Broderick Attorney Names Alleged Middleman : Trial: The defense lawyer is reprimanded for bringing up a reputed murder-for-hire scheme before TV cameras.

At a hearing Monday on a separate topic, the attorney for Elisabeth Anne (Betty) Broderick disclosed the name of a man he claims her ex-husband contacted about having her killed in a murder-for-hire scheme.

The disclosure came at the end of the day, with no one present except the judge, the attorneys and a handful of reporters, including a cameraman for the Courtroom Television Network, which, at the time, was broadcasting live via cable in 44 states.

Jurors had been excused for the day.

Prosecutors Kerry Wells and Paul Burakoff were debating defense attorney Jack Earley about whether to allow the testimony of Daniel J. Sonkin, a Marin County marriage and family counselor who said during last year’s trial that Elisabeth Broderick was a battered woman.

Broderick, 44, is in her second trial on charges of murdering her ex-husband, Daniel T. Broderick III, 44, and his second wife, Linda Kolkena Broderick, 28, in the bedroom of their Marston Hills home on the morning of Nov. 5, 1989. Last year’s trial ended in a hung jury.

The defense contends that Broderick was driven to the slayings by the legal maneuverings of her ex-husband, a prominent medical malpractice attorney and past president of the San Diego County Bar Assn., with whom she was engaged in a prolonged and bitter divorce.

In phrasing a question about Sonkin, Earley began by saying, “Obviously, the court is taking a position at this time, that--and still my position with Dr. Sonkin is--that we have the evidence of Paul Taylor, who, uh, Mr. Broderick solicited to murder, uh . . . “

Wells angrily objected to his wording, and the judge agreed, accusing Earley of posturing for the press and then clearing the courtroom.

After protests earlier in the day from The Times and the Union-Tribune, Whelan had agreed to let reporters sit in during hearings at which jurors were not present. But he said bench conferences between himself and lawyers for both sides would not be available in court transcripts provided to the public, although a court official transcribes all such proceedings and makes them part of the official record.

After Earley’s disclosure, the judge and the attorneys met privately for almost an hour. Afterward, a prosecution investigator said the attorneys had been given a gag order by the judge to keep them from talking with the media.

Upon leaving the courtroom, Wells was asked if the judge was inclined to allow the testimony of Paul Taylor in regard to the murder-for-hire scheme.

“I don’t think so,” Wells said, but declined to talk further.

Contacted Monday night, Taylor confirmed that Earley wanted him to testify, but he declined to discuss the matter further.

The allegation about the murder-for-hire scheme first surfaced Friday, when Earley broached the subject during Elisabeth Broderick’s testimony.

He asked a series of questions about whether her ex-husband had consistently acted in the best interests of the couple’s four children.

He asked if Daniel Broderick had “done anything to protect the children” from the effects of his extramarital affair with Linda Broderick, his second wife and former legal assistant, whom he began seeing in 1983, three years before the couple’s divorce.

But Earley stunned the courtroom when he asked if Daniel Broderick had ever talked with someone “about having you killed.”

Neither prosecutor objected, but, for the rest of the day, much of the courtroom action was limited to heated bench discussions with Judge Whelan and the lawyers.

Whelan admonished jurors to disregard Earley’s comments about a hired killer and to avoid reading newspapers or watching television in case the issue was reported.

Sources said Monday that Whelan is not inclined to allow Taylor’s testimony, because Elisabeth Broderick was not aware of any alleged murder-for-hire scheme at the time of the slayings, and thus it could not be relevant to her state of mind.

The only witness to appear Monday was Katherine DiFrancesca, a psychologist who, in testifying for the defense, said Elisabeth Broderick was a “borderline” and “histrionic” personality who suffered from severe depression.

DiFrancesca said that, as a histrionic personality, Broderick was a “people-pleaser,” who, during the divorce, became “bombastic” because her only method of problem-solving was to use her ex-husband as a role model, and that was her perception of him.

She said her ex-husband’s extramarital affair and his refusal to acknowledge it, followed by separation and divorce, was a devastating blow to a woman whose identity was wrapped up completely in her husband’s.