Arguments Completed in Haun’s Penalty Phase

In a final plea for Diana Haun’s life, defense attorneys urged a jury Friday to spare her from execution as prosecutors argued that the convicted murderess deserves no mercy for fatally stabbing her lover’s wife.

“A life sentence is too lenient,” prosecutor Michael Frawley told the jury, concluding the first of four emotionally charged arguments in the penalty trial. “The defendant stole the victim’s life--she stole Sherri Dally’s hopes and dreams. I submit Diana Haun should have no hope.”

But Haun’s two public defenders argued that she was a vulnerable woman who fell under the sway of lover Michael Dally, who they contend manipulated Haun into killing his wife.

They told the jury that the death penalty should be reserved for “the worst of the worst,” and that their client--an educated woman with no prior criminal history--does not deserve a death sentence.

“She is not a monster,” Deputy Public Defender Neil Quinn argued, making the case that Haun will be adequately punished with a life prison term instead. “She is all too frail and she will pay dearly.”

Across the courtroom, Haun sat at the defense table in a conservative suit and dabbed tears with a crumpled tissue, her sniffles occasionally punctuating the dramatic arguments in her high-profile trial.

Haun’s mother, brother, sister and close friends sat two rows behind her, listening silently as prosecutors described her as a vicious, cold-blooded, calculating murderess who boldly killed Sherri Dally and showed no remorse for her crime.

“What kind of person is the woman who is asking you for mercy?” Frawley asked early in the proceedings. “She has ice in her veins. That is the kind of person Diana Haun is.”

Last month, the jury found Haun, a 36-year-old grocery clerk, guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping and conspiracy.

The jury also found true a special circumstance allegation that Haun killed for financial gain, propelling the trial into a penalty phase.

After two days of testimony, the lawyers began their closing arguments Friday morning and the case was given to the jury by late afternoon. The panel is expected to return Monday for further deliberations.

Frawley, a deputy district attorney, was the first lawyer to address the panel Friday. Like a boxer landing angry punches, he repeatedly turned to Haun and told the jury that she did not deserve their sympathy.

At least four days before the killing, he said, Haun calculated how, when and where she would kill Sherri Dally. Her actions--including renting a car and buying a disguise--showed a level of premeditation that is rare in most murder cases, he said.

On the morning of May 6, 1996, Haun waited for Dally outside her Ventura home and followed her “like a huntress,” he said.

And after luring Dally into a car, Haun attacked in the most savage and personal manner imaginable: plunging a knife into Dally’s chest at least eight times while striking bone, Frawley argued.

“There is nothing,” the prosecutor concluded, “to indicate the defendant deserves your mercy.”

But Deputy Public Defender Susan Olson said that is not true. In a quiet and even voice, she described her client as a woman of uncommon love and vulnerability, whose fatal flaw was falling for a man who ultimately controlled and used her.

“We know the greedy predator behind this crime was Michael Dally,” Olson argued, drawing a parallel between the Dally murder case and a Shakespearean tragedy.

Like the character Othello, a nobleman who fell under the sinister manipulation of another, Haun was led astray and persuaded to commit a terrible crime, she said.

“A person who never would have killed was manipulated into killing,” she said. “That is what happened here.”

Olson also cited testimony from the guilt phase of the trial, reminding the jury of statements offered by Michael Dally’s former girlfriend about the destructive hold he had on women. Even Sherri Dally endured her husband’s insults and infidelities, Olson said, in an effort to hold onto his affections.

“Michael Dally had a history of preying on vulnerable women,” Olson argued. “And there is ample evidence in this record that Diana Haun was just that kind of woman.”

Haun’s experiences as a child fostered that vulnerability, Olson said. As a young girl, Haun was overweight, shy, and intimidated by an alcoholic father. Haun’s Japanese mother taught her by example that women should be subservient to their men, she said.

As an adult, Haun’s former fiance testified, she needed constant affirmation of his affections. And when she met Michael Dally, he preyed on that frailty and convinced her to perform a crime that she otherwise never would have committed, Olson said.

“The evidence is very strong that Ms. Haun’s moral judgment was overcome by this man,” she argued.

But in response, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lela Henke-Dobroth told the jury in her rebuttal argument that at any time in the careful planning of the murder, Haun could have stopped and acknowledged that what she was doing was wrong.

“Diana Haun could have said ‘No’ and she didn’t, because it was in her heart to say ‘Yes,’ ” Henke-Dobroth argued. “This is not a mouse we are talking about here. Diana Haun is not a victim. She is a victimizer.”

The prosecutor said Olson’s argument that Haun was a weakling who fell under her lover’s influence was a veiled attempt to drum up sympathy for the defendant simply because she is a woman. She also accused the defense of trying to shift the blame away from Haun.

“It wasn’t Mike Dally’s hand that was raised to Sherri Dally’s chest,” she argued.

Henke-Dobroth reminded the jury of testimony from the six-week trial in which more than one witness described a confrontation between Haun and Sherri Dally in which the victim told the defendant that she would get her husband and children “over her dead body.”

Haun accepted the invitation, the prosecutor said, because she wanted Michael Dally and his two young boys, Devon and Max, for herself.

In killing their mother, Haun shattered more than one life, Henke-Dobroth said, sentencing Sherri Dally’s relatives to a lifetime of pain, loss and grief.

“She should not be rewarded for her conduct by being given life,” the prosecutor said in her final words to the jury. “Diana Haun should not be allowed to die in God’s own time, because she alone assumed the role of God.”

The jury must consider 10 factors when weighing a death verdict, including the circumstances of the crime, the defendant’s criminal history, her age and mental state at the time of the offense, and her role in the killing.

The factors also allow the jury to consider any other evidence about the defendant’s character as a basis for mercy.

In their comments Friday, prosecutors said that of the 10 factors, only two lean in Haun’s favor: her lack of criminal activity and absence of any prior felony convictions.

Otherwise, they said, Haun was old enough to know and appreciate the value of human life and still played a major role in killing Sherri Dally--a killing so heinous that it warrants a death verdict.

But in his closing summation to the jury--the last of the four arguments--Quinn told the jury that more than two reasons exist to spare his client’s life.

She was under the influence of Michael Dally, she was dominated by him to the point her moral compass was adrift, and aside from the crimes for which she has been convicted, she has led a productive and nonviolent life, he said.

His voice soft and heavy with emotion, Quinn said that were it not for the jury’s finding that the killing was committed for financial gain, Haun’s life would not be in jeopardy.

And he challenged the prosecution’s belief that justice for Sherri Dally’s death demands the taking of Haun’s life.

“Life is precious,” he said, telling the jury that even without a death verdict, Haun will be punished for the rest of her days. “There is,” he said, “no purpose to take this life.”