A Mother's Trial

by Wright, Nancy

  Under Josh’s gentle questioning, she told her story to the jury.

  “Mindy was in my custody from March third to July eighteenth of last year. I never noticed any blueness while she was with me. She didn’t vomit or have diarrhea or convulsions. She was walking when she left.”

  “Did she ever have temper tantrums?”

  “No. But if anyone said, ‘No, no’ to her she’d kind of pout and cry. We didn’t dare say ‘No, no’ too often,” she added engagingly.

  “Did you ever take her to the doctor?”

  “Yes, to Dr. Hardy once for a sore throat.”

  “Did she cry when she saw doctors or nurses?”

  “Yes. But mine have always cried when I took them to the doctor.”

  “Was there ever a time when you were waiting in the Waiting Room for the doctor when Mindy had loose stools?”

  “Yes. Once we had to take her for a checkup, and I had given her a little Milk of Magnesia because she was going hard the day before, which I had forgotten. While we were waiting, her bowels moved, but it wasn’t diarrhea.”

  “Did Mindy ever wear a helmet while she was with you?”

  “No.”

  Josh had asked Mrs. Portillo to bring some photographs of Mindy that she had taken at her house, and these were entered as evidence. Then the district attorney singled one out.

  “There is a plaque in this photograph you’ve brought, Mrs. Portillo. What is that plaque?”

  “It is the Last Supper,” she said.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Portillo.”

  “Mr. Caldwell?” the judge asked. Ed paused. He was afraid a cross-examination might turn the jury against him and damage the case even more than this witness already had. He knew Mrs. Portillo had made a strong contrast to Pat Wrigley; she was not only an older woman, but on crutches. He did not want to antagonize the jury by badgering her.

  “No questions, your Honor,” he finally said, taking a step he would later regret. Josh looked at Ted and smiled.

  On Tuesday, Jim Hutchison was asked to appear in the judge’s chambers to discuss his upcoming testimony. Jim had been approached by both sides in the case to appear as a witness, and for a long time he had hedged. Finally, Ted Lindquist had cornered him in a bowling alley and handed him a subpoena.

  “I don’t think I can help you much,” Jim had said to Ted. “There is a penitential relationship after all.”

  That was only one of the factors in this increasingly uncomfortable relationship. Jim had come to terms with one thing: he believed that Priscilla was capable of committing the crimes. But this did not relieve him of his responsibility. He remained her pastor and he believed his duty was to support her. But given his feelings, this was difficult. It was an increasing struggle to hide what he felt. To further complicate their relationship, he knew that Priscilla and Steve both had learned of his involvement with the police after her arrest,

  Priscilla had read Lindquist’s report of his interview with Hutchison. And Steve, in particular, had taken that interview as a betrayal. Still, Priscilla had continued to solicit Jim’s support and advice, and he knew his absence from their house had hurt her.

  Finally Jim had decided to let the court make the decision. He had suggested in church that his parishioners do likewise since the congregation was deeply upset and divided over the case. Priscilla’s supporters were both legion and vociferous. But there were perhaps just as many who could not abide Priscilla in their midst, who resented the way she walked around pretending her life was unchanged.

  “I’m not guilty. Why should I behave as though I am?” she had said to Jim and to others.

  In the judge’s chambers it was decided that the confidentiality of penitential communication was not in force when a third person was present. Jim Hutchison could testify to conversations that had taken place at Kaiser-San Rafael on February twenty-sixth in the presence of both Priscilla and Steve Phillips.

  As it turned out, however, Jim’s testimony was uneventful. There were more objections on various issues other than his testimony. Jim described Priscilla’s uncontrollable weeping on the occasion of their meeting in the ICU Quiet Room. He went on to mention Priscilla’s fears that people would believe Dr. Callas’s inferences about Mindy’s illness. But he left the stand feeling that he had neither hurt Priscilla nor helped her with his testimony, and that this was all to the best. Priscilla had given him a tremulous smile as he left.

  Since Judge Burke was attending a conference in Williamsburg on Thursday and Friday, the last day of the week’s testimony was changed to Wednesday. Most of the day was given over to in camera, or private discussions on three issues: first, the admissibility of a witness Josh Thomas wanted to call; next, Dr. Blinder’s credentials—which had been questioned by Dr. Chaffin—and finally, the admissibility of Satten’s tapes.

  Josh wanted to call Marcine Johnson, who was the Kaiser psychologist Priscilla had visited in 1969, when—pregnant with Erik—she was afraid that her arguments with Steve would harm her baby. Ed adamantly opposed allowing the witness to testify, and the judge, deciding that the testimony was too remote in time and in scope, agreed with him, so Dr. Johnson was excused.

  “Your Honor, I had Detective Lindquist verify that Dr. Blinder held the title of supervising psychiatrist for the private inpatient psychiatric service at the University of California, and that his duties were to perform the function of instructor and administrator to the staff of the inpatient psychiatric service. He held this position from October 1967 to October 1968. The hospital involved was Moffitt Hospital at the University of California,” Josh then told the judge.

  “I will stipulate to that,” said Caldwell.

  “I want it read to the jury,” Josh insisted.

  “Agreed,” Caldwell said. “It looks like there was some semantic confusion about Langley Porter and Moffitt Hospital. I guess both are connected with UC Med Center,” he added in explanation of his witness’s contradictory testimony.

  “Yeah—it’s confusing,” Thomas agreed.

  The issue of Satten’s tapes could not be decided. Judge Burke had listened to them and felt that there was a considerable amount of material that would be prejudicial—negative comments about the attorneys and the judge, in particular—and that the tapes should be laundered before presentation to the district attorney.

  “Your concern is the issue of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy,” he told Josh. “Anything else is extraneous and will be removed from your copy of the transcript of the tapes.”

  “All right, Your Honor,” Josh took defeat with a wry smile. The judge and attorneys then returned to open court.

  The last witness of the trial was an Aldersgate parishioner named Beverly Smith. Josh called her to testify to the numerous times Tia’s name had been mentioned in church and the extent to which the congregation had been involved in Tia’s illness. The district attorney hoped to demonstrate Priscilla’s need for attention.

  “I attended three quarters of the Sundays between late 1975 and the middle of 1977, and something about Tia was mentioned every Sunday during Tia’s hospitalization. There would be specific information given, like she was back on IV or NPO,” the nurse-practitioner testified.

  “How many times did you actually talk to Priscilla Phillips during this time?” Ed Caldwell asked pointedly on cross-examination. He knew that Priscilla had attended church only five times during Tia’s eleven months of illness, and only once while Tia was hospitalized.

  “I don’t remember,” Beverly Smith confessed. And on that weak note, the trail of witnesses ended.

  The stipulation regarding Dr. Blinder was read to the jury and court was adjourned. All that remained were the final arguments and the jury instructions.

  Week 10

  On Monday, May 21, 1979, Deputy District Attorney Josh Thomas began his closing arguments. He had prepared very carefully and very thoroughly for these last moments before the jury.

  “There are two issues in this case,” he began, “
perhaps three, if you want to look at it that way. Number one: Were Tia’s symptoms caused by sodium poisoning? Number two: Were Mindy’s? And number three: If so, was Priscilla Phillips responsible?”

  Step by step, the district attorney led the jury through an elaborate rerun of the evidence that he believed provided unequivocal affirmative answers to the questions he had posed. He reminded the jury of the testimony of Dr. Malcolm Holliday and Dr. Boyd Stephens; both had stated that no explanation existed for the children’s symptoms other than an exogenous source of sodium.

  “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 childrearing 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 wo
rld 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 babysitting 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.