Richard patterson murder francisca marquinez photo
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“The only evidence the government had in this case was statements made by my client. "The view by the jury is essential for them to fully understand Dr Wright's testimony and the defence in this case."
Wright, the county's chief medical examiner from 1980 to 1994, declined to comment on the unusual defence, the newspaper reports.
However another high profile medical examiner, Dr Michael Baden, told the New York Post that although possible, accidental choking on a penis was not something he had come across.
"There's quite a number of ways that sexual activity can lead to inadvertent deaths, but I've never heard of choking on a penis," Baden said.
"That's up to the jury to decide whether to accept it or not," Baden said of Patterson's defence.
Graff said Patterson appeared groggy and disoriented when she saw him, and an empty sleeping pill bottle was found next to Marquinez’s bed. Sapak spent several minutes during his closing argument explaining why the oral-sex defense made so little sense.
But when the time came to deliver his closing arguments, Padowitz simply agreed. “But when the state failed to meet its burden, we decided it wasn’t necessary.”
It also became unnecessary to have Patterson disrobe for the jury, Padowitz said.
“It’s worse than unethical; it’s foolish.”
Rossman agreed. And to choke to death, the penis has to obstruct the windpipe, probably down to the area of thyroid cartilage, or the Adam's apple, for a period of time."
Baden continued: "One could have no air coming in for a period of time under these circumstances and that would be possible, but I have not seen it.
“But that’s the way Richard Patterson thought she died.”
Instead, the defense argued that there was no way of knowing how she died. “As distasteful and humiliating as the defense strategy was here, it was absolutely necessary since my client believed that was how this woman died,” he said.
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Murder suspect attempts to use penis size in his defence
GRAPHIC CONTENT
A Florida man accused of murder has an interesting defence that a renowned pathologist is backing.
Richard Henry Patterson, 65, of Margate, wants permission from a judge to show his penis to a jury so they will believe his claim that Francisca Marquinez, 60, choked to death while performing oral sex, the Sun Sentinel reports.
Patterson's attorney claims former Broward County medical examiner, Dr Ronald Wright, will testify that Marquinez's death is consistent with being "accidentally sexually asphyxiated during oral sex".
"It is material and relevant," attorney Ken Padowitz wrote in a motion to the court.
“I fully intended to have him testify,” Padowitz said. When he emerged, Marquinez was dead. Other factors pointing to a heart attack might be present, but there would never be absolute certainty without witness testimony about the victim’s final moments, he said.
A human being with a blocked airway can lose consciousness after about 30 seconds, said former Broward Medical Examiner Ronald Wright, who testified for Patterson.
The judge never ruled on the request to put Patterson’s member on display in court.
“That’s not the way she died,” defense lawyer Ken Padowitz said.
"I've not seen it, that the penis alone will choke somebody to death. “When the medical examiner is not, it’s difficult for a prosecutor to overcome that.”
Medical experts testified that it could have been a heart attack. And when the obstruction was removed, the victim would have resumed breathing. That caused him to pass out for more than 24 hours — explaining why Patterson did not call police.
When he woke up, Patterson knew how bad the situation looked and reached out to a friend, Graff, for help.
Only some pieces of that narrative were supported at trial.
‘With a rhythmic disturbance, the heart stops, and there’s nothing to see at autopsy,” he said. According to the ex-girlfriend, Holly Graff, Patterson contacted her on Oct. 28, 2015, and told her that he choked Marquinez and she was dead. Medical examiners never determined the cause of death because Marquinez’s body was too decomposed.
“They still don’t know how she died,” said Padowitz, according to the Sun Sentinel.
The jury spent five hours deliberating before reaching a verdict.
If Patterson had been convicted, he would have faced life in prison.
NYPost
Category: News by Editor
Francisca Marquinez did not die from choking to death on Richard Henry Patterson’s penis, and defense lawyer Ken Padowitz knew it.
But the unusual defense argument dominated the attorney’s opening statement and media coverage of Patterson’s second-degree murder trial, which ended May 22 with a not-guilty verdict.
Coupled with an attention-grabbing motion to allow Patterson, 65, to expose himself to the jury to prove such a cause of death was possible, the argument allowed Padowitz to wait until late in the trial to openly abandon the oral-sex theme in favor of something much less sensational — the possibility that Marquinez, 60, died of a heart attack or a stroke, and that Patterson had nothing to do with it.
The sudden removal of the most prurient aspects of the defense case stood in stark contrast to the testimony and presentations that came before, and it appears to have worked with the jury, which came back with an acquittal after less than four hours.
Padowitz said abandoning the death-by-oral-sex defense was his plan all along.
“I always had the same strategy throughout the trial,” Padowitz said.
She could have been strangled, though that was unlikely because damage to bones and cartilage would still have been detected even after some decomposition.