A Virginia man who pleaded guilty to killing a young Marine is free just two years after the shooting, and prosecutors in Prince William County blame investigators for failing to turn over key evidence in time.
Kalin Robinson joined the Marines straight out of high school. At 25 years old, he was stationed at Quantico and was married with two children.
“I bragged about him all the time,” said his mother, Roslyn Robinson. “My son, he was a sergeant in the Marines.”
On March 25, 2021, Robinson was ambushed as he returned to his truck after a night out at the Babylon Café.
We've got the news you need to know to start your day. Sign up for the First & 4Most morning newsletter — delivered to your inbox daily. >Sign up here.
Horace Clark was charged with first-degree murder. Prosecutors say he shot Robinson at the request of his roommate because Robinson had been with the man’s ex-girlfriend.
When the trial began June 5, Roslyn Robinson was assured prosecutors were confident of a conviction.
“We’re going after first-degree murder, you know, and I just knew it was going to happen because everything was right there,” she said.
Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia news, events and updates
But prosecutors said there were problems with some of the police evidence before the trial began. Midway through the trial, prosecutors say police suddenly mentioned a Ring camera video that had never been documented or turned over as required.
The defense attorney filed a motion to dismiss.
“The judge is getting frustrated, right, hearing over and over again the police department isn’t providing the information to us,” Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Amy Ashworth said. “We are getting frustrated with the police department not providing that information.”
Fearful the judge would agree to the dismissal the lead prosecutor in the case instead negotiated a plea agreement. Horace Clark entered an Alford plea, signing a document that reads, “… while I do not admit I committed the crime charged, I understand that evidence against me is sufficient for a conviction.”
The sentence allowed Clark to walk out of jail that day.
“They made a big mistake,” Robinson’s mother said. “They let a monster walk.”
“The late disclosures by the police department were inexcusable,” the lead prosecutor told the judge.
“Absolutely this is not something we wanted to do,” Ashworth said. “We wanted to prosecute him for first-degree murder. Our hands get tied when our partner agency doesn’t exactly cooperate and provide that information.”
In a lengthy statement, Prince William County police said, "plea bargains and discovery in criminal cases falls under the purviews of the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office."
"Following the arrest of any person(s) involved in a criminal matter, the case, and contents thereof, are turned over to the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office for prosecution which assumes responsibility of reviewing the case and handling any processes that come up in the subsequent court proceedings," the statement continued.
"Because homicide cases are so complex, there are often a tremendous number so records that are required to be turned over by the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office to the defense in discovery, and we understand that doing so is often much more difficult than the layperson might expect. If there was a piece of evidence that was turned over late by the police department to the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office in this case, you can trust it was not intentional, and certainly does not seem like a good reason to plea out the case."
"It is unfortunate the lead prosecutor in a partner agency felt the need in open court to attribute the decision to plea out a case to an alleged error by the police department. If there was an error, we would hope the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office would have reached out to us so the error could have been corrected."
"With that being said, we intend to review the case to see if there were any missteps that occurred on our end so we can correct the moving forward," the statement concluded.
The commonwealth’s attorney said top-level staff in her office and the police department have been meeting to examine what went wrong and make sure it never happens again.
“I’m still angry,” Roslyn Robinson said. “I’ve been angry for two years. I want justice for my son.”
The man who allegedly asked Clark to shoot the victim is serving time in another case. Robinson hopes he eventually will face charges in her son’s death.
Under the terms of his plea, Clark will be on supervised probation for the next three years.
News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.
