Suspect Pleads Not Guilty in Yale Murder Case

USNews.com- This is a case that will be followed closely in the Yale University community and beyond: the trial of Raymond Clark III, a former Yale lab technician accused of murdering graduate student Annie Le. And the first big news from the proceedings happened yesterday.

In a short court appearance Tuesday, Clark pleaded not guilty to the murder of Le, the Yale Daily News reports. The prosecution added a charge of felony murder to the case, which would allow a jury to convict Clark of killing Le even if the death happened unintentionally in the process of committing another felony, the report says.

Clark also waived his right to a probable cause hearing, at which prosecutors would have had to show that they had enough evidence to proceed.

"In any hypothetical homicide, felony murder ensures the prosecution won't get boxed in," Beth Merkin, one of Clark's public defenders, tells the Daily News. "It provides for alternate theories to be made about the crime."

Clark was arrested on September 17 after the discovery of Le's body hidden in a lab building shocked Yale's New Haven, Conn., campus.