State v. Clark
| Decision Date | 21 February 2023 |
| Docket Number | A-0926-20 |
| Parties | STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. ANTHONY S. CLARK, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division |
This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the internet this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.
Submitted January 31, 2023
On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division Monmouth County, Indictment No. 17-111604.
Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for appellant (Stephen W. Kirsch, Designated Counsel, on the brief).
Raymond S. Santiago, Monmouth County Prosecutor, attorney for respondent (Melinda A. Harrigan, Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel and on the brief).
Before Judges Sumners and Geiger.
This appeal arises from an armed robbery of an AT&T store in Ocean Township that resulted in the theft of over $130,000 in merchandise. Defendant Anthony S. Clark[1] participated in the robbery with Richard McLaughlin, Corey Mitchell, Tyreane Tucker, and a fifth unidentified person. McLaughlin and Mitchell confessed to the robbery and testified against defendant as part of their plea agreements. Tucker denied any involvement in the robbery, but McLaughlin and Mitchell said she planned it and served as the lookout. Defendant did not deny participating in the robbery but claimed he did so under duress after McLaughlin threatened to harm him and his family if he did not cooperate. A jury rejected his defense.
On appeal, defendant challenges the court's denial of his request to present Tucker's testimony that McLaughlin had a character trait of being a manipulative bully, claiming the exclusion of that evidence violated his right to present a complete defense. He also challenges the court's refusal to provide an adverse inference charge concerning law enforcement's failure to record all of McLaughlin's and Mitchell's statements. For the first time on appeal he challenges the duress and accomplice liability jury charges. Finally, he claims his sentence is unfairly disparate and manifestly excessive. We find no reversible abuse of discretion or error and affirm.
We take the following facts from the evidence adduced at trial. At approximately 8:30 p.m. on September 6, 2016, Daniel Dennis and Louis White were working as salesclerks at an AT&T store in Ocean Township. White was in the back room beginning the process of closing the store, and Dennis was talking to White from the doorway of the back room while watching the showroom for incoming customers.
An African American man who was later identified as defendant, entered the store. Dennis recognized him from the day before. Dennis testified that the previous day, which was Labor Day, the same man had entered the store shortly before closing and inquired about purchasing a phone for his mother. Dennis identified him in surveillance camera recordings captured inside the store.
Dennis recalled that throughout their discussion on Labor Day, the man communicated with someone through an earpiece connected to his cell phone. Dennis showed the man prepaid phones, but he left without making a purchase. When asked to describe the man's demeanor on Labor Day, Dennis testified he was "[k]ind of all over the place a little bit."
When the man entered the store on September 6, Dennis approached him and, recalling their discussion from the previous day, asked if he was ready to buy the phone for his mother. The man said he was, and they walked to the back corner of the showroom. Dennis was holding an iPad tablet, which he needed to process the purchase, when he heard the front doorbell ring, alerting him that someone had entered the store. Out the corner of his eye, he saw the person "kind of jogging" towards him.
Dennis looked up and saw a dark-skinned man with a gun pointed at him. The man, later identified as McLaughlin, wore dark clothes, gloves, and a grey and white camouflage "fisherman's hat." The man who had first entered the store first placed a hand on Dennis's shoulder and told him that everything would be alright if he did what he was told. Fearing for his safety, Dennis handed his iPad tablet to him and put his hands up. In an "assertive" tone, McLaughlin said: "You can put your f**kin' hands down," and Dennis lowered them.
A third man, who had dreadlocks and was later identified as Mitchell, came in and headed to the back room where White was counting money. When asked what happened next, Dennis testified the man wearing the fisherman's hat was moving around quickly and erratically, looking for alarms. Dennis told McLaughlin the alarms were under the counter in the front of the store. When asked where the safe was, Dennis pointed to the back room.
White heard voices in the showroom and assumed the store manager, who had recently left for the night, forgot something, and returned. The door to the back room opened, and White saw a "tall African American man" with "a very long face [and] light facial hair" wearing a grey fleece sweatshirt and a camouflage "bucket hat" pointing a gun in his face (i.e., McLaughlin). McLaughlin asked if anyone else was in the store, and White replied "no." McLaughlin told White "to stand up and drop the cash." White complied and McLaughlin asked him where the inventory room was located. As White directed him to that room, he saw Dennis moving towards them.
White walked to the door of the inventory room and began entering numbers to unlock it. While pointing the gun at him, the man with the camouflage hat (McLaughlin) smacked his hand, and yelled "what are you doing?" Dennis said White was unlocking the safe and McLaughlin lowered his gun. White entered the code, and two of the men shoved White and Dennis into the room facing the wall.
Dennis testified that he could hear the men rummaging through the inventory. One of them asked where the alarm was. Dennis replied that there was no alarm in the inventory room. Another told Dennis and White to get on their knees. They complied, and the man with dreadlocks (i.e., Mitchell) began to tie their wrists and ankles together with zip ties but was having difficulty securing the ties.
White testified the man with the camouflage hat (McLaughlin) seemed to be "calling the shots" and hit the man with dreadlocks (Mitchell) because he was taking too long. Dennis heard the others throwing merchandise into bags. White heard the men say: "Grab the phones, get the bags, hurry, let's go." White and Dennis were told "not to do anything stupid or they'd kill [them]."
When one of the men asked if there was another exit door besides the front door, Dennis replied there was a back door but then remembered the door was connected to a fire alarm. He told them not to use that door because it would set off the alarm. Dennis heard one of them say: "It looks like we're all going . . . home to see our families tonight." White feared for his life, and this comment put him somewhat at ease.
Within a short time, it "got quiet for a couple seconds" and then one of the men asked Dennis and White to lay down on their stomachs. They complied. White heard one of them direct another to get the car and heard it pull up. The fire alarm sounded and then it grew quiet.
Dennis said White was "almost having a panic attack" and was trying to break free from the zip ties. Dennis told him to stay still because he was not sure that the men had left. They waited a short time, broke free, and called 911. Police arrived within a few minutes.
Dennis showed the police where the surveillance cameras were located. The surveillance videos were played for the jury. Dennis and White gave statements to the police. The parties stipulated that "$124,758.84 in electronics and $6,360.15 in cell phone accessories were stolen."
In the spring of 2017, federal authorities arrested McLaughlin for different robberies. He confessed to those robberies and the robbery in this case and agreed to testify against defendant. At trial, his testimony began with the nature of his relationship with defendant.
McLaughlin testified that defendant's father, Anthony Clark, Sr. was his godfather, and defendant's paternal grandmother, Kathryn Clark, was like a grandmother to him. When he and defendant were children, McLaughlin lived in Philadelphia with defendant's father's family, and defendant lived with his mother, whom McLaughlin did not know. McLaughlin typically saw defendant on holidays and during the summer. He said that he considered defendant to be his brother, which made testifying against him difficult.
As they grew older, they did not see each other often. In 1991, McLaughlin moved to North Carolina and defendant moved to Virginia. By 2015, both had returned to Philadelphia. Defendant's paternal aunt Aretha suggested McLaughlin reconnect with defendant because they were both pursuing careers in music production.
McLaughlin reached out to defendant, and they began communicating by telephone, Facebook, and Instagram. The State introduced social media posts between defendant and McLaughlin to show they had a close relationship leading up to the robbery. The posts and accompanying images were shown to the jury.
The State then turned to McLaughlin's extensive criminal record. His first convictions dated back to 1993, when he committed attempted robbery, auto larceny, and aggravated assault. Between 2000 and 2004, he was convicted of larceny, possession of stolen property, and forgery. At the time of trial, McLaughlin had outstanding charges in multiple jurisdictions, including robbery charges in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
In June 2018, McLaughlin pleaded guilty to...
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