Murder or Manslaughter? Prosecution, Defense Make Final Pleas on Broderick

Elisabeth Anne (Betty) Broderick committed murder in shooting her ex-husband and his new wife because her actions were “intentional, calculated, deliberate and incredibly cold,” the prosecution said Wednesday during closing arguments in Broderick’s second murder trial.

Defense attorney Jack Earley said Broderick should be held accountable but argued that she was driven to the double homicide by years of emotional abuse from her ex-husband, prominent lawyer Daniel T. Broderick III.

At worst, Earley said, her crime is voluntary manslaughter.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kerry Wells told the seven-man, five-woman jury, which may begin deliberating today, that Broderick was guilty of premeditated first-degree murder because killing two people who “lay helpless in their sleep” conformed to the definition of such a crime.

“Did she commit first-degree murder? Absolutely,” Wells said. “Under the law, her actions were willful, deliberate, premeditated. . . . If that isn’t murder, I don’t know what is.”

The prosecution is seeking a sentence of life in prison without parole. The maximum sentence for manslaughter is 15 years, but, in killing two people, Broderick could receive a sentence of up to 30 years if convicted on that charge.

In a closing argument that took most of Wednesday’s session, Earley began by placing a ticking metronome on the witness stand. He said it offered no better example of the “drip, drip, drip” by which Daniel Broderick attempted to drive his ex-wife crazy.

“It goes on and on,” Earley said. “The sound is enough to drive you crazy after you hear it over and over and over again.”

Earley said “no one thing” led to Broderick finally snapping, a break he compared to the rusting of a pipe that corrodes “day by day by day.”

Wells will attempt to rebut Earley’s closing with a final argument today, followed by instructions to the jury from Superior Court Judge Thomas J. Whelan.

Jurors in last year’s trial deliberated four days before announcing that they could not reach a verdict. The hung jury resulted from 10 jurors favoring a murder conviction and two holding out for manslaughter.

Earley asked the jury to consider manslaughter by putting themselves in Broderick’s place. He defined her crime as occurring in the “heat of passion” and said such an act would be “aroused in the mind of an ordinarily responsible person in the same circumstances.”

Broderick, 44, is accused of murdering Daniel Broderick, 44, a past president of the San Diego County Bar Assn., and his second wife, Linda Kolkena Broderick, 28, in the bedroom of their Marston Hills home on the morning of Nov. 5, 1989.

Wells argued that, whether the jury sees the crime as first- or second-degree murder, it was murder nonetheless, and, although she defined the crime as first-degree murder, she indicated implicitly that it was at least second-degree.

Wells picked up the weapon Broderick used just before dawn on a Sunday and said, “You don’t point a .38-caliber gun that you know is loaded with hollow-point bullets at two people just inches away without intending to kill them. That’s murder.”

Wells noted that Broderick’s testimony about what happened in the bedroom differed in the first and second trials. This year, Broderick said she became frightened when Linda Broderick yelled “Call the police!” and that she never remembered firing five shots.

Last year, Wells said, Broderick made no mention of Linda Broderick’s comment and said, explicitly, that she fired the Smith & Wesson revolver five times.

Wells said that Broderick then walked over to a dying and bleeding Daniel Broderick and smacked his hand with the butt of her gun because he was lunging for the telephone.

And, Wells said, Broderick ripped the phone cord out of the wall before leaving to prevent anyone calling for help.

“This is not panicked conduct,” Wells said. “This is intentional, calculated, deliberate, incredibly cold conduct.”

Wells said Broderick made numerous threats about killing her ex-husband and his wife, some of which occurred in obscenity-filled phone calls left on the couple’s answering machine. Wells said one such threat came in a call to Danny, then 11, the Broderick’s oldest son.

And, Wells said angrily, Broderick even told her children she had killed their father “for them.”

Citing the testimony of Kim Broderick, 21, the couple’s oldest daughter, Wells said, “Talk about a guilt trip to lay on a child for the rest of your life, to say, ‘I killed your father for you.’ ”

And, without a doubt, Wells said, “No one but Elisabeth Broderick caused that trigger to be pulled. And she pulled it again and again and again and again.”

Earley said Broderick had been betrayed by an ex-husband to whom control and show meant everything. He argued that, had a man been stripped of his job, his dreams, his children, his ambitions and his spouse, the legal system would have treated him better.

He told the jury that Daniel Broderick embarked on a carefully orchestrated campaign to discredit his ex-wife and “show the world that she was crazy.”

For example, Daniel Broderick meticulously edited the tapes later played by the prosecution during the trial to buttress claims against his ex-wife during the prolonged divorce and custody dispute, Earley contended.

And, Earley said, Broderick hired security guards to protect him and his second wife during their wedding at the Marston Hills estate, telling the invited guests his ex-wife had made death threats against them.

But, as a prominent medical malpractice attorney earning more than $100,000 a month, Broderick never saw fit, Earley said, to outfit his home with a basic security system.

“He wanted to announce, ‘World, I have a crazy wife!’ ” Earley said. “He doesn’t even hook up a security system, because a security system doesn’t stand on a corner and wear a badge. . . . It’s silent, the world doesn’t see it, so to him, it was just no good.”