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17 May 2006

Susan Polk, Tuesday: Floor wrasslin'! Stick figures! Psychic predictions! Testicle jokes!→[More:]

Susan Polk took the stand in her own defense yesterday, drawing stick figures to demonstrate how her husband was killed and falling to the floor in an reenactment of the crime.

Polk also continued questioning runaway pathologist John Cooper, asking him if it was conceivable that she could have overpowered her much larger husband after he attacked her. Cooper agreed that, yes, there was one foolproof way to do that.

"Don't men have a particularly vulnerable area of their bodies that women don't have?" Polk asked. "So stipulated!" [prosecutor] Sequeira interjected, indicating that he agreed with her and there was no need for Cooper to answer. The courtroom erupted in laughter.

Sequeira later asked Cooper if he still believed in Polk's defense. Cooper affirmed.

The prosecutor then asked if Cooper still believed in Polk, given that she has claimed to be a psychic who predicted the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "My understanding is that she has considerable psychic ability," Cooper said. "I don't have a problem with it."

Cooper, who like Polk has been at odds with Sequeira throughout his testimony, later said that after spending more time with the prosecutor, he had more respect for him, and acknowledged that Sequeira felt he was doing the right thing.

"Are you asking me out to dinner," Sequeira asked.

"Some other time," replied the pathologist.

post by: mudpuppie at: 15:30 | 7 comments

Thanks pup, I lol'd

posted by pieisexactlythree 17 May | 15:35

Wow, how bizarre. Bizarre, and yet strangely wonderful.

posted by eekacat 17 May | 15:52

I want to see "A particularly vulnerable body area" as a fake username now.

posted by matildaben 17 May | 15:54

I want to see "A particularly vulnerable body area" as a fake username now.
posted by I am the glory that is Specklet's breasts 17 May | 15:54

Your wish has been granted.

posted by mudpuppie 17 May | 16:15

teehee!

posted by taz 17 May | 16:21

you are MUDPUPPIE!

posted by Mrs.Pants 17 May | 16:39

Update, from the Chronicle:

"I'm not going to go into every detail," she said from the stand. "Everyone wants to get on with their lives."

Polk, known for her plodding questioning of witnesses, offered such minute detail at times -- at one point describing her sons' dogs -- that one woman in the audience whispered, "Hurry up."

But Polk, 48, would not be rushed, and by lunch still had not discussed anything that had happened on the day she killed her husband in what she says was an act of self-defense. She alternately smiled at jurors and cried as her assistant, Valerie Harris, showed jurors pictures of Polk as a young girl, her parents' wedding, her own wedding and snapshots of the couple's three sons and dogs.

She said her relationship with Felix Polk was an unhappy one, and her late husband began abusing her physically and psychologically soon after their wedding. The two met when Polk was a teenager seeking counseling. Polk testified that she had cold feet on her wedding day -- she was 25, he was 50 -- but went through with it because she had promised to marry him.

"I didn't believe it was right, that I married my therapist," she said. "I was ashamed of it."

Polk read from several letters she'd written over the years, including one she said she wrote in March 2001 and tucked away in a safe in case her husband ever killed her. In them, Polk documented what she called her husband's abuse and described how he once drugged her and prompted flashbacks that led her to remember he had sexually abused her under the guise of psychotherapy.

But she never told anyone about it early in the relationship because, she said, "I thought telling someone would precipitate me getting killed."

[...]

"This is not carte blanche," Brady said. "This is not an opportunity for a speech. This is a privilege, not a right. You may not like it, but the reality is now that the defendant -- you -- do not dictate how we proceed in this courtroom."

Polk objected and said it was her right to make objections.

"It may appear impertinent or argumentative or unruly to some members of the audience, but it's not," Polk said. "This is not a playground. This is a battle for the truth. This is not a movie. This is not a script."

posted by mudpuppie 17 May | 18:20

← YEEEEAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHH || Fucking stupid day. →

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