What Blake jurors will hear is focus of pretrial hearings
By John Springer
Court TV
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Blake listens during Monday's hearing.
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(Court TV) -- Robert Blake's lawyers say jurors should learn all about the wife he is charged with killing, the two men who say he tried to hire them to do it, and a failed effort by police to prove that motor oil was used to obliterate fingerprints on the murder weapon.
Defense lawyers do not want jurors, however, to hear anything about trouble in Blake's first marriage, recordings of phone conversations he had, and journals Blake made during three decades of therapy in which he described his father's abuse and his hatred of his mother.
These issues form the core of pretrial hearings that will be held in California next week in advance of jury selection February 17. Before a jury is seated, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Darlene Schemmp is expected to tell prosecution and defense lawyers which areas are out of bonds during jury selection and testimony to follow over several months.
A mountain of motions filed this week make it clear that the defense views the character of victim Bonny Lee Bakely, Blake's wife and the mother of his toddler daughter, as a key to winning an acquittal for the 70-year-old Blake. The defense also plans to attack the credibility of two men, associates of the star of the 1970s TV detective show "Baretta," who say Blake tried to recruit them to kill Bakely.
Defense lawyers Thomas Mesereau Jr. and Susan Yu filed a formal opposition Friday to a prosecution motion to limit what jurors can hear about Bakely's illicit conduct, including drug use, a mail-order pornography business and a conviction for felony identity theft.
That same conduct and Blake's belief that Bakely got pregnant on purpose to force him to marry her will come into evidence as alleged motives for the 2001 killing, so it is only fair that the defense can put on similar evidence, the defense reasons.
"The suggestion that the defense be foreclosed from cross-examining or calling witnesses on subjects forming the heart of the case against Mr. Blake amounts to a request that he be prevented from defending himself against the instant charges," the defense papers say. "As such, it should be summarily rejected, particularly since it constitutes no more or less than a blatant attempt on the prosecution's part to have its cake and eat it too."
In a separate motion, Mesereau and Yu objected to a prosecution motion seeking to keep its own forensic tests out of evidence.
Despite three years of work, police were unable to prove that an oily substance found on the discarded Walther P-38 murder weapon was motor oil, and jurors should know that, the defense contends. Prosecutors argue that, because the tests failed to identify the substance, testimony about the tests would only confuse jurors unnecessarily.
The military pistol was discovered in a garbage container near Vitello's Restaurant, the Studio City eatery where Bakely and Blake dined together on May 4, 2001. Blake told police that he left his wife alone in his Dodge Stealth while he returned to the restaurant to get a different handgun that had accidentally been left behind.
When he returned, she was dead.
It took police a year, but they finally brought charges against Blake based on physical and circumstantial evidence in April 2002. Police said at the time that Blake felt trapped in his marriage and concluded Bakely's death was the best way out of it.
The defense claims there was no shortage of men who had the motive, means and opportunity to kill the 44-year-old Bakely, a celebrity chaser who inserted herself into the lives of Marlon Brando's son, Christian, and singer Jerry Lee Lewis.
Blake got out of prison on bail last year but remains under house arrest. He faces life in prison if convicted.
Schemmp will begin hearings on the motions Monday.
