“The jury is getting forgotten in this equation,” Brady warned. “This pattern of behavior that we seem to be going through is alienating the jury.”
“The defendant’s style in this case is to be passive-aggressive,” Sequeira roared, accusing Susan of slyly introducing evidence in the pretext of questions. “She flouts this court’s authority at every opportunity so that it makes this trial somewhat of a farce.”
“Objection, your honor,” Susan yelled out. In a lawyerly tone, she informed the prosecutor that she was objecting to him raising his voice during his “diatribe” and for taking “inappropriate personal potshots” at her.
“Maybe he should start acting like a lawyer instead of being a baby,” she goaded.
It was an amusing quip and one that underscored the increasingly hostile relationship between Sequeira and Polk. For days now, Susan had been inciting direct arguments with the prosecutor, and Brady had done little to stop it. Like two siblings who loathe the sight of each other, they bickered back and forth instead of trying the case. In what was becoming the most entertaining aspect of the trial, Sequeira was routinely drawn into arguments with Susan. While her repeated objections were quite disruptive, it was surprising that she was so successful in eliciting a reaction from the seasoned lawyer.
The more she interrupted the court, the more it seemed that her actions were part of some coherent strategy, not just idle comments meant to annoy the prosecutor. While her behavior was clearly ruffling his feathers, it was also distracting him from his arguments and disrupting the flow of discussion for the jury. Perhaps looking back on Sequeira’s case during their deliberations, the jury would become confused by seemingly inconsequential and incomplete testimony. If intentional, this strategy’s effectiveness would not be known for months, but one thing was certain: by reacting to Susan, Sequeira was playing right into her hand, allowing her to dictate the pace and manner in which the case was progressing.
During the afternoon questioning, Susan probed Gabriel about his relationship with Marjorie and Dan Briner, his surrogate parents since Felix’s death.
“I consider myself their foster child,” Gabe told his mother. “I consider them my parents.”
Gabe’s remarks clearly rattled Susan. She immediately objected to his characterization, insisting that Gabe was not a foster child, as that term is legally defined.
“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 proven through this witness. Nevertheless, Susan ignored the judge’s instructions and continued her line of questioning.
Once Chief Lawrence had been excused, Susan questioned several more police witnesses, using their testimonies to present her theory that the sheriff’s deputies had contaminated the crime scene by pouring water over Felix’s head to make the dried blood look wet and to make his death appear more grisly. “Doesn’t that look like a puddle of water next to my husband’s bloody scalp?” Susan asked Sheriff’s Deputy Melvin Chamblee, one of the first officers on the scene. According to her, their carelessness and poor police work had resulted in a crime scene that looked much more like murder than the self-defensive struggle that Susan claimed it was.
She accused police of sloppy work, pointing out that officers were not wearing protective booties when they examined the crime scene. In addition, she also insisted that a photo of bloody footprints found at the scene appeared to depict two right feet, side by side. Meanwhile prosecutors maintained the footprint belonged to Susan and was the same size as the shoes found in her bedroom closet.
Dressed stylishly in a tan and green tartan kilt skirt, Susan looked lawyerly as she stood at the podium and thumbed through her papers. Displaying a photo of the bloody footprints found at the crime scene, she asked Chamblee if he saw, “two right feet.”
The deputy studied the photo, and then hesitantly agreed that it was possible, although he could not be sure.
To Susan, Chamblee’s uncertainty confirmed her claims of a tainted crime scene. Seeming pleased with her momentary victory, she shot a triumphant look at Sequeira. The prosecutor sat slouched in his chair, listening t
o Susan’s questions.
“What size shoe do you use?” he asked the officer on redirect testimony.
“I use size 11,” Chamblee replied.
“Size 11? And that’s men’s?”
The officer smirked, eliciting laughter from the gallery and from jurors. “Yes, men’s.”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but do you wear women’s shoes?” Sequeira asked.
“Not to work,” Chamblee grinned. His response brought a half smile to Susan’s lips.
Nevertheless, the day was not without its challenges. Susan caused a ruckus when she complained that the overhead projector or LMO, pronounced “ELMO,” that both sides used to display photos and other exhibits was blocking her view of Juror Number 10. Susan had been watching this juror and another female juror over several days, seemingly convinced the two were quietly conversing during the proceedings. During a break, and with jurors out of the courtroom, she insisted that Judge Brady change places with her so that Brady could see the way her view was being obstructed.
Ordering Susan to the other side of the courtroom, the judge reluctantly stepped down from the bench and sat at the defense table, continuing her remarkable tolerance for Susan’s antics. Still, she seemed more a ringmaster than an arbiter of the law as she worked to tame Susan. It was almost comical to watch the nearly fifty-year-old woman in the flowing black robe plop down in Susan’s chair and study the jury box.
“Can I sit in the jury box to show you what view I’m not getting,” Susan asked the judge.
“No.”
After sitting in Susan’s seat, Judge Brady determined that her view was fine. But Susan continued to argue, telling the judge that it was a serious violation of her rights if she couldn’t see the jurors’ faces and whether they were communicating with one another—which would be grounds for a mistrial.
“It will be moved after lunch,” Brady finally conceded.
Sequeira could not let the moment pass without voicing his objection. He told the judge that he had gone out his way to let Susan use the “ELMO” and to teach her and her assistant, Valerie, how to operate it. “Now she’s just trying to delay and control!”
“Objection!” Susan shot back. “Prosecutorial misconduct.”
Judge Brady closed her eyes and drew a deep audible breath. But the moment was quickly disrupted by Susan’s finger pointing. Now, she wanted Brady to punish members of the gallery for snickering.
“She’s just being obstreperous and obstructionist,” Sequeira barked, “for the record.”
“Prosecutorial misconduct,” Susan retorted, “for the record.”
Next on the stand was Sheriff’s Deputy Shannon Kelly. Kelly was the officer who drove Susan to police headquarters the night Felix’s body was discovered. He said that during the ride, Susan was “unemotional” and claimed to have no knowledge of Felix’s death.
“I didn’t do anything,” Susan allegedly told the officer during the ride. “Are you sure it’s my husband? Did my son identify the body? Because his car isn’t here.”
Susan jumped up when it was her turn to question the officer. “Do you think if you had someone who was under arrest, and was accused of murder, sitting in the backseat of your car crying, and you had the music on, that you could hear them crying?” she asked from the podium.
“I could, depending on how loud the music was.”
“Have you ever heard the expression ‘crying inside’?”
“No,” Kelly replied.
The following morning, March 24, Susan was brimming with complaints, but her latest grievance was not immediately clear to members of the court.
“I’ve informed the court of the harassment and outright brutality I’ve been subjected to while in custody,” she told Judge Brady. Judge Brady looked bewildered as Susan detailed her alleged confrontation more than two years earlier with a court officer. She claimed the deputy had pulled her from the courtroom and clubbed her on the elbow with a blackjack, thus breaking her arm.
“This incident has already been dealt with,” the judge advised Susan. “I believe the facts surrounding it are quite disputed, but anyway, what’s your point?”
“Instead of giving me medical treatment I was locked in a padded cell for hours,” Susan rambled on. “Denied painkillers for the broken arm…. I have been locked in cells with urine and feces on the floor, urine soaked mattresses, broken sinks.”
The judge was losing her patience and instructed Susan to “move it along.” Susan responded that she had been given “secret” information from an officer who claimed there was a conspiracy in the works. Susan was going to be “set up.” A deputy was going to claim that she attacked him, providing a reason to discipline and harm her, Susan told the judge.
“I want bail, or to be moved to another county,” Susan demanded.
Judge Brady was incredulous. “I can’t act on information based on unnamed sources about vague allegations on some future event,” she told Susan. “I need more evidence, statements from the officer, who has a legal duty to report that kind of information to his superiors.”
“I’m certainly not going to reveal my source,” Susan huffed. “This officer is trying to help me.” Again, Susan claimed that she didn’t feel safe and asked to be moved to another county.
When the judge denied her request, Susan angrily retorted, “Well, I’ve made my record.”
Sequeira was in court for the bizarre exchange but remained silent. Once the matter appeared resolved, he informed the judge of his problems with several witnesses. One was sick and unavailable to testify. He was having trouble finding accommodations for several others who had flown in earlier to testify and had gone home because of delays in the proceedings. Now, all the hotels in town were booked because of the NCAA basketball tournament at the arena in Oakland.
“I object,” Susan interjected. “This is a violation of my right to a speedy trial.”
Sequeira shot Susan a look, then asked the judge to instruct her not to discuss the State’s delays in front of the jurors.
But Susan exhibited her usual defiance and continued to voice objections.
“Mrs. Polk, DO NOT interrupt me again!” Judge Brady threatened.
To which Susan replied, “Well, you interrupted me.”
Susan was still ranting when the judge adjourned court for the weekend, stepped down from the bench and disappeared into the hallway. Proceedings would resume on Monday with testimony from more law enforcement officers. Among those scheduled to take the stand that week was the lead homicide detective, Mike Costa.
Chapter Twenty-five
FORENSIC FACTS
Of all the police officers on the case, Susan was most interested in Detective Mike Costa. Susan watched from the defense table as the thickset detective climbed into the witness box Tuesday morning. Costa had recently retired from the force and had been flown in from his new home 100 miles away to testify. His first order of business would be to address the videotaped late-night interview he conducted with Susan at police headquarters on October 15, 2002.
Susan tried to get the judge to suppress the tape, claiming that she had not been Mirandized before the interview. When that failed, she insisted that the detective should have halted the interrogation after she complained of being “very, very tired” and “showed obvious signs of shock.”
Judge Brady denied her requests. “There was a clear understanding of the rights and a clear waiver,” the judge told Susan during a sidebar that morning. “It was probably the gentlest interview I’ve ever seen in a homicide investigation.”
Jurors waited in the hushed courtroom as Sequeira cued up the videotaped recording of the two-hour interrogation. Susan was now sitting at a table adjacent to the jury box so that she could watch along with the panel. The lights had been dimmed and the vertical blinds on the two windows on either side of the judge were pulled shut for the presentation.
As an image of Susan flashed onto the television screen, sobs could be
heard from the defendant—emotional at the sight of herself in the interrogation room. She was dressed in a pair of shorts and a polo shirt; an official police jacket was draped over her shoulders. The jury could not see her at the counsel table, but they could hear her whimpers, which grew louder as the videotape played on. She was so upset that her case manager, Valerie Harris, slid a box of Kleenex in front of her.
“Do you want to talk to me about what happened?” Costa’s voice boomed from the TV monitor.
“I do, and I am very, very tired,” Susan responded. She appeared toned and at least ten pounds heavier in the videotape and her hair was styled and neat—nothing like the overgrown, bushy mop that she wore to court each day.
“So am I. I haven’t been to bed all day either, but we have to do this.”
Susan wore a puzzled look, “What did happen?”
“Well, that’s what I’m hoping you can tell me.”
For the next two hours, Susan repeatedly denied any involvement in her husband’s death, even as the detective presented evidence to the contrary.
In the courtroom, Susan managed to quiet down and now sat beside Valerie wiping tears as jurors listened carefully to the interrogation tape.
“And you don’t know what happened to your husband?” Detective Costa asked for a second time.
“No.”
“Something happened, obviously. That’s why we’re all here. That’s why you’re here. You’ve had ongoing marital problems for sometime now, living in different places, money difficulties. So something happened, Susan.”
“That doesn’t mean that I killed him.”
“Was he seeing any other ladies?”
“I don’ t even know that he’s dead,” Susan replied. “All I know is I was lying in my bed reading and I heard Gabe get on the phone and ask to speak to a police officer, so I got out of bed and asked him ‘What’s wrong?’ He accused me of having…killed his dad.
“I did not kill my husband,” Susan insisted. “I am not that kind of person.”
Final Analysis Page 27
