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The Indiana Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a 36-year-old Kosciusko County man accused of beating to death his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter in 2007, ruling that statements made on social networking sites can be used to illustrate a defendant’s character.
Ian Clark, a confessed drunken “stoner,” was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole last year for the May 2007 murder of Samantha Muchowicz. It took a Kosciusko County jury about an hour to find him guilty and 15 minutes to recommend the life sentence.
Clark was removed from his sentencing hearing in April 2008 after directing a profanity-laced tirade at Samantha’s mother, the judge and anyone else in the courtroom.
And his actions on the stand during the trial hadn’t been any better. He admitted to being a drunk and saying he would have pleaded guilty to reckless homicide but not murder.
“I was negligent. I was neglectful. I was irresponsible. I was an (expletive),” Clark said on the stand. “That’s what I am, but I’m not an intentional killer.”
Clark appealed his conviction and life sentence, protesting the prosecution’s use of his MySpace page to show his character. That evidence was inadmissible, Clark argued, citing Indiana’s rules of evidence.
But the Supreme Court disagreed Thursday, saying that after Clark climbed into the witness stand and opened his mouth to argue he was not guilty of murder but rather reckless homicide, he allowed prosecutors to use his MySpace ramblings to rebut his character.
“Once Clark took the stand to testify along these lines, it was proper to permit the prosecution to confront Clark with his own seemingly prideful declarations that rebutted his defense,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall T. Shepherd wrote. “Clark’s MySpace declarations shared much with his boast to the police after he killed Samantha: ‘It’s only a C Felony. I can beat this.’ ”
Typically, statements about the character of the accused are not admissible under the state’s rules of evidence, said Bruce Berner, Seegers Professor of Law at Valparaiso University. But when the defendant makes his or her character an issue through their own statements, then evidence to the contrary can be used by prosecutors, Berner said.
Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are being used in many instances to learn more about individuals, such as by employers researching potential employees.
This is just the next logical step in that, Berner said.
And using the statements on the MySpace page is no different than using statements made from the defendant to an actual person, Berner said.
“This case is not at all unusual because of the law,” Berner said. “Except this guy spouts off on a MySpace page instead of to a guy at a bar. … The format is different, … but other than that, this is classic prosecution rebutting a defendant who put his own character at issue.”
