Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [141]
“He doesn’t like Dr. Cooper’s testimony, so he does a little dance in front of the media and says I’m in violation of discovery,” Susan quarreled.
“I want you to listen to me, Mrs. Polk,” Judge Brady intervened. “If you make any more insults, I will sanction you.”
Despite the threat, it was not immediately clear what the judge had in mind. The situation embodied the paradox that the judge faced throughout the trial: Susan was already in custody, so what other punishment could Brady hand down? It was a difficult situation for Brady, but it was becoming increasingly clear that Susan needed to be reigned in. Susan’s respect for the court had been far from exemplary, but now her witnesses were giving testimony that seemed dangerously close to perjury, conduct that could produce serious consequences for Susan.
Monday morning, Judge Brady made an announcement. Out of the presence of jurors, she informed the court that Susan’s expert witness had “skipped out” on the trial. “He is indicating not only is he not going to return, but he will be unavailable by telephone for this week and he will be traveling,” Brady said, referring to a three-page e-mail she received from Cooper over the weekend.
“In all my years that I’ve been doing this, I have never heard of anything like this before,” she added. “I’ve never had an expert witness take on the role of an advocate and then indicate he has chosen not to come back—that is just not an option.”
Like Judge Brady, Sequeira also expressed his shock after reading the letter that day. “I’ve never seen an expert run off like a scared rabbit before he is cross-examined.”
Cooper cited “the hostile behavior of the prosecuting attorney” as a key reason for his decision to withdraw from the case. “It was regrettable that I was unable to fulfill my designated role in the case during the week I had set aside for it,” he wrote in the letter that was made public later that afternoon. Dr. Cooper told Judge Brady that it was a “pleasure” to appear in her courtroom and assured her that his grievances were not “in any way intended to reflect unfavorably upon the Court…. I hold Mr. Sequeira completely responsible for last week’s debacle. Perhaps he has forgotten that justice isn’t always about winning.”
Cooper charged the prosecutor with crafting a “dramatic smokescreen about some discovery issues that have no bearing on the physical evidence and certainly have nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that an innocent woman is being held on false charges.” He also expressed “outrage” at the county medical examiner, Brian Peterson, accusing him of “irresponsible, unprofessional, and to my way of thinking, immoral conduct.
“Allow me to review the facts as I see them: Susan Polk is on trial for murder because Dr. Brian Peterson…saw fit to present a distortion of the autopsy evidence to the Coroner, to the District Attorney’s office, to the Grand Jury, and ultimately to the trier of fact in a murder trial.” Dr. Cooper wrote. “Not only has Mrs. Polk been indicted on false pretenses, but she has also suffered from protracted false imprisonment and estrangement from her sons as a result of Dr. Peterson’s false representations.
“I see this man to be nothing more than a public menace,” Cooper said of Peterson.
Meanwhile, Judge Brady informed jurors that morning that a “scheduling issue” had arisen, and the court would hear from Dr. Cooper at a later date. Court officials had reached the runaway pathologist by phone and, after advising him of his obligation to come back to court to finish his cross-examination, set a date of May 16 for his return.
In the meantime, Susan called her first hostile defense witness, Gabe’s foster mother, Marjorie Briner. She believed that Briner and her husband, Dan, had “brainwashed” Gabe into testifying against her. Now, she was anxious to paint the middle-school teacher