Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [119]
“I am doing extremely well now,” Gabe next told Susan.
Fueled with rage, Susan sought to paint the Briners as greedy individuals who were trying to cash in on her son’s circumstances. She claimed that they held Gabe back in high school so that they could continue to collect social security benefits. “Isn’t it so that if you hadn’t been held back a year at school, your Social Security benefits would have ended when you turned eighteen?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Gabe said, holding back tears.
Gabe told the court that initially he gave the Briners his entire twelve hundred dollar Social Security check. More recently, he paid half the money to help cover his room and board.
As the day wore on, Susan grew more and more confrontational. She demanded yes or no answers from her son and continued to pursue topics that were irrelevant to the murder case. Disturbingly, she grilled him about his alleged hatred of Felix.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to ‘gut him’?” Susan asked tearfully.
“No, God no, I never said that.”
“Didn’t you express absolute hatred of your father?”
“I’ve made mistakes. I have to live with that,” he said, anxiously rubbing his forehead. “It’s not easy that he’s dead, that I can’t say I’m sorry.”
It was just before 5 PM when Gabriel Polk finally rose from the witness chair and waved good-bye to jurors. “See you later,” he said, exiting the courtroom.
“I call for a mistrial!” Susan shouted, citing her son’s banter with the jury.
On Wednesday, the crowd in the gallery had dwindled for Sequeria’s second witness, former Orinda Police Chief Dan Lawrence. The prosecutor had rearranged his witness list to accommodate Adam Polk’s vacation plans. He would call Susan’s eldest son later in the trial and forge ahead with testimony from members of law enforcement.
Lawrence, who was now the chief of a neighboring police department, was called to testify to the phone call he received from Felix Polk one week before his murder. During the call, Felix claimed that Susan had “threatened to blow his head off.”
Sequeira’s examination of Lawrence lasted just five minutes, however, Susan kept the law enforcement officer on the stand for more than one hour, arguing that Lawrence was an expert on police protocol and had expertise on domestic abuse cases. It seemed she was anxious to introduce jurors to the idea that victims of domestic abuse don’t always report incidents to police, thus explaining why she had not reported the alleged abuse she now claimed occurred throughout her marriage.
“Isn’t it true that women who are victims of domestic abuse back out, get scared, fail to appear, and make bad witnesses?” Susan asked Lawrence.
The police chief agreed, saying that Susan’s scenario was possible.
Seemingly pleased with Lawrence’s response, she next asked him why her husband wasn’t prosecuted for his knowledge of underage drinking parties at the Miner Road house. She also wanted him to explain how Felix’s influence with people in high places might have spared him from being charged.
Lawrence was unable to answer many of Susan’s questions, including a number that stemmed from a letter she wrote to Moraga police complaining about their search of her home after Eli’s arrest on felony assault charges. The letter alleged that officers had roughed her up, handcuffed her, and threatened to tear her house apart, thus coloring her perception of the police department and leaving her distrustful of law enforcement officers.
Susan argued that it was her mistrust of police that caused her to flee to Montana—instead of reporting Felix’s murderous threats to authorities. She wanted to introduce her “state of mind” through Chief Lawrence. Susan had sent him a copy of the letter and was anxious to introduce it into evidence.
But Judge Brady ruled that she could not question the police official about the search warrant because he was not there. Susan’s accusations in the letter amounted to “hearsay” and could not be