The prosecutor in Alpna Patel's manslaughter trial began presenting his case yesterday, but he was quickly upstaged by defense attorneys, who wrestled on the floor in an attempt to prove the Canadian dentist stabbed her husband in self-defense.
Patel's first trial on murder charges ended in a mistrial in February when the lone male juror refused to agree with his colleagues and acquit Patel.
"Shakespeare could not have written anything better than what has happened and what will transpire in this courtroom," Patel's attorney, Edward Smith Jr., told jurors in his opening statement yesterday.
Smith became dramatic when he cross-examined Assistant State's Attorney William McCollum's first witness, Dr. Margarita Korell, an assistant medical examiner.
Korell testified that Patel's husband, Dr. Viresh Patel, was stabbed six times on March 24, 1999, in a Pimlico apartment that he lived in during his medical residency at Union Memorial Hospital. Patel, who was living with her in-laws in Buffalo, N.Y., traveled to Baltimore that night to present her husband with a list of ways to save their troubled marriage.
The lethal stab wound, a gash to the left side of the victim's neck 2 1/2 to 3 inches deep, cut his jugular vein and carotid artery, Korell said.
Viresh Patel also had a stab wound to the chest, a small "cutting wound" to the forehead and three superficial wounds to the left shoulder, Korell said.
"These were not defensive-type wounds," Korell said, noting the lack of injury to Viresh Patel's hands, except for a small laceration to one of his fingers.
All of the wounds were at a downward angle and entered from back to front, Korell said, as McCollum showed jurors the neck and chest of a mannequin that had two kitchen knives sticking in it.
Korell said the wounds were consistent with someone being attacked while lying on his side.
Smith immediately attacked the testimony, using himself as a prop.
Lying on the carpet, Smith directed Korell to aim a knife at his neck at the same angle she said Viresh Patel was stabbed. After initially fumbling with the knife, Korell pointed it awkwardly at Smith's neck.
"Is that the way you would comfortably hold it?" Smith asked?
Korell replied tersely that there was not a "normal" way to hold it.
During cross-examination, Korell acknowledged that the lethal wound could have been inflicted accidentally, caused by two people struggling over the knife.
