Person of interest in Yale murder released

NEW YORK – The lab technician who worked in the same building as a murdered Yale graduate student Annie Le has been released by New Haven police.

Raymond Clark, left, is a person of interest in the murder of Annie Le, right

Raymond Clark, named a person of interest in the investigation, worked in the same Yale Medical School campus building where Le performed experiments as a pharmacology student. Authorities were able to take Clark into custody Tuesday night by executing what is called a search and seizure warrant. This warrant allows officials to hold someone who is not charged with a crime in order to obtain DNA samples. The warrant is based on probable cause and allows law enforcement to search the person described in an accompanying affidavit that also lays out the particular facts known to law enforcement at that time.

The Fourth amendment to the Constitution, guards against unreasonable search and seizures. Last night’s search of Clark had to be limited in nature, sanctioned by a judge and based on a reasonable belief that a crime has been committed and the person searched may have committed it.

Police said in a late night press conference on Tuesday that Clark’s DNA was taken by officials through saliva, fingernail scrapings and hair. Clark cooperated with authorities and according to the New Haven Police Department Clark was released at 3 a.m. Wednesday morning.

The reason Clark was almost immediately released after being taken into custody is that it would have violated his constitutional rights under our Fourth amendment to hold him for a longer period of time.
As Chief Justice Rehnquist stated in the 1990 case of United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, “the driving force behind the adoption of the Fourth Amendment…was widespread hostility among the former Colonists to the issuance of writs…and general search warrants permitting the search of private houses. The purpose of the Fourth Amendment was to protect the people of the United States against arbitrary action by their own government.”

Authorities have also executed a search and seizure warrant on Clark’s apartment in Middletown, Connecticut.

Le’s body was found on Sunday within the basement wall of her lab building on the Yale campus. She was set to get married that same day. Raymond Clark has not been charged with her murder.

-Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent