A man has pleaded not guilty to charges that he killed his girlfriend at a Charleston Taco Bell in a case that provoked outcry over how the state handles domestic violence cases.

Desmond Clark entered his plea Monday in Kanawha County Circuit Court. Judge Jim Stucky set a trial date for March 30.

The 22-year-old Clark is accused of chasing 19-year-old Nalisha Gravely, the mother of his two-year-old son, into a Taco Bell on the city's West Side and shooting her.

At the time, Clark was subject to a domestic violence protective order requiring that he have no contact with Gravely.

The case provoked outcry that a statewide database of such protective orders is still unfinished, seven years after the Legislature ordered its creation.