THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 13, 1995 TAG: 9507130372
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
The jury that will decide the fate of convicted murderer Michael D. Clagett deliberated for two hours Wednesday, then retired early without reaching a decision on his sentence.
The jury received the sentencing phase of the case at 2:15 p.m., retreated to the jury room, then sent a written question to Judge Edward W. Hanson Jr. at 4:15: ``Can we go home and come back in the morning?''
The jury offered no explanation and Hanson did not ask for one. He granted the jury's request.
On Tuesday, the jury convicted Clagett of capital murder for killing four people during a robbery at the Witchduck Inn on June 30, 1994. Now the jury must recommend Clagett's sentence - life in prison or death.
Clagett's attorneys called one witness in the sentencing phase Wednesday: Det. Paul Yoakam, who had questioned Clagett after his arrest.
Recalling Clagett's long, tearful confession, Yoakam, an 18-year police veteran, called Clagett ``the most remorseful suspect I've ever had to interview.''
But Yoakam also recalled that Clagett did not confess until he was tricked into believing that cameras had filmed the killings inside the bar.
In closing arguments, Clagett's chief attorney, Public Defender Peter T. Legler, emphasized Clagett's remorse. He also urged jurors to reject the death penalty on general principle. He recounted the biblical story of Jesus Christ forgiving an adulterer who was about to be stoned by a mob.
``The commonwealth will tell you to do it, do it, don't shirk your duty, kill him. . . . But before you do,'' Legler said, almost shouting, ``remember what's inside all of you, your individual soul that no one controls. That's what you vote with.''
Legler asked the jurors if they thought a vote for the death penalty would make the streets safer.
``Well,'' Legler said, ``we've been increasing the drumbeat for the death penalty in America and we're becoming more violent all the time. Why do you suppose that is?''
Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Humphreys, however, told the jury that Clagett earned the death penalty for deliberately and with premeditation shooting four people in the head.
Humphreys recalled the testimony of Clagett's ex-wife, that he had brutalized her for several months after their wedding in 1979, when she was 14 and 15 years old. She said Clagett pushed her down a flight of stairs when she was pregnant, burned her legs with cigarettes, and tried to rape her by stabbing her with a fork.
``These four murders were not out of character for this defendant . . .,'' Humphreys said. ``There is no reason to doubt . . . that Michael Clagett had a deranged mind, by any definition, on the night of June 30, 1994.''
Humphreys also rejected Legler's comparison of Clagett to Shakespeare's Macbeth. Legler portrayed Clagett as an indecisive man pushed to murder by his ambitious lover, Denise Holsinger, just as Lady Macbeth pushed her husband to murder.
But, Humphreys said, ``Macbeth paid the appropriate penalty for the murder he committed.''
The jury will resume deliberations at 9 a.m. today. ILLUSTRATION: LAWRENCE JACKSON
Staff
Four-time slayer Michael D. Clagett appears to be deep in thought
during Wednesday's closing arguments.
KEYWORDS: SHOOTING MURDER TRIAL by CNB