Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [149]
On Tuesday, before the jury was brought into court, Susan asked that she be allowed to have attorney Gary Wesley of Mountain View present during her cross-examination by Sequeira. Susan told Brady that if she agreed to allow him to act as assistant counsel, he would be in court solely to make objections on her behalf. Sequeira immediately objected, arguing that the attorney was unfamiliar with the case and had not been in court during the thirteen weeks of trial. Allowing the lawyer to join at this late date would be “setting up a disaster” and could lay the groundwork for an appeal on the basis of “ineffective assistance of counsel,” he said.
“I’m extremely concerned about his competence. He can’t possibly know the ins and outs of this case,” Sequeira went on, insisting that Susan Polk “knows the case as well as anybody.”
Brady raised an eyebrow when Wesley stepped before her and admitted that since graduating from Santa Clara University Law School in 1978, he had never tried a murder case. Nevertheless, he had tried all felony cases “short of murder,” and ultimately, Brady allowed Wesley to act as assistant defense counsel during Susan’s cross-examination. This was not, however, a blank check; there would be ground rules. He could not offer any unsolicited advice. The judge also warned Susan that she would not be permitted to raise objections if she agreed to Wesley’s participation.
Brady fought back a smile when Susan agreed. “I’m going to hold you to that,” the judge grinned.
Wesley told reporters outside court that afternoon that he came on board at the request of Susan’s case manager, Valerie Harris, and had been providing informal counsel to Susan for several weeks. As if to demonstrate his familiarity with the case, he offered a criticism of Sequeira’s cross-examination of Eli Polk, calling it improper and accusing the prosecutor of crafting questions to “bait” the young man on the stand.
Susan ended her fourth day of direct testimony that Tuesday with what could only be described as a presentation of her kitchen knives. In a testimony akin to a sales presentation on the Home Shopping Network, Susan detailed each piece of cutlery, as a lanky deputy displayed them in his gloved hands. Though she was expressly forbidden to handle the utensils, she appeared happy to provide details about them to members of the jury. Jurors craned their necks to glimpse the family’s bread knife, a butcher knife, and a set of steak knives.
“That knife was everyone’s favorite knife,” Susan said of one steak knife, smiling as she explained how all three of her sons liked that one best. “It was always disappearing…. And that [a different knife] was the knife he [Felix] had in the cottage that he attacked me with,” Susan said of the one with the black handle. “Afterwards, I picked it up, brought it back into the kitchen, washed it, dried it, and put it away.”
Once Susan had finished with the detailed history of the Polk family cutlery, she moved on to an entirely new and until now, unmentioned subject. Susan attempted to raise allegations that her husband had engaged in inappropriate contact with his daughter from his first marriage. She provided no evidence and there is no evidence whatsoever to support these allegations. Nevertheless, it was Susan’s intention to introduce these allegations only by her own testimony. For much of her first four days on the stand, Sequeira had allowed Susan’s testimony to go into the record with few objections, but the period of relative calm in the courtroom came to an end with this latest development.
“I move for a mistrial based on being called a liar!” she demanded during a sidebar with the judge.
Susan flew into a rage after Sequeira objected to this line of testimony. Susan claimed that Jennifer had alluded to the abuse in letters she sent her father. But she could not produce the writings because someone had supposedly stolen her “Jennifer files.”
“I was impressed that we have gone for four days very smoothly,” Judge Brady said. “But this display in front of the jury