A homeless man was convicted yesterday of first-degree murder for fatally beating another homeless man near an Anne Arundel County shelter and robbing him of $500 that a relative had just given him.
Allan Jake Clark, 23, faces up to life in prison for killing Michael Walter Evans Sr., whose body was found April 5 on an outside air-conditioning unit in Glen Burnie, a block from the Arundel House of Hope's Resource and Day Center. A county jury also found Clark guilty of second-degree felony murder, assault and robbery.
Key to Clark's conviction, said prosecutors and at least one juror, was the testimony of John Logue, another homeless man who said that Clark confessed to him that he had gotten into a fight with Evans, repeatedly struck him, then stole money from his wallet.
Circuit Judge Paul A. Harris denied a motion for a mistrial yesterday after one of the jurors admitted consulting an online dictionary for the definition of terms such as rigor mortis. Harris said the actions were "a clear violation of my instructions," but that the jury was not tainted, and that the actions did not demonstrate prejudice against Clark.
"When you have to rely on a statement by a single witness, who himself has so many issues, in order to find a defendant guilty, I don't know how you don't have reasonable doubt," said defense attorney Karl H. Gordon.
He plans to appeal the verdict, based on possible juror misconduct as well as what he considered a discrepancy in the medical examiner's testimony that "extended the injury time preceding death to 48 hours" from an earlier statement of 36 hours.
"He went from saying the injuries were old, to saying he couldn't say how old they were," Gordon said in an interview after the verdict. "We were just trying to get the medical examiner to give an honest accounting of the timeline."
Assistant State's Attorneys Mark Tyler and Frank Ragione, who prosecuted the case, said they were satisfied that the family of Evans, who was 54, had received justice.
"[John Logue] is to be commended for stepping forward and sharing what he knew," Tyler said in an interview after the verdict. "We are quite pleased that the jury found that our evidence was sufficient to convict."
Alfred Schuler, 67, of Edgewater, the juror who consulted the dictionary, added: "The state had very credible witnesses. John Logue's testimony was very strong, very consistent with what he told the police, what he had told people working at the Arundel House of Hope. It was very clear that he didn't fall from some height to get on that air-conditioning unit."
nicole.fuller@baltsun.com