Tuffree Weighed Penalty After Shooting, Deputy Says

Just hours after a gunfight that mortally wounded Simi Valley Police Officer Michael Clark, Daniel Allan Tuffree mused aloud what his punishment would be for shooting and killing the officer, a sheriff’s deputy testified Wednesday.

Clark was shot twice outside Tuffree’s house last August and died from a single bullet that severed his jugular vein, testified Dr. Janice Frank, Ventura County’s assistant medical examiner. Tuffree, a former social studies teacher, now faces a first-degree murder charge and a possible death sentence.

Tuffree pondered his fate aloud on the night of the Aug. 4 shooting, said Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Patrick Hardy, who stood guard while Tuffree was treated for his wounds at Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks.

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As he came on duty and Tuffree finished an interview with a Simi Valley detective, Hardy introduced himself.

Tuffree replied, “ ‘You must despise me,’ ” Hardy recalled.

“I said something to the effect that I wasn’t afforded that luxury,” Hardy testified. After a minute or so of silence, Tuffree began to quiz Hardy about his police experience and knowledge of the law, but Hardy demurred, saying he was not Tuffree’s attorney, the deputy said.

“ ‘Did you hear my conversation with the Simi detectives?’ ” Tuffree asked Hardy.

“ ‘Not much of it,’ ” Hardy said he replied.

“ ‘I’m not sure of the terminology,’ ” he recalled Tuffree saying. “ ‘It used to be “murder one.” I could get life or death. But if I convince them it was “murder two,” if they believe it was heat of passion, like they used to say, how much time will I get?’ ”

“ ‘I can’t give you any legal opinions, sir,’ ” Hardy said he replied.

Tuffree, he said, then responded pensively, “ ‘I wonder if they believe.’ ”

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Also on Thursday, Assistant Medical Examiner Frank told the Superior Court jury how one bullet pierced the front of Clark’s arm and broke his elbow.

The other, fatal round struck him in the back and lodged in his chest, causing several devastating injuries, she said.

That bullet smashed through Clark’s left shoulder blade, breaking his third rib. It severed a half-inch-diameter vein that carries blood from the left arm back to the heart. It nicked his windpipe, flooding his lungs with blood and causing one of them to collapse. And it ripped through the jugular vein carrying blood from his head to his heart.

Such a wound would send any victim into shock from blood loss, impair his breathing and prove “rapidly fatal . . . inevitably fatal,” Frank testified.

“I think that death could well have occurred in a few minutes,” she said. It would have been impossible to respond to Clark’s injuries well enough to save his life even if treatment had begun immediately, she said.

On cross-examination, Frank testified that Clark could have remained alive and moving for several minutes after the shooting, and that he might have been found lying on his side only a few feet away because he tripped.

But after the elbow injury, Clark would have to have held his right arm up with his good left hand in order to fire his gun, Frank testified.

Clark’s gun was found in his hand, its clip empty and slide locked back, signifying that he had fired every round, witnesses have testified.

Clark’s widow and most of his family, who have become emotionally distraught at the introduction of graphic evidence at several points in the trial, were absent for Frank’s testimony.

Only his uncle and a police colleague remained, watching from the audience behind the prosecution table as Deputy Dist. Atty. Patricia Murphy showed jurors color autopsy photos of Clark’s wounds.

Tuffree’s parents and other relatives also looked on quietly, sitting behind the defendant on the opposite side of the courtroom.

Earlier, an FBI agent testified that shards of glass from the kitchen window--through which Tuffree allegedly shot Clark--were found on both men’s clothes and on the fatal bullet.