Retrial Sought for Kraft Comparison : Tactics Assailed in Massip Conviction

In summing up his murder case against Sheryl Lynn Massip last month, Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Borris drew a comparison for jurors between the Anaheim woman, who ran over and killed her infant child with the family car, and Randy Kraft, who is accused of mass murder.

Borris won his case--the jury convicted Massip of second-degree murder--but now her defense attorney is attacking the conviction on grounds that Borris’ remarks were irresponsible and aimed at inflaming the jury.

In a motion filed in Superior Court in Santa Ana on Tuesday, defense attorney Milton C. Grimes argued that Borris’ “misconduct” is grounds for retrying the charges or for reducing the second-degree murder conviction.

Massip is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 23 by Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald. Rebuffed in her claims that she was temporarily insane, Massip faces 16 years to life in state prison for running over her 6-week-old son in April, 1987.

Borris characterized Grimes’ motion as a standard, last-ditch legal maneuver to avoid a life sentence for his client.

“It’s not the first time we’ve seen (a motion) like this and it won’t be the last” Borris said in an interview. “But it really doesn’t amount to much.”

Grimes acknowledged that appeals for new trials are routine in felony cases. But he insisted in an interview that he believes the evidence of Borris’ misconduct in the trial is compelling.

He suggested in his petition to the court that had it not been for Borris’ “inflammatory insinuations and accusations, . . . (the jury) would probably have reached a more favorable result for the defendant.”

Grimes complained that Borris misleadingly compared Massip to Kraft, suggested that she was a drug abuser (which Massip denies), told jurors jokingly that they could tell that defense attorneys are lying “when they move their lips” and questioned the character of some of Grimes’ expert witnesses.

“One blow (from Borris) doesn’t hurt all that much, but add them up and that can really prejudice a jury,” Grimes said in an interview.

Besides challenging Borris’ conduct in court, Grimes asked Judge Fitzgerald to find that the jury’s verdict was “entirely unreasonable” given the evidence in the case and to grant Massip probation under a lesser verdict.

During the trial, Grimes introduced psychologists as expert witnesses and called Massip herself to testify in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the jury that the defendant was insane at the time she killed her child. Massip claimed she suffered from postpartum psychosis, a rare maternal disorder that can cause severe anxiety, hallucinations and violence in some new mothers.

“I just don’t think the verdict bears out the evidence in the case, and I feel the judge has an obligation to do something about it,” Grimes said. “I’m asking the court to look at this case now as a 13th juror.”