A Washoe District Court jury Tuesday awarded damages of more than $590 million to Darren and Charla Mack's 9-year-old daughter and the woman's estate, in the wrongful death lawsuit filed against the imprisoned murderer.
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The jury retired at about
3:30 p.m. and reached the verdicts at 5:47 p.m. Punitive damages were put at $375 million, with other damages totaling $215 million.
Under the award in the wrongful death lawsuit, $30 million will go to Charla Mack's estate and the remainder will go to the couple's daughter, Erika, according to Hans Jessup, administrator for the Washoe County court.
"Let justice be heard throughout this community," lawyer Kent Robison urged the eight-juror panel in his closing argument. "Speak powerfully. Speak loud."
"You have to determine the value of Charla's pain and suffering," he said. "Try to imagine what was in her mind when the assault was initiated. What fear, what terror was there, knowing her daughter was upstairs, while Darren was doing the very thing that, for weeks, she feared."
When considering punitive damages, he told the panel, recall the brutal nature of the crime.
"There's a reason no one is at that defense table," Robison said, pointing out that Mack and his lawyers did not attend the trial. "His guilty plea was an admission that he planned to kill her. If Mr. Mack had any issue, he should have been here. I would have put him on the stand, and I think you would have been outraged."
"Let him tell you why this beautiful woman was butchered at his hands," Robison told the jury. "He knows his conduct was reprehensible."
Darren Mack has admitted stabbing Charla to death on June 12, 2006 in the garage of his townhouse. He has insisted that it was self defense, but pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on Nov. 5.
He has filed motions to withdraw his guilty pleas, and a hearing is set for April 15 to argue that point.
Judge Douglas Herndon had denied a previously filed motion to withdraw his pleas, and sentenced Mack, 46, to life in prison with parole possible after 36 years.
Mack was moved to Ely State Prison and waived his right to appear at the civil case.
In a motion filed March 4 with Judge Noel Manoukian, who is overseeing the civil lawsuit, Darren Mack said he has decided against defending himself in the case "because there is no money left, so any judgment is an empty judgment."
He also said he discharged his civil lawyer, Mark Wray, substituted himself in the case and asked the judge to not force Wray to attend the trial.
"There is no money," Mack wrote. "So, ordering Mr. Wray to appear is punitive to Mr. Wray because there is no money to pay him for his time."
Robison, representing the daughter, and Egan Walker, representing Charla Mack's estate, called a list of witnesses over the past two days who spoke of the brutality of her slaying, and the special relationship she had with her daughter.
Charla Mack's mother, Soorya Townley, and other witnesses told of the change in the daughter since Charla's death, and since her father was charged with murder.
Before her mother's death, their daughter "could be described as adorable, affectionate, a huggable, smiling child," Robison said. But after, the words include "abandoned, emotionally abused, betrayed, horrified, insecure, withdrawn."
He urged the jury to consider the loss of support she must endure with the killing of her mother.
"If you put a pen in my hand, this board would not be big enough for the number of zeros I would add," Robison said, referring to the damages form the jurors fill out.
