Final Analysis (37 page)

“Is it a crime to be able to find some humor in my situation?” Susan asked the prosecutor, charging that the Court TV producer “sand-bagged” her with the question. Breaking into a girlish giggle, she admitted that she still believes that Hannibal Lector is “too nice” a character to portray Felix.

“This is funny to you?” Sequeira huffed.

“I thought so,” Susan chuckled. But her demeanor quickly changed when she realized that jurors were not laughing along with her. Turning on the tears, she reminded panelists of her serious nature as a child, her difficult years as a wife, and her mother’s mantra.

“Have a sense of humor!” Susan said her mother always told her.

“I could look at my life as a tragedy. Or I could see it as a triumph,” she said as the tears flowed and she gasped for breath. “And I made a conscious choice that no matter what happened in my life, I wasn’t going to be a victim.”

Before resting her case on Thursday, June 8, Susan would call a colorful assortment of witnesses to testify. Among them was Laura Castro-Shelly, a fifth-degree Shaolin black belt who used the “fight or flight” response to explain the relatively few bruises Susan sustained during the fight with her husband.

“I believe it’s animalistic,” Castro-Shelly responded when asked how a woman of Polk’s size and stature could survive such a brutal attack by someone so much larger than she. “You become a lioness in the wilderness. You will protect yourself. You will protect your babies…. You will fight back knowing this could be your last breath.”

Susan also sought to direct the court’s attention to the role that psychics can play in crime investigation, calling Roger Clark, a retired Los Angeles sheriff ’s lieutenant and self-described psychic detective and expert in crime scene analysis to testify on her behalf. The former police lieutenant took the stand to bolster Dr. Cooper’s assertion that Felix died from a heart attack and not the massive injuries he sustained in the guest cottage. Similarly, Susan called psychic detective Annette Martin to testify; however, Judge Brady limited her testimony to a discussion of how her intuitive abilities are used by members of law enforcement—adding little to Susan’s defense. Susan touted Martin’s abilities, claiming she had a 100 percent success rate on the hundred cases she assisted on. “She testified because she cares about me,” Susan later said.

Next to take the stand was family therapist and domestic violence expert Linda Barnard who supported Susan’s claim that she was a victim of “physical, emotional, and verbal abuse” during her relationship with Felix. The expert admitted she had not conducted a psychological evaluation of Susan in jail, but instead, had based her conclusions on four meetings with the defendant at the West County Correctional Facility and a review of the case documents, including recorded interviews, medical records, and naval records on Felix Polk. In response to questions, Dr. Barnard asserted that Susan suffers from post–traumatic stress syndrome as a result of the ongoing abuse she endured during her relationship with Felix.

“Can you describe for the jury what a delusional disorder is?” Sequeira asked Barnard during the subsequent cross-examination.

Referring to the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM), she described someone who might be out of touch with reality, hold false beliefs, and experience hallucinations.

Clutching his own copy of the diagnostic manual, the prosecutor read aloud from a section on “persecutory type delusional disorder.”

“This subtype applies when the central theme of the delusion involves the person’s belief that he or she is being conspired against, cheated on, spied on, followed, poisoned or drugged, maliciously maligned, harassed. Small slights may be exaggerated,” the prosecutor read on. “The focus of the delusion is often some injustice that must be remedied by legal action.”

After a dramatic pause, Sequeira read the final line of the passage aloud: “Individuals with persecutory delusions are often resentful and angry and may resort to violence against those they believe are hurting them.”

“Is this an accurate portrayal of the disorder?” he asked.

Dr. Barnard nodded in agreement.

Sequeira didn’t ask if the description applied to Susan’s conduct; the jury would make the obvious connection on its own.

O
n the morning of Tuesday, June 13, Susan presented her closing arguments to the jury, ignoring the remarks prepared for her by Valerie Harris and some of her supporters. For months, Harris and several others, including former Miner Road homeowner Roger Deakins, had been holding roundtables at the Polk house to plot defense strategies. Deakins had come to court during several days of testimony to show his support for Susan. But once again, Susan would do things her way.

Before she began, Susan unsuccessfully protested Judge Brady’s imposition of a three-hour time limit on the closing remarks. She also tried to convince Brady to charge the jury on just two possible outcomes—either first-degree murder or an acquittal based on self-defense. But Brady ruled to let the jury consider the “lesser included” offenses of murder in the second degree and involuntary manslaughter.

Meanwhile, Helen Bolling waited in the gallery, lost in a game of numbers. “Numbers are fascinating,” she told Cole Thompson, who secured a seat next to her in the rear of the courtroom. Bolling attracted sneers from the trial watchers, so called gavel groupies, when she continued to crinkle the plastic wrapper of a lemon candy she was fighting to open, seemingly oblivious to the amount of noise she was making.
Helen looked up in time to see her daughter searching the gallery for a familiar face.

Susan’s frantic expression melted into a smile when she finally spotted Helen. Susan looked worn, as though she had aged several years since the trial began on March 7. Still reed-thin and wobbly, she stood before Brady in the same dark floral blouse and brown dress she had worn to court the day before. Her tousled salt-and-pepper hair was now mostly gray and her skin was pale and drawn.

It was 9:05
AM
when the proceedings got underway. As the prosecution can both open and close the final arguments, jurors heard first from ADA Sequeira that morning. Susan would step before the court that afternoon to deliver her final remarks—after informing Judge Brady she didn’t want her photo taken after the reading of the verdict.

Jurors sat stone-faced as a weepy Susan walked to the podium just after the lunch break. Despite repeated admonishments from the judge, she had objected no less than sixteen times during the prosecutor’s closing remarks that morning.

“Imagine for a second there’s a man on top of you,” Susan began. “What would you do? I kicked him in the groin.”

Susan listed seven reasons why she could not have killed Felix: her arms are not long enough, she’s not big enough to throw Felix to the floor, she had injuries herself, the distribution of the stab wounds, the nature of the head trauma, the physical improbability and a lack of intent to kill.

Compounding her physical inability to murder Felix was the fact that, according to her, a proper investigation never took place. “Anything they found that didn’t fit with murder, they erased.” She contended that police never subpoenaed Felix’s naval records. “I wrote the navy for them and they sent them within two weeks.” In addition, she argued that they didn’t want to locate Felix’s computer “because theoretically it could have shown that Felix was trying to kill me.”

“I made up my husband’s history of violence?” she posed. “Come on.

“According to the D.A., I’m delusional. According to my husband, I was delusional, but I was in charge of our stock portfolio…. This trial has become a witch hunt,” she insisted, anxiously watching the clock in
the rear of the courtroom to stay within her time limit. “Am I on trial for saying I predicted the 9/11 terror attacks or am I on trial for murder?”

Susan insisted that even if jurors believed she “is as guilty as a bedbug” they should vote to acquit her because she killed her husband in self-defense.

“Please use your common sense and do not be swayed by the misrepresentations of the district attorney,” she concluded.

And with that, Susan Polk rested her case.

She looked glum as she shuffled back to her seat at the defense table, where a framed photo of a young Eli Polk was propped in front of her. Valerie Harris was seated next to her at the table in a chair traditionally reserved for lawyers. Throughout the proceedings, local attorneys tending to matters in the courthouse had voiced surprise over the court’s decision to allow Harris to sit in that seat. Judge Brady even softened and gave Susan an additional ten minutes to finish her closing remarks that day. But there had been almost nothing traditional about the way Susan’s case had played out over the thirteen weeks. It was on this note that the prosecutor began his last argument to the jury.

“There’s two sets of rules,” Sequeira said during his rebuttal remarks. “There’s one set for Susan Polk and one set for the rest. She lives by her own rules and always has.” He noted that Susan had originally claimed that the sexual relationship with Felix began when she was sixteen. On the stand, she now realized that she was actually fourteen at the time. “The problem is, it’s just like everything else in this case. Sixteen wasn’t good enough. Then fifteen wasn’t good enough. Now it’s fourteen.

“And now she’s being raped and drugged.

“It doesn’t matter, if it was twenty, it’s still wrong.” Sequeira maintained. “But it’s never good enough.”

Walking to the overhead projector, the prosecutor replaced Susan’s childhood photo with a photo of the crime scene. He told jurors, “Susan was not a captive. She was free to leave whenever she wanted. Felix even made arrangements for travel out of the country.”

Reading from Susan’s statements to police during her interview at headquarters that first night, Sequeira strode around the courtroom and replayed her repeated claims of innocence. He also discussed her suicide
attempt at Yosemite National Park, her revelations about her marriage at her fortieth birthday party and her theory about Felix’s death.

As he spoke, Susan could not quell the urge to jump up and object to his remarks, but the judge threatened her with sanctions if her protests continued. Once she settled back in her seat, Sequeira laid out his theory of how the murder unfolded. “She did it by surprise,” he said, charging that Susan had the knife with her when she went to speak with Felix in the guesthouse that night. The prosecutor noted that defense pathologist John Cooper had contended the knife used in the assault would not be the weapon of choice to commit a murder. It was too small.

“Oh really?” Sequeira said, raising his arm in the air with dramatic flourish. Standing beneath the judge’s bench, he rapped three times on the ledge of the desk, pretending he was gripping a large knife as Felix answered the door. “‘Can I come in?’” he said, mimicking Susan. “And she’s standing there with a kitchen knife this long?”

Laughter engulfed the courtroom.

Despite the previous warnings from Judge Brady, Susan continued to object, calling for a mistrial no less than five times during the forty-six-minute rebuttal presentation. Nevertheless, Sequeira was not deterred, and when referring to Susan’s accusation that police had “staged” the crime scene, he asked “How did they do it? Couldn’t they have done a better job?

“Felix had blood on his knees. Why would he have blood on his knees if he fell backward? The car, she moved it. Why? The knife, where did it come from? Did it come from his underwear? Susan took the knife from the house. This is evidence of premeditation. The Maglite, if she did not use it as a weapon, then why did she need to wash it off?

“I can only ask you to do the right thing,” Sequeira concluded. “Justice for Dr. Polk and his children is now in your hands.”

Judgment day for Susan Polk was near.

On Tuesday, June 12, jurors got the case—but not before Judge Brady informed Susan that she had failed to enter many of Felix’s naval records into evidence, meaning that jurors could not consider them in their deliberations. Susan was uncharacteristically subdued. Realizing the error was hers, she barely argued with Brady over the pronouncement.
She requested only that the judge greet jurors each morning. She wanted to be sure that they were properly admonished not to read or listen to the news or talk outside the jury room about the case. She also wanted them to have a plastic magnifying device that Valerie Harris had purchased for her at Staples to be able to examine crime scene photos and other evidence carefully.

The judge agreed and then directed jurors to begin deliberations in the jury assembly room on the first floor after lunch.

J
urors had been deliberating for four days when the announcement came that they had reached a verdict on Friday, June 16.

That morning, Susan, dressed in a black, long-sleeved shirt, sat alone at the defense table awaiting their decision. Her mother and brother were in San Diego and had asked that someone phone if there was an acquittal. Eli, the only son who had supported her at trial, was still in jail serving his sentence for assaulting his girlfriend.

Outside the courtroom, there were four uniformed deputies posted to handle the crush of trial watchers anxious to hear the decision. Prosecutor Paul Sequeira and Contra Costa District Attorney Robert J. Kochly seemed in good spirits as they stood in the hallway. Sequeira entered the courtroom first, with Adam, Gabe, and the Briners in tow. Susan’s two sons were dressed casually in jeans and short-sleeve, collared shirts.

It was 11:25
AM
when a hush fell over the courtroom.

Fighting back tears, Susan turned to look for her sons in the gallery. Adam and Gabe were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the front row, the Briners by their side. Valerie Harris was in the courtroom, but not yet in her usual chair.

“Turn off all cell phones and Blackberrys,” the bailiff instructed. “No one is permitted to leave before the jury.”

“Count one,” clerk Nancy Chertkow read aloud from the verdict sheet. “Not guilty on the charge of murder in the first degree.

“On the count of ‘use of a deadly weapon,’” the clerk said “Not guilty.”

Susan looked astonished and just a bit hopeful. Then the clerk continued.

“Lesser count one, guilty of murder in the second degree,” Chertkow announced. “Use of a knife, true.”

Susan sat expressionless as the guilty verdict resonated in the courtroom. After three months of testimony, jurors had convicted her of second-degree murder and found that the special enhancement, using the knife in the act of murder, applied.

Adam Polk let out an audible sigh when the guilty verdict was read. From his seat in the gallery, he addressed the court. “Susan had no right to take him from us,” he said, thanking jurors for enduring the lengthy trial. Gabe was silent.

Susan Polk was impassive, revealing no emotion as she sat alone with her chin resting in her hand.

Members of the media were on the edge of their chairs, gathering up their belongings as jurors were individually polled and then led from the courtroom. The jurors’ exit prompted a mad dash to the first floor for the much-awaited press conference. After four months of testimony, everyone was anxious to hear what jurors had to say.

“We didn’t think Susan was credible,” jury foreperson, Lisa Cristwell, told the media. “We didn’t believe it was self-defense in any way.”

Picking up on the language of the trial, another juror, Kathy Somesse, described Susan as “delusional,” saying that while jurors didn’t believe the murder was premeditated, they also didn’t believe Susan’s version of events. In a one-on-one interview with Court TV’s Lisa Sweetingham, Somesse said jurors first ruled out self-defense with their own reenactment of the killing as Susan claimed it occurred.

“We actually reenacted the events that Susan said happened, and after doing that, we determined it wasn’t possible for her to inflict those stab wounds the way she said she did.” she said.

During the deliberations, she continued, jurors were “split between murder one and murder two, with some strong murder ones and some strong murder twos.”

“The evidence was pretty clear,” added juror Pat Roland.

Roland noted that Susan hid her husband’s car at the commuter station and initially denied any role in the killing. But, unable to find premeditation beyond a reasonable doubt, the panel ruled out first-degree murder.

Roland also said jurors found testimony from Susan’s middle son, Eli, unconvincing, noting there was “a lot of coaching” going on between Susan and her son. In contrast, all twelve panelists agreed that Gabriel Polk’s testimony was “pivotal” to the case. “He was the first one on the scene,” said juror, Bob Borkenhagen.

“He was fifteen at the time of the murder, and his first reaction after finding his father’s body was not to go and tell his mother, but to hide from his mother and call 911 and say ‘my mother shot my father,’” Somesse added. “That was very telling.”

Somesse admitted that jurors remain perplexed as to Susan’s motive for the killing. “I think we all speculated what the motive was and wondered about it a lot,” she said. “But we really don’t know. I think it was a controlling thing.”

Remarkably, jurors said that Susan’s provocative behavior in court did not sway their opinion of the evidence in the case—though they did find it “painful” at times. “Good or bad, I got to know who Susan Polk is, as a person, and there was a point where I looked at all the facts in the deliberation room, and I asked, ‘Could Susan Polk have killed someone?’ and because I knew her, I felt the answer was yes.”

“O
h, my God, my life is over.”

Susan’s voice rang through the empty courtroom, as she comprehended the jury’s verdict. She had waited until the last spectator had filtered out of the room before reacting, and now, with Valerie Harris at her side, the outcome hit home.

“We’re just starting another phase of the fight,” Valerie Harris assured her, but her words seemed lost on Susan.

Once she regained her composure, Susan asked that Harris talk to the jurors on her behalf. She wanted to know their responses to two questions: how they addressed her credibility as her own attorney, and what she did or said that suggested she should not be believed? Continuing to look at the situation with an element of pragmatism, she asked Judge Brady to advise her about legal options. Brady responded by informing Susan that she would need to file supporting evidence to be eligible for an appeal, prompting Susan to charge anew that county officials could not be objective in her case. “Throughout this trial, there has been fabricated and suppression of evidence by county officials,” she complained. “It would be preferable to appoint the state public defender’s office.”

Outside the courtroom, Sequeira said he was “ecstatic” with the verdict, although he admitted that facing off against Susan “wore me down.” Prosecuting her had been the most difficult task of his career, he said, adding that his courtroom opponent was “the most hateful” person he ever met. Sequeira said his only regret was that he had been unable to counter Susan’s punishing character assassination of her husband. While he had potential witnesses who would have painted a “better perspective” of Felix’s character, the district attorney’s office had chosen to center its case around Susan’s role in the killing—and not on the couple’s relationship.

Over the course of the summer, Susan’s sentencing date was postponed several times. In July, she announced her desire to be represented by counsel Charles Hoehn at her presentencing hearing, but when Judge Brady declined to grant attorney Hoehn’s request for an immediate transcript of the trial, the lawyer stepped down, leaving Susan with no representation. To further complicate matters, the Contra Costa County Bar Association’s Conflict Panel that assigns attorneys for defendants was unable to find anyone willing to take Susan’s case. Nineteen attorneys with homicide experience refused to represent Polk, citing conflicts of interest or jam-packed schedules.

In August, Valerie Harris requested a two-day delay to allow attorney Dan Russo to confer with Susan. But when the parties returned to
court on Tuesday, August 15, the judge was informed that Russo was declining the case. He told Brady that Susan was “not completely comfortable with me.”

The lawyer told Brady that Point Richmond attorney Linda Fullerton, a member of the county bar association’s conflict panel, was interested in representing Susan, and the judge scheduled another hearing date. Outside court, Harris said Russo was “fabulous,” but that Susan needed a lawyer who could be available on a full-time basis to “hit the ground running.” They must also be open to the possibility of asking for a new trial, she said. As Harris said, “I’ve got a little laundry list of items to give to the next attorney.”

Meanwhile, Prosecutor Paul Sequeira accused Susan of stalling. He noted that almost two months had passed since her conviction and still there was no sentencing date.

“I’m going to ask for a reasonable date to be set,” he said. “The victim’s family has the right to a judgment entered.”

Susan faces incarceration at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla for a period of sixteen years to life. Opened in October 1990, the facility is located on 640 acres in Northern California and is the largest women’s prison in the United States. Susan would be sixty-two years old before becoming eligible for parole in 2020.

Sequeira raised doubts as to whether authorities would ever release Susan. “The parole board will only let you out after you acknowledge your guilt, say you’re sorry, and go through some therapy in prison,” he told reporters at a press conference. “I’ll let you figure out if any of those three things are ever going to happen.”