Susan Polk, a 47-year-old woman who has been charged with the murder of her husband, 70-year-old Felix Polk in October 2002, has said that the two computers seized from her defense attorney Daniel Horowitz's house might weaken her own defense case.
In a high profile case, Horowitz wife, Pamela Vitale, was found bludgeoned to death in their home in Lafayette on October 15 this year. The couple's 16-year-old neighbor, Scott Dyleski, has been arrested and charged with 52-year-old Vitale's murder.
Polk, who hails from Orinda and is now lodged in the West County Detention Facility in Richmond, claims that important files pertaining to her defense were in the computers that were taken away by the authorities in line with routine investigations into the Vitale case. According to Polk, vital information like her statements related to her personal interactions with the defense attorney, a history of the case and the motions filed are in the computer.
“There are questions of what is fair practice. Does the prosecution have the right to see, in advance, the entire plan, essentially, of the defense?” Polk said. However, she maintains that she killed her husband in self defense after he threatened her with a knife. “I'm not concerned about them finding anything incriminating, because I'm innocent,” Polk said, while asserting her decision to stick with Horowitz in her case.
Questions are now being raised about the solution to the dilemma. Under the investigations, law enforcement authorities will have to examine matter contained in the computer for the Vitale case. According to Californian law, a 'special master' would have to be appointed to handle Horowitz's possession as the computers belong to an attorney.
“I'd be surprised if they didn't use a special master, because under state law you would ordinarily take that precaution, and this stuff would have been sealed. No one would have looked at it until there's permission from the court,” said Laurie Levinson, and expert from the Loyola University Law School.
For now, the computers, which were obtained through Horowitz's permission, have been handed over to an Alameda County computer forensics task force. The prosecutors are yet to see the files on the computers.
Meanwhile, the teenager who has been accused of Vitale's murder has been charged as an adult and a bail of US$ 1 million has been set for his release. Vitale was beaten with a wood molding 39 times and a T-shaped symbol was carved onto her back.
“It is obvious, independent of the attention that this case has brought, that this is a brutal homicide. Because he is very close to his 17th birthday, we believe that it's a situation where he's not entitled to the protections afforded him under the juvenile law,” said Harold Jewett, the deputy district attorney of Contra Costa. If convicted, Dyleski faces 26 years to life imprisonment.
According to media reports, scratch marks on Dyleski's body are consistent with Horowitz's statement that his wife seems to have fought her attacker. The incident is believed to have occurred after Dyleski ran into Vitale when he went to the Horowitz home to find a marijuana-growing tool he had ordered online using stolen credit cards.
However, while Dyleski's relatives have refused to believe he was capable of murder, his schoolmates said he seemed to have changed a few years ago and had been exhibiting weird behavior. “He's just a good kid. He really is. The boy I watched turn into a young man is polite, likes sports and is very friendly. I'd talked to him recently and he was really proud graduating. He's very bright, very intelligent. He said he wanted to be a sound engineer,” said a family friend on conditions of anonymity.
But school friends say Dyleski's behavior became bizarre after eighth grade, after which he started wearing black clothes, colored his hair and wore silver trinkets and black nail paint. One of his classmates said the boy claimed to be reading the book of Satan and sometimes drew ritualistic symbols on the ground.
