Judy Clare Clarke (born 1952) is an American criminal defense attorney who has represented several high-profile defendants such as Ted Kaczynski, Eric Rudolph, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Joseph Edward Duncan, Zacarias Moussaoui, Jared Lee Loughner, Robert Gregory Bowers, Burford Furrow, Lisa Montgomery and Susan Smith.
She has negotiated plea agreements that spared her clients the death penalty, as was the case for Eric Rudolph, Ted Kaczynski, and Jared Lee Loughner.
In the case of Susan Smith, Clarke argued to the jury that ultimately voted against imposing the death penalty.
[2] Moreover, Clarke regularly argued her opinions on current events at the big table her father installed in the family's kitchen.
[9] Clarke and Eloise Vaughn—an equally well-connected conservative in North Carolina politics and one who had also lost a son to AIDS—created MAJIC, Mothers Against Jesse in Congress.
[12] In 1992, Clarke left FDSDI to lead the newly created federal defender office in the Eastern District of Washington and Idaho, which she did until June 2002.
[16] In addition, Clarke previously served as president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
[21] The defense's theory of the case was that Smith drove to the edge of the lake to kill herself and her two sons, but her body willed itself out of the car.
[10] In 1996, Federal Defender Quin Denvir filed papers asking U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell to appoint Clarke as his co-counsel for Ted Kaczynski who was accused of seven explosions connected to the Unabomber and faced the death penalty.
Prosecutors dropped the death penalty when the defense documented and charted Furrow's long history of psychiatric treatment for bipolar disorder.
[26] In June 2002, Judge Leonie Brinkema granted Moussaoui's motion to represent himself and allowed the case to move forward.
[27] Although Judge Brinkema revoked Moussaoui's self-representation, it appears that Clarke acted as a consultant to the defense.
He is serving a life sentence without parole at the federal ADX Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, USA.
In 2011, the United States district court in Phoenix, Arizona assigned Clarke as defense counsel to Jared Lee Loughner, the perpetrator of the 2011 Tucson shooting.
[32] The Phoenix Public Defenders' Office had requested that Clarke be retained in order to allow Loughner to receive competent counsel without the possibility of a community-wide conflict of interest arising from proceedings against him for his alleged role in the shooting.
[33] In 2012, Clarke brokered a deal sparing Loughner's life in exchange for a guilty plea to 19 counts, including the wounding of then congresswoman Gabby Giffords.
[34] In 2013, Clarke was appointed to the defense team representing Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
[35] Clarke admitted her client's guilt and told the jury that he was responsible for the "senseless, horrific, misguided acts" referring to Tsarnaev's bombing of the Boston marathon.
[39][40] Clarke served as defense attorney for Robert Gregory Bowers, who murdered 11 worshippers in a shooting at the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2018.
Clarke is considered by fellow criminal defense attorneys to be a master strategist, known for her skill in representing the most notorious and reviled defendants.
[6][42] In a speech at Loyola Law School, Clarke in essence said that her clients—no matter how horrible the crimes they are accused of committing—are real people, not monsters, and that she tries to understand what caused them to do it.
[42] She does not seek publicity and routinely declines interview requests, preferring to let her courtroom statements and filings speak for themselves.