Convictions, life sentences upheld in clerk’s fatal shooting

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the convictions and life sentences of an Oklahoma City man in the fatal shooting of a convenience store clerk and the later wounding of another man.

The court on Thursday rejected appeals by 32-year-old Darrien Clark that included claims the two cases should have been tried separately, evidence of another person killing the clerk was wrongly excluded and prosecutors failed to disprove self-defense in the second shooting.

Clark’s defense attorney did not immediately return a phone call for comment.

Clark was sentenced to life without parole for the July 2013 shooting death of 62-year-old Habib Hajimirzaei at a northwest Oklahoma City convenience store. He also got life for the wounding of another man in an apparently unrelated shooting several weeks later.