JUDGE HIRSCH ON LEE BAILEY'S DEFENSE OF DR COPPOLINO

 Judge Hirsch accepted our invitation to write about Lee Bailey's representation of Dr. Coppolino: 

There were actually two Coppolino trials.  The first took place in New Jersey, and Bailey got his client an acquittal.  Let’s skip that one for now (although when we’re having a class of Jack Pommeroy’s Chateau Thames Embankment sometime I’ll be happy to share some of Bailey’s tours de force from that trial).

The medical examiner who testified at the New Jersey trial was Milton Halperin, chief medical examiner for New York City and the self-described “world’s greatest medical detective.”  (Yes, he actually describes himself that way in his autobiography, entitled, Autopsy.  I mention that in case any of your readers were thinking of using that title for their own autobiographies. It’s taken.)  He was furious that Lee Bailey had procured the acquittal of a palpably guilty man, and he was determined to do something about it.  

Coppolino had been living in Florida for some time at that point.  His wife had died in less-than-transparent circumstances.  So Halperin took it upon himself to contact the State Attorney in southwest Florida – it may have been Joe D’Alessandro, or his predecessor – and demanded that he exhume the late Mrs. Coppolino’s remains and send them to him, Halperin, for autopsy.

Halperin’s examination revealed that there was a tiny area of discoloration in what, in life, would have been one of Mrs. Coppolino’s buttocks.  After much consideration, Halperin hypothesized that Coppolino, who was an anaesthesiologist, had injected his wife with succinylcholine chloride, a substance that causes instant and symptomless death and then dissipates into organic components.  The problem, from Halperin’s standpoint, was that there then existed no quantitative analysis for the break-down components of succinylcholine chloride – in other words, no scientific test to determine if there were lethally-elevated levels of those components in the body.

Halperin had on his staff a highly-regarded toxicologist, Dr. Joseph Umberger.  Dr. Halperin took Umberger off all his other cases and ordered him to invent a quantitative test.  In due course Umberger did so.  And applying his test to what was recovered from the body of Mrs. Coppolino, he found deadly levels of the break-down components.  Halperin, delighted, contacted the State Attorney’s Office in Florida, and Coppolino was indicted.  As he had in New Jersey, Lee Bailey represented Coppolino.

Florida in those days was a common-law evidence state.  For an expert to express an opinion, all the facts upon which his opinion was based had to be in evidence.  What the prosecution envisioned, then, was the following: Halperin would testify to his autopsy, but not offer an opinion as to cause of death; he would then step down from the witness stand; Umberger would then testify to his findings and conclusions; at which point Halperin would be able to get back on the witness stand and express the opinion that Mrs. Coppolino had been murdered by the injection of succinylcholine chloride.  (This sounds awkward to us today, but it’s how it was routinely done before the days of the Evidence Code.)

Halperin testified.  Then Umberger was called.  But before his testimony could be elicited, Lee Bailey told Judge Lynn Silvertooth (the current courthouse in Sarasota is named after him) that he had voir dire as to the witness’s testimony.  

Voir dire?  How much voir dire?

Two questions, said Bailey.  

A judge can’t very well turn down a request for two questions-worth of voir dire, so Judge Silvertooth invited Bailey to proceed.  And at the end of the voir dire, the case should have been dismissed.  Truth is, Bailey had it in one.  The second question was just showing off.

Care to guess what the first question was?

We await Judge Hirsch's conclusion to the story. 

You get Roy Black on the Markus federal blog. But we get Judge Hirsch!