Anthony Clark — Direct/Cross
191 linesMS. CAPPLEMAN: The State calls Dr. Anthony Clark.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Please introduce yourself and spell your name.
ANTHONY CLARK: Dr. Anthony J. Clark. Anthony, A-N-T-H-O-N-Y. J. Clark, C-L-A-R-K.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: How are you employed, Dr. Clark?
ANTHONY CLARK: I'm employed by KWB Pathology Associates as an associate medical examiner for the District Two Medical Examiner's Office here in Tallahassee. I also have duties as an autopsy pathologist for TMH, or Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: How long have you been employed in that capacity?
ANTHONY CLARK: I started at KWB in 2007, on August 1st.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Could you tell us a little bit about your training and education?
ANTHONY CLARK: I obtained my Bachelor of Science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I did two years of animal research at MIT, and then I was accepted to the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.
ANTHONY CLARK: I graduated from the college and did a two-year general surgical internship at New Britain General Hospital in New Britain, Connecticut.
ANTHONY CLARK: I then went to the Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut, and did four years of anatomic and clinical pathology. I then traveled down to Atlanta, Georgia, where I did a two-year forensic pathology fellowship with the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office, associated with Emory University.
ANTHONY CLARK: I graduated from that program and got my first job as the Southwest Regional Medical Examiner in the multi-crime lab for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Division of Forensic Science. I remained in that position from 1994 to 2007, and then traveled down to District 2.
ANTHONY CLARK: I am a licensed physician in the state of Georgia and Florida.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: And what are your duties as a medical examiner here in Florida?
ANTHONY CLARK: As a medical examiner, I'm involved with the death investigation. I'm the one that performs the examination of the decedent to determine the cause and manner of death.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: How many autopsies have you performed in your career?
ANTHONY CLARK: It's over 6,500.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Have you ever testified as an expert in a court of law?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes, I have.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: How many times?
ANTHONY CLARK: Over a couple hundred times.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: And was that always in the area of forensic pathology?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes, ma'am.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: What is forensic pathology?
ANTHONY CLARK: Pathology is the study of tissues, whether it's plant tissue or human tissue, looking for obvious signs of disease or pathology or abnormalities.
ANTHONY CLARK: Forensic pathology is the ability to present that in court.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Judge, at this time I would tender Dr. Clark as an expert in the area of forensic pathology.
JUDGE HANKINSON: Either side wish to voir dire, or no objection?
MR. ZANGENEH: No objection.
MR. DECOSTE: I can't argue that experience. No, Your Honor.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: All right, Dr. Clark, did you conduct the autopsy of Dan Markel?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes, I did.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: When was that autopsy conducted?
ANTHONY CLARK: The autopsy was performed on July 19, 2014, at 1155 hours.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Where was the autopsy conducted?
ANTHONY CLARK: This autopsy was performed at the Tallahassee Memorial Health Care morgue.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Did you take photographs during the course of the autopsy?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes, I did.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Would the use of those photographs assist in your testimony here today?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes, they would.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: I'm going to show you what I've marked as State's Exhibits 26 through 35, absent 27.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: So 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, and 35.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: I take a moment to look at those photographs, do you recognize them?
ANTHONY CLARK: Okay. Yes, I do recognize these photographs.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: How do you recognize them?
ANTHONY CLARK: These are the photographs I took at the time of the autopsy.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Are they fair and accurate photographs of the autopsy as you conducted it?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes, ma'am.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: All right, Judge, at this time I would ask to move into evidence State's — I believe it's 26 through 35.
JUDGE HANKINSON: You said you pulled 27?
MS. CAPPLEMAN: I just think I have it out of order, so it will be 26 to 35.
JUDGE HANKINSON: Is there an objection?
MR. ZANGENEH: No objection.
MR. DECOSTE: No objection.
JUDGE HANKINSON: It will be admitted.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: May I publish?
JUDGE HANKINSON: You may.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Doctor, I'd like to just kind of have you explain to the jury how an autopsy begins, and then walk us through the autopsy of Mr. Markel using the photographs to assist you. So how would you begin an examination?
ANTHONY CLARK: Well, actually, a medical examiner investigation starts with information.
ANTHONY CLARK: So I received a call about the death of this individual, and then they put the body in a body bag that's brought down to the morgue. And then I began by checking what's on the outside of the bag, and then open the bag and start taking photographs and start making my observations.
ANTHONY CLARK: In gunshot wounds, we always take x-rays, because we're interested to see if there's any remaining bullets in the body, and if there are, where they are located. So we'll do x-rays on the shooting. We start on the outer — externally documenting any clothing, personal effects, medical devices, injuries. Then we do things like height, weight, eye color, that kind of thing, to show what the individual looked like. And then we start what's called the internal examination, where we open up the head, neck, chest, and abdomen — and if there's external trauma, what happened to the internal organs from that trauma; if any natural disease is the big factor under cases that I do, your bad heart disease or lung disease, et cetera. We also collect specimens for toxicology, we collect specimens for DNA studies if needed, and whatever other ancillary studies may be needed. We fingerprint everybody now, and there's some other things like that. State State's Exhibit 26 is an x-ray — what we call an AP x-ray of the head. You can see the top of the head here. This is the jaw, right side, left side. And within this you can see that there's whiter spots here and here. These are the bullets that I eventually recovered.
ANTHONY CLARK: So I had an idea where this bullet is; now I have an idea where this bullet is. Also, there's some fracturing going on here on the side of the face, which — it's hard to point out from this distance, but right now this is the main reason why I'm getting these x-rays: to show that there are bullets still in him, and that they are still there, and they're a good size, too.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: And you mentioned having extracted these?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes, ma'am.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Okay.
ANTHONY CLARK: So the first one is basically front to back, and this is a side picture to show me exactly where this first bullet is — here. So it looked — it was up here, and it's towards the back of the cranial vault. Okay. And then this one's right here, showing here there's larger pieces here, but we're interested in gathering this bullet and this bullet right here. Yes, ma'am, it looks like a large fragment there. Now remember that this is somewhat magnified due to the way we take these x-rays, so that piece is not as big as it looks in real life. State's Exhibit 28 — and show it. This is what we call the identification photograph, to show his face.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Well, do you want to turn it 90 degrees?
ANTHONY CLARK: That's just — yeah, I think it might be easier just to explain to you. And so, yeah, and we put the identifying tag down here with the case number and the date, and my initials should be down here. And we've cleaned up the face as best we can, but this is what we call the identification photograph. Now, in this identification photograph you can see there's quite a bit of trauma to the face, and there's distortion of the left side of the face, quite a bit of swelling going on here, bruising going on inside the tissues here — the what we call raccoon eyes, or bilateral eye bruises, here and here. There's a gunshot wound here, and there's a gunshot wound here. So there's two separate gunshot wounds that we're looking at here. State's Exhibit 29 is showing the end of one of the gunshot wounds to the left cheek area. You can see it is right here. You can see the bruising in the tissue back here. This bullet actually traveled from here and wound up just under the tissues here, below this left ear here. Now, the interesting thing is these large areas of abrasion — they're irregular, and some are small, some are large, and they kind of scattered onto the ear, come in a band this way onto the nose, and you can see that there's some on the upper neck here. This is what I called in the report pseudo-stippling. Stippling is something that occurs from gunfire, because there are burning and unburned particles of gunpowder coming out, and when they hit the skin, that actually causes abrasions. Now, when you shoot through a door or a window, you're fragmenting the wood or the glass, causing other debris to fly out.
ANTHONY CLARK: So to me, this is a pseudo-stippling, or glass abrasions, from when the first bullet went through the glass and caused these injuries here.
ANTHONY CLARK: State's 30 is showing the left side of the neck, to emphasize the pseudo-stippling. Now, pseudo-stippling, again, tends to be more irregular and larger. When you get stippling from gunpowder, it's very, very minute and very homogeneous in terms of the size. Yes. And Can you blow that up? Well, let's — this is the forehead area. Could you turn it 90 degrees, though? That might be helpful. Just — no. All right. So State's Exhibit — which was this? What State's Exhibit — I'm sorry — 31 is showing the forehead area. What we're seeing here is the second gunshot wound here. Okay. And you can see it's quite a bit of a mess here, and I'll explain to you in a minute why that is. But this is where the bullet entered here, and that's the bullet that winds up in the back of the inside of the skull that you saw in the x-ray. Okay. So this one here — this is irregular because he was wearing a pair of glasses at the time he was shot. So just like I'm standing here looking at you right now, that bullet hit those glasses.
ANTHONY CLARK: And when it hit those glasses — and I believe they were plastic frames, from what I could see in the pictures — they broke open the plastic and caused a cue-ball hit and a rack of balls to disperse the plastic. And that plastic went and popped that hole. So you didn't get a nice round hole, but you got more of a ragged hole there because of that.
ANTHONY CLARK: It also, up here — if you could magnify that a little bit. Can you move in? No? Okay.
ANTHONY CLARK: There are some fine stippling up in here. There's some kind of irregular ones up here, which may be part from the glasses exploding here.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Yes. Okay.
ANTHONY CLARK: Yeah. Okay. Now, you see all these little dots here?
ANTHONY CLARK: That is gunpowder stippling. Can you see the difference from the larger, irregular spatter?
ANTHONY CLARK: This is real fine stuff here, and to me that puts the gun at a closer range, or there's no window there or intermediate target, as we call it. So this puts it in a shorter range of gunfire, and that's usually up to 18 to 24 inches that you're seeing that. It could be closer. The only way to really tell is to get the weapon, the same ammunition, and do some test firing from different distances, which the firearm people do — I don't.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: The burning and unburned gunpowder?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: 18 to 24 inches?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes, ma'am.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Okay.
ANTHONY CLARK: State's Exhibit 32 is showing the left eye area here. There's quite a bit of swelling here on both eyes, and that's usually due to the base of the skull — what I call the basilar skull — being fractured, or bleeding into the tissues, and it collects in the eyes. Also, there's the gunshot wound here, irregular one here, and the one here. Also, if you look at the eyes — and again, get the pictures in your hands, you can look at them better — but there's no stippling or glass injury to that, because the glasses were actually protecting the eyes from the glass hitting his eyes. And then the second bullet hit here; that didn't cause any kind of injuries to the eyes.
ANTHONY CLARK: No, ma'am, that's just due to the base — base of the skull fractures. That's correct.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Okay.
ANTHONY CLARK: State's Exhibit 33 — this is the back of the left mid-forearm, about right here. The elbow is down here, the wrist is over here, so this is the back of his arm here. And what you're seeing here is a curvilinear, or curved-line, deposit of soot, and then you're seeing pseudo-stippling again. Again, this is not gunpowder stippling.
ANTHONY CLARK: I kept trying to see whether — I mean, I kept looking at, trying to see whether this was really truly gunpowder stippling, but it's not. There's too much irregularity, and difference in sizes of this, so I believe it was due to either glass or plastic from the glasses.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: And the dark mark is soot, and that's a deposition from the gun itself?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes, ma'am. It's my opinion that after the first shot through the window, striking him here, causing all that glass to shatter and strike him on the face, that he reflexively brought up his arm — you know, a defensive-type posture — and that the gun was in range to cause, when it hit the glasses there, that when this shattered, they went on the back of the forearm here. And then there's a deposit of the soot there. Now, I don't believe that soot is from the barrel of the gun, but from what we call a cylinder gap — that there may have been a revolver used in this case, and that the gap between where the cylinder is and the barrel, gases can come out there and soot can come out there too, and that could cause this kind of curvilinear soot deposit there. Yes, ma'am, I don't know where the arm was in relationship, but it had to be close enough that when the glasses got hit by the bullet, that that shattering plastic struck the skin. Far enough — so if you were like this, I don't think that's too far away, but within inches of that area. That's correct. No, ma'am, I don't think it — I know it wasn't. And he's got quite a bit of bruising there. It may have stunned him and disoriented him, but I believe he was still alive to be able to put his arm up also, and have this injury associated with the shot between the eyes there.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Okay.
ANTHONY CLARK: State's Exhibit 34 is a picture of the bullet. I always try to clean the bullet up and show the bullet itself, and you can see that it's from gunshot wound number two, which is to the cheek here. And if you compare it to the x-ray, you saw that it was kind of almost barrel-shaped, or squared-off type of bullet, and it's pretty well intact here. So that's the bullet there. The
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Gunshot wound number one, isn't it?
ANTHONY CLARK: State's Exhibit 35 — and you can see that this bullet's quite flattened out. This is the gunshot wound that went in between the eyes here and wound up in the brain back here, and in the x-ray we saw that it was very flattened out, and that's what we recovered here. Yes, ma'am.
ANTHONY CLARK: The bullet from gunshot wound number two, in 34, hit mostly soft tissue. It did strike the bone, but it was going at kind of like this and going along the bone. The other one was actually going through bone in this area here, and had gone through the glasses too.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: What, if anything, can you tell us about these bullets?
ANTHONY CLARK: All I can talk about is the trajectory through the body themselves. And again, my orientation is the person lying on the table — what I call the anatomic position: they're looking forward, arms by their sides, toes pointed down. That's all I can tell you about that.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: All right. So did you document, as far as each shot, whether it was left to right, front to back, up, down — that?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes, ma'am, I did.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Could you tell us — you may have already gone through it, but I'd like to go through that one more time. Let's start with what, in your opinion, is the first shot to be fired.
ANTHONY CLARK: Okay. The first shot to be fired, in the autopsy report, again, is gunshot number two — I tend to start from top to bottom. That's the left cheek and face, and that traveled from front to back, very slightly down, and very slightly right to left. So it's going this way into the face. And the next one, the one that I label as gunshot wound number one, to this area here, what we call the glabella, went from front to back, slightly left to right, and slightly up. So it's coming in this way. And have
MS. CAPPLEMAN: you reviewed the scene photographs, including the ones of the window of Mr. Markel's vehicle?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes, ma'am.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: All right. I want to show you — You spoke about the glass and how the glass created the pseudo-stippling. Do you have an opinion as far as the glass and how it would impact the — I think you called it an intermediate target?
MS. CAPPLEMAN: If you could explain what that means.
ANTHONY CLARK: An intermediate target, it's just something between the muzzle of a gun and the final target. There's something in between.
ANTHONY CLARK: It could be a baseball cap, it could be a window, it could be a door, it could be a wall.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: All right. And is the pseudo-stippling that you previously described the evidence that you're relying on to indicate that the victim was shot through this glass?
ANTHONY CLARK: That's correct.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Okay. And that's consistent with the image in State's Exhibit 17, which you also reviewed?
ANTHONY CLARK: That's correct.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Okay, one moment, please. All right, Dr. Clark. What was your opinion regarding the cause of death in this case?
ANTHONY CLARK: The cause of death was written down as gunshot wounds of the face and head.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: All right. And what was your ruling as to the manner of death in this case?
ANTHONY CLARK: The manner of death was a homicide.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: No further questions.
MR. PADILLA: Afternoon, Doctor. My name is Mauricio Padilla. I represent Mr. Garcia. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions about your testimony. Is that okay?
ANTHONY CLARK: Okay.
MR. PADILLA: Okay. In this particular case, did you use any trajectory rods?
ANTHONY CLARK: I don't usually take pictures with rods in place. I probably did, but I don't remember specifically.
MR. PADILLA: Could you explain to the jury exactly what a trajectory rod is?
ANTHONY CLARK: It's a metallic rod that we use — or you can use any kind of materials — but it connects the dots, basically. So you would take the rod, stick it in the injury wound, and follow it back to where it went into the brain, and that would show you the trajectory through the body there.
MR. PADILLA: Okay. And whose decision would it be to use a trajectory rod or not to use a trajectory rod? Would that be your call as a doctor?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes.
MR. PADILLA: And the decision not to memorialize the actual use of these trajectory rods — was that your decision?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes.
MR. PADILLA: And in what percentage of cases do you memorialize the actual use of the trajectory rods as opposed to not use them?
ANTHONY CLARK: Two gunshot wounds like this, and the bullets are recovered in the body — they're not really useful, because I can tell the direction by looking at them. A lot of times I use trajectory rods when you have multiple gunshot wounds that are what we call perforating gunshot wounds. You've got an entry and an exit, an entry and an exit. And I may memorialize those.
MR. PADILLA: Did anyone provide you any information regarding the positioning of Mr. Markel when he was taken out of the vehicle? I
ANTHONY CLARK: don't recollect. I know he was in the vehicle, in the driver's side, but I don't know about his position.
MR. PADILLA: Did you have any communication with members of either the state law enforcement or the FBI regarding the trajectory of the wounds in this case? State or FBI.
ANTHONY CLARK: I did not.
MR. PADILLA: I mean any law enforcement. Did you have any communication with any law enforcement regarding the trajectory of these wounds?
ANTHONY CLARK: We have the Tallahassee Police Department.
MR. PADILLA: One second, please. Just to follow up, who would it have been that you had communication with regarding the trajectory of these wounds?
ANTHONY CLARK: Investigators Scott Cherry and William Kornegay were at the autopsy, so I would discuss the trajectories with them through the body, and then whoever read the report would know.
MR. PADILLA: But direct communication with yourself — it would have just been the two individuals that you just discussed, correct?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes, sir, as far as I know. If there were any follow-up conversations, I don't know anything about them.
MR. PADILLA: There's an investigator by the last name of Yao — Shawn Yao. Did you have any communication with him?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes.
MR. PADILLA: Okay, yes. Did you have communication with him regarding the trajectory of these rounds?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes. He read the autopsy report and asked me about them.
MR. PADILLA: Okay, and how did that conversation go?
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Judge, hearsay.
JUDGE HANKINSON: Overruled.
MR. PADILLA: You can answer.
ANTHONY CLARK: Yeah, we just talked about what the trajectory was through the body.
MR. PADILLA: And when was that conversation? Did you have one conversation or multiple conversations?
ANTHONY CLARK: Just one conversation. That was a couple days ago.
MR. PADILLA: And that was over the phone?
ANTHONY CLARK: Yes. Oh — he actually, no, he actually came by.
ANTHONY CLARK: Probably within the last two weeks he came by the office and we discussed it, but we didn't really look at pictures or anything like that. And then we discussed it on the phone, because he hadn't read the autopsy report yet.
MR. PADILLA: Okay, so he came in person to your office to discuss the trajectory, correct?
ANTHONY CLARK: Right.
MR. PADILLA: And then he called you on the phone?
ANTHONY CLARK: Right.
MR. PADILLA: And you're saying that the reason that he called you on the phone was because when he went to your office to discuss the trajectory of these rounds, he still had not reviewed the autopsy report?
ANTHONY CLARK: At that point in time — and I think he was picking up a CD with the pictures on it.
MR. PADILLA: The CD of the pictures that we've just seen here today?
ANTHONY CLARK: Right, the autopsy photographs. Yes.
MR. PADILLA: So you're saying that around two weeks ago, when he went to your office, that Mr. Yao had not viewed those pictures and had not viewed the report. Is that correct?
ANTHONY CLARK: I believe that's true. Yes, sir.
MR. PADILLA: And then you discussed it with him.
ANTHONY CLARK: Right.
MR. PADILLA: And then he told you, I'm going to review the report and I'm going to call you back.
MR. PADILLA: Is that correct?
ANTHONY CLARK: No, I didn't say anything about calling me back, but he did call me back.
MR. PADILLA: Okay. And so what was the purpose of that phone call, in your opinion?
ANTHONY CLARK: Just to talk about the trajectory on that, through the body.
MR. PADILLA: What about the trajectory?
ANTHONY CLARK: Well, to confirm that that's what I was talking about.
MR. PADILLA: Because that wasn't discussed during your first — your in-person meeting?
ANTHONY CLARK: Right, because he hadn't read the autopsy report yet.
MR. PADILLA: Right. As a medical examiner, is it odd that at this late stage in the—
JUDGE HANKINSON: That's not an appropriate question.
MR. PADILLA: Just one last question. When was your autopsy report available to law enforcement, if you can give us a date?
ANTHONY CLARK: I finalized the autopsy on August 25th, 2014.
MR. PADILLA: And is that around the time that you would have made it available to law enforcement?
ANTHONY CLARK: Right. At that time, when I sign off on it, then it gets mailed out probably within seven to ten days after that.
MR. PADILLA: Okay. Thank you so much, Doctor.
ANTHONY CLARK: No problem.
JUDGE HANKINSON: Magbanua?
MR. DECOSTE: No questions.
JUDGE HANKINSON: Redirect.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: No, Your Honor.
JUDGE HANKINSON: All right. Any jurors have a question of this witness?
JUDGE HANKINSON: You may step down. Do we need to keep him further?
MS. CAPPLEMAN: He may be released.
JUDGE HANKINSON: Does either side need him?
MR. ZANGENEH: Not for Mr. Garcia.
MR. DECOSTE: No, Your Honor.
JUDGE HANKINSON: Alright. You're excused. Call your next witness.