A Mother's Trial (41 page)

“And there were no rebuttal witnesses by the defense,” Josh pointed out to the jury.

Because it was a point of inconsistency and might bother the jury, Josh covered two of Tia’s admissions—and there were others, he admitted—during which there were high sodium levels recorded in her blood yet little diarrhea. He reminded the jury that Dr. Holliday had provided an explanation for that, as well as for the times when there was increased diarrhea and vomiting without elevated sodium levels.

Then Josh touched on some of the defendant’s peculiar emotional responses. Her reactions to the placement of Mindy in ICU were strange, he said, as were her curious lapses of memory about crucial issues.

“Contrast those with her IBM memory when it came to incidental details of no consequence,” he said.

“For instance, during her examination she corrected Mr. Caldwell when he said, ‘Wasn’t a hyperalimentation line installed on the twenty-sixth or the twenty-first?’ And she said, ‘No, no. That was the twentieth of April.’ And she did not even refer to her notes. That was
three
years ago, let me remind you! But I’d like to contrast that with her conversation with Detective Lindquist on March the seventh when he started zeroing in on the question of whether this statement was made about the formula—whether Mrs. Phillips had mixed it—and suddenly she couldn’t recall, although that conversation had only taken place two weeks before.”

After recess, Josh moved to the issue of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. He impugned the objectivity of Dr. Satten, reminding the jury of the psychiatrist’s failure to bring his notes for cross-examination and of his failure to mention Dr. Berg’s report about the defendant.

Then he attacked Pat Wrigley, his voice deep with sarcasm.

“What did you think of Pat Wrigley, ladies and gentlemen, when she testified on the stand? Well, it became apparent to me, as I hope it did to you, that she was exaggerating. One thousand cc’s of fluid in an hour, pouring down a leg onto the floor? And this occurring repeatedly? Picture Mindy convulsing in a bathtub, but playing around with her toys. Does this seem reasonable? And would you send your child to school the next day if she lost a quart of fluid like that?

“Mindy never had a well day, Mrs. Wrigley testified. Well, she must have had an iron constitution because she never missed a day at school, either. And I’ll never forget a statement Mrs. Wrigley said when she was describing the adoption of Mindy. You know there are some people who look upon children as possessions. ‘Sarah, in a couple of days, will be completely, irrevocably, forever ours or mine,’ whatever it was she said. I think that statement says a lot about Mrs. Wrigley.

“And I will submit to you also—and I may be stretching a point here—it seemed to me that the evidence showed a striking similarity between Mrs. Wrigley and Mrs. Phillips. They got along famously, didn’t they? As a matter of fact, during one recess Mrs. Wrigley went over and gave Mrs. Phillips a big hug. And didn’t you think they seemed to see eye-to-eye on the development of children? And the desire to make themselves look good? Contrast that with Mrs. Portillo. No esoteric child-rearing programs there—just a basic down-to-earth person, an honest person, and very loving. Remember that newspaper article the Wrigleys submitted into evidence on Sarah’s adoption? That got a little bit of publicity and beating of the drum—as if to say, ‘Boy, we’re really great folks. We adopt these kids. We’re the saviors of the earth!’ That’s the Pat Wrigleys. That’s the Priscilla Phillipses.”

Josh’s voice was ragged with exhaustion. Because he knew he had ninety minutes of argument remaining, he requested and was granted a recess for the day.

That afternoon, as a hushed audience listened to Josh Thomas in Marin County Superior Court, the verdict in the trial of Dan White for the murder of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk was announced in San Francisco. Dr. Martin Blinder—one of several psychiatrists called by the defense in that case—had delivered a remarkably cogent and believable argument on the stand to the effect that a variety of factors, including White’s diet of Cokes and Twinkies, had affected his behavior in the days leading up to the murders and had diminished his capacity to plan his actions.

To the shock and surprise of virtually everyone, the jury found Dan White guilty merely of voluntary manslaughter, and that night the San Francisco gay community reacted in outrage. Furious riots broke out and continued throughout what was to be dubbed White Night.

In his office on Van Ness later that evening, Ed Caldwell looked out at the dome of City Hall—scene of the murders six months before, and of the riots that night—and despaired. This verdict could only rebound negatively on his client, he believed.
His
jury would not wish to live through the recriminations White’s jury was facing now. A lawyer could control only so much of his case, he thought briefly. And no matter what he did, how effective he was in the courtroom, there were always the extraneous elements: a juror whose past history of possible sexual molestation might cause him to decide unfavorably; another juror’s flu that had given a bored and undignified Pat Wrigley an opportunity to stick her tongue out at the prosecutor; a mild verdict in the White trial; an upcoming holiday weekend that might pressure the jury into a quick, undeliberated verdict. Caldwell sighed. He still hoped the verdict would hinge on the jury’s perception of Priscilla Phillips. In the end, it all came down to that. The client was the center of the case. If they believed her and liked her, they would let her go. If not, they would convict her. But now, with critical reaction mounting against the White jury, a manslaughter verdict for Priscilla seemed remote.

The case went to the jury on Wednesday afternoon. The weather had turned very hot the last few days, with temperatures into the eighties, but the Jury Room to which the twelve men and women retired was air-conditioned and comfortable. The bailiffs had brought in all the trial exhibits.

The four-man, eight-woman jury did not so much file as slouch into the room. The last few days had been dramatic and emotional. After Josh Thomas had finished his oral argument on Tuesday, Ed Caldwell followed with an impassioned argument of his own. While Thomas had been systematic, complete to the point of redundancy, and logical, Caldwell relied more on drama and rhetoric. As he had in his opening argument nine weeks before, the defense attorney skipped from point to point, underlining those holes in the prosecution’s case that he felt provided the jury with reasonable doubt.

He reminded the jurors of the presumption of innocence. “In this situation,” he said, “you have sworn that you would follow the standard of the law that holds the prosecution to the burden of proof, and that you will not return a verdict of guilty unless you are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of Priscilla Phillips’s guilt.”

As Josh had foreseen, Caldwell made much of the medical inconsistencies—the times when elevated sodiums were not accompanied by diarrhea and vice versa. Caldwell also pointed out a nurse’s note on Mindy Phillips dated February 27, 1978—two days after her placement in ICU—indicating that Mindy’s stool on one occasion had been liquid enough to cover her bed and clothes. This occurred after Mindy had supposedly recovered, Ed said. And, he reminded the jury, Mindy had never been well.

He discussed the difficulty Priscilla Phillips would have had in introducing foul-tasting baking soda into an NG. The syringes were locked up, he reminded the jury, and no traces of sodium compound were found in any of the defendant’s purses. He brought up the legitimate illnesses suffered by Tia and Mindy. He reminded the jury that the medical world was not infallible, that mistakes had been made and acknowledged on the witness stand. A wrong decimal point here, an incorrect medication there. He defended Pat Wrigley and invited the jury to study the photograph of Joey as a skeletal six-month-old—the condition she had brought him home in and cured him of. And in an emotional and rhetorically skillful argument, he attacked Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy as a half-baked theory that twisted a loving mother’s acts to look like the works of the devil.

“What inference would you draw, ladies and gentlemen, if Mrs. Phillips had been neglectful, careless, indifferent, or unloving to Tia and Mindy? Would that suggest innocence? Would that suggest she did not have this syndrome—if such a syndrome even exists?

“If she didn’t lift a hand for a neighbor; if she didn’t have a baby-sitting co-op; if she didn’t participate in it and organize it; if she didn’t go to church; if she didn’t seek the peace and solitude of the minister; if she didn’t participate in this community life at all; if she did nothing for anybody else—would that be an inference of innocence?

“In any event, ladies and gentlemen, no witness in this case testified that Mrs. Phillips had Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. As a matter of fact, all of them testified that she was quite normal. Dr. Blinder did not examine Mrs. Phillips, and without such an examination, he could not and did not render an opinion about Mrs. Phillips. Dr. Satten spent sixteen hours with the family, most of it with Mrs. Phillips. Conclusion: normal. Dr. Kennedy, a Marin County psychiatrist referred by an earlier attorney, examined her. Conclusion: normal. Dr. Bernard Bradman: normal. Dr. Berg: normal. Dr. Cooper: opinion, normal.

“Priscilla and Steve and I and Mr. Collins will be awaiting your decision.”

But no decision was reached that afternoon. The case was given to the jury following a lengthy jury instruction, at two-thirty, and the jurors had time only to elect a foreman and structure the course of their deliberations before they were brought back to court and asked if they had reached a verdict.

“No, Your Honor,” replied Bob Chapman, the silver-haired manager of state disability insurance the jury had selected as their foreman. “And there is no verdict in sight,” he added.

“In that case you will be excused for the day,” said Judge Burke. “You will report at the usual time tomorrow for further deliberations.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow at ten o’clock,” he said.

In the Jury Room the following day, deliberations continued: Bob Chapman laid out their structure according to Josh Thomas’s plan. There were three considerations, or questions to be answered, and they would take them in order, he said. First, had there been a crime? Second, if so, who had committed it? Third, if they concluded that the defendant was guilty, of what was she guilty? Murder in the first degree? the second? manslaughter?

All four men were of the opinion from the beginning of the deliberations that a crime had been committed, that Priscilla Phillips was guilty, and that she should be convicted of first-degree murder.

But among the women there was sharp disagreement. One woman in particular, a sixty-nine-year-old librarian named Rose Bristol, was convinced the defendant was innocent. A church-goer like Priscilla, she believed the defendant to be warm, concerned, and caring. Rose passed the baby books around the table.

“How can a woman so lovingly fill out books like these and still be guilty of murder?” she asked the others. Another woman-juror shrugged.

“Yes, those show she loved the children—but even mothers who love their children sometimes abuse them,” she answered.

Rose shrank back a little. She felt intimidated by these other jurors—all young people. During breaks, they had played cards and chatted with each other while she had sat working her crossword puzzle. She was an outsider.

“Look, let’s go around the table and have each person say what he or she thinks,” the foreman suggested. The others nodded and complied. There was still disagreement.

“Can we agree, at least, that a crime was committed?” asked one of the men.

“I don’t know—”

“But remember what the coroner said?” They were all talking at once suddenly.

“Look, let’s ask for Stephens’s testimony to be reread. The judge said we could do that.”

“Yes, all right. Good idea. Everybody agree?”

The jury filed back into the courtroom after sending a note to the judge.

Burke asked the court reporter to take the part of Dr. Stephens and each attorney to play himself as most of the coroner’s direct testimony was reenacted to the jury. Following this reading, the jury broke for lunch, and afterward, Foreman Chapman sent a note to the judge.

“The jury has heard all they need to of Dr. Stephens’s testimony,” Burke read from the paper handed to him.

“Well, we can’t force the jury to read what they don’t want to, but I’d like them at least to be provided with a copy of the cross-examination of Dr. Stephens because a lot of points were countered on cross—” began Ed Caldwell furiously. Perhaps his most effective cross-examination had been of Dr. Stephens.

“I’d object to that,” Josh broke in.

“Well, I know of no precedents in my own experience for sending in the transcript for the jury to read. We’ll note your objection for the record, Mr. Caldwell.”

Some hours later, the jury requested a rehearing of Dr. Carte's testimony about his meetings with Priscilla. The jury once again returned to the courtroom and this testimony was reenacted. At four-thirty, the jury, still deadlocked, was excused for the day.

Out in the corridor, Steve cornered Ed Caldwell and whispered to him tensely. “What do you think? I think it looks bad that they only wanted to hear Dr. Stephens’s direct testimony.”

Ed shook his head, his face a mask. “You can’t tell from that, Steve. I’ve long ago given up trying to second-guess juries. You never know what’s going through their heads. They could just as easily be ruling things out as ruling them in, you know.”

“I guess you’re right. Hell, I wonder if we’ll ever get through this.”

At two o’clock on Friday, May 25, 1979, on a day when the temperature reached ninety, the jury returned to Courtroom Three with their verdict. They had deliberated for ten hours over two days. Word that a decision had been reached gradually filtered through the Civic Center and out to the numerous friends of Priscilla Phillips who had regularly attended the trial. Reverend Jim Hutchison came over, and Jan Doudiet and Nancy Dacus. But Josh Thomas could not locate Ted Lindquist, who was looking for a witness to an old homicide case and thus missed the finish.