moved for a mistrial, Smith asked the jury to explain the verdict, after explaining that he had failed to properly instruct them. He gave them three options: to affirm a situation which would have led to an inconsistent ruling, to explain the ruling as a result of his instructions, or to come to other conclusion, which they would have to explain. The jury unanimously voted to say they had misunderstood the instructions. Defense attorneys challenged the questioning of the jury, and Smith overruled them.

“In light of the jury’s interrogatory response, its verdicts are logically reconcilable,” Suddock wrote. “The jury reasonably interpreted the manslaughter instruction to require an acquittal on that count for the sole reason that it had convicted Clark of murder.”

The appellate judges also warned trial court judges across the state that the definition Smith used for manslaughter was improper and inconsistent with Alaska statute.

Authorities don’t have to prove that a killing was not murder for a manslaughter conviction, according to the opinion. Instead, manslaughter conviction is appropriate when the state fails to prove that a killing was murder.

“In particular, jurors should not be told that the offense of manslaughter requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing was neither first- nor second-degree manslaughter,” Suddock wrote. “Rather, manslaughter is a residual category of unlawful homicide that applies if the government fails to prove beyond a reasonable doubt threat the homicide was murder.”

Clark remains incarcerated in Wildwood Correctional Center in Kenai, according to court documents.

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.