Link to articleSusan Polk show fun, not funny
C.W. Nevius
Thursday, June 1, 2006
Oh sure, the Susan Polk trial has been fun while it's lasted. Her loony objections, constant motions for mistrial and sniping with prosecutor Paul Sequeira have been terrific fodder for the news cycle. Looking back at it, if television cameras had been allowed in the courtroom, this could have been a national sensation on the scale of O.J. Simpson.
However, we are coming upon crunch time and a clear reality is looming. If Polk manages, through delays, stalls and amateur lawyering, to get off, howls of indignation will be heard from sea to shining sea.
As this week began, there was really only one question: Fourteen weeks into this, could Sequeira focus the trial into a coherent legal proceeding now that he was deep into his cross-examination of a defendant accused of killing her husband?
The simple answer is no. Polk is as elusive, maddening and uncontrolled as ever.
However, amid her endless digressions, quibbles about verbiage and personal jabs at the prosecutor, Sequeira has assembled a formidable case against her. Polk may be able to highjack the testimony and muddle the evidence, but if the jury rules on the facts and not the dramatics, it is hard to imagine Polk will not be convicted.
Her argument that she was a battered wife who stabbed her husband, Felix Polk, in self-defense and that he died of a heart attack just doesn't add up.
Wednesday morning, for example, she gave a tearful description of how her husband punched her in the face, threw her to the floor, dragged her by the hair, nearly blinded her with pepper spray, punched her again and then attempted to stab her, leaving her stunned and powerless on her back. In fact, she suggested at some points, she may have blacked out.
And yet, within seconds, the petite Polk says, she roused herself and kicked Felix in the groin, incapacitating him. Better yet, even though she was barely able to see, she was able to grab the knife from his hand without suffering a single wound from the 5-inch blade.
Even Polk admitted, "I think there was something miraculous about that.''
No kidding.
The danger here, of course, is that the law and facts of the case become swamped by Polk's single-minded performance. There is no telling what the jury is thinking. Sequeira can't risk showing his exasperation for fear of putting them off. It is one thing to be the prosecutor in the hottest case in the country. But it wouldn't be nearly as impressive an accomplishment to lose it.
Polk has no such worries. She has her assortment of stalls, tricks and snippy little comments down to a science. She repeats almost all of Sequeira's questions slowly and deliberately. Often, she picks a single word and debates its meaning.
"English is a fascinating language,'' she said at one point. "There are a number of ways to describe the same thing.''
Veteran trial watchers, like Alison Shurtleff -- who spent her lunch hour being interviewed by NBC's "Today Show'' about her obsession with the trial -- smile knowingly when Sequeira refers to Polk's "pool house.'' Polk insists it is a "cottage,'' which is only one example of their semantic dueling. At one point, the district attorney used the metaphor, "that horse is out of the barn.''
"I would prefer, 'Cat is out of the bag,' '' Shurtleff recalls Polk saying.
Once the meaning of the words have been debated, Polk is likely to offer one of her many objections. When Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Laurel Brady overrules it, Polk is likely to appeal for a mistrial and then make some cracks about the judge and prosecutor conspiring against her.
Sequeira is clearly struggling with his composure; but if the jury hasn't totally tuned everyone out, he's putting a case together. He's taken to keeping a running total of the number of people Polk insists have fabricated evidence, moved her husband's body, lied or generally worked to frame her. Sequeira has headlined the list "Liars,'' but Polk says, "That title should be changed to 'deceptive persons.' ''
The list grew again Wednesday as Polk suggested that graphic photos of the deep cuts on her husband's hand might have "been manipulated with a computer program.'' The idea that officers of the court and the law enforcement community would deliberately falsify evidence to destroy Polk's case is just an example of the level of her delusion.
I'll admit it, it's been a guilty pleasure watching Polk take this civics lesson into outer space. But the pleasure will turn to disgust, then outrage, if Polk pulls this off. Her most recent ploy, asking the judge to instruct jurors to convict her of murder or let her go, is a transparent example of what she's hoping for.
Having worn them down with months of self-indulgent foolishness, she's hoping jurors will ignore the mound of evidence against her and let her off. If that happens there will be nothing funny about it.
