Post by Freehold Resident on Aug 30, 2006 11:29:00 GMT -5
My dad grew up remembering this trial in Freehold and has an old paperback book from the 1960's all about it. He said that the old American Hotel had an autographed picture of Bailey. Of course, Bailey went got OJ off the hook as part of the dream team.
Posted Friday, Dec. 23, 1966
The prosecution appeared to have just about everything going for it: a motive for the murder, the defendant's admitted access to the victim, an eyewitness to describe the killing in gruesome detail, a famous medical expert to support the accuser's testimony and, not least, a prosecutor who had an extraordinary record of 30 murder trials without an acquittal. Yet when the verdict came last week, it was Defense Attorney F. Lee Bailey—himself undefeated in 19 homicide cases (TIME, Dec. 9)—who shouted "Hooray!" After just four hours and 27 minutes of deliberation, a Freehold, N.J., jury acquitted Dr. Carl Coppolino, 34, of first-degree murder in the 1963 death of William Farber, 51, the husband of Coppolino's mistress.
Hypnosis v. Free Will. For a time, Prosecutor Vincent Keuper had his innings. His first and best witness was Marjorie Farber, still attractive at 52, who testified that she had a hypnosis-induced passion for the dark, slender anesthesiologist. After he first mesmerized her in February 1963 in order to break her cigarette habit, they saw each other "constantly." Later, she testified, Coppolino said of her husband: "That man has got to go." Then, she went on, the doctor gave her a drug with which to dispatch Farber. Her nerve failed twice, she said, and so she summoned Coppolino from his home up the street. After he administered injections to the ill and groggy Farber, Coppolino "pulled this pillow out from underneath my husband's head, and he put it over him, and he leaned his full weight down on him, and I just stood there." Why? "Because of hypnosis. I had no free will."
Dr. Milton Helpern, 64, New York City's chief medical examiner, then took the stand to pronounce Farber's death a homicide—even though the original death certificate listed the cause as coronary thrombosis. Called in last summer when New Jersey authorities had Farber's body exhumed, Helpern said that he found a fractured larynx, which led him to believe that Farber had been strangled. He said that he found the heart "normal."
Prosecutor's Nightmare. Although Bailey put on his own medical witnesses to cast doubt on Helpern's testimony and to deride the possibility of crime by hypnotism, his major strategy was to impugn Marge Farber.* Throughout he described her as a woman scorned who lived only for revenge on Coppolino. "She would sit in his lap in the electric chair," said Bailey, "just to see that he dies." When Coppolino moved to Florida, Widow Farber and her two daughters followed, settling in a house next door. Bailey developed testimony that Marge wanted to marry Coppolino after his first wife, Carmela, died in Sarasota last year. But he married a well-to-do divorcee six weeks after Carmela's death. It was only then, Bailey said, that Marge Farber turned on her erstwhile lover. Even Keuper conceded that her conduct was "disgusting"; after the verdict was in, asked if she had been a dream witness, he replied, "No, a prosecutor's nightmare."
Posted Friday, Dec. 23, 1966
The prosecution appeared to have just about everything going for it: a motive for the murder, the defendant's admitted access to the victim, an eyewitness to describe the killing in gruesome detail, a famous medical expert to support the accuser's testimony and, not least, a prosecutor who had an extraordinary record of 30 murder trials without an acquittal. Yet when the verdict came last week, it was Defense Attorney F. Lee Bailey—himself undefeated in 19 homicide cases (TIME, Dec. 9)—who shouted "Hooray!" After just four hours and 27 minutes of deliberation, a Freehold, N.J., jury acquitted Dr. Carl Coppolino, 34, of first-degree murder in the 1963 death of William Farber, 51, the husband of Coppolino's mistress.
Hypnosis v. Free Will. For a time, Prosecutor Vincent Keuper had his innings. His first and best witness was Marjorie Farber, still attractive at 52, who testified that she had a hypnosis-induced passion for the dark, slender anesthesiologist. After he first mesmerized her in February 1963 in order to break her cigarette habit, they saw each other "constantly." Later, she testified, Coppolino said of her husband: "That man has got to go." Then, she went on, the doctor gave her a drug with which to dispatch Farber. Her nerve failed twice, she said, and so she summoned Coppolino from his home up the street. After he administered injections to the ill and groggy Farber, Coppolino "pulled this pillow out from underneath my husband's head, and he put it over him, and he leaned his full weight down on him, and I just stood there." Why? "Because of hypnosis. I had no free will."
Dr. Milton Helpern, 64, New York City's chief medical examiner, then took the stand to pronounce Farber's death a homicide—even though the original death certificate listed the cause as coronary thrombosis. Called in last summer when New Jersey authorities had Farber's body exhumed, Helpern said that he found a fractured larynx, which led him to believe that Farber had been strangled. He said that he found the heart "normal."
Prosecutor's Nightmare. Although Bailey put on his own medical witnesses to cast doubt on Helpern's testimony and to deride the possibility of crime by hypnotism, his major strategy was to impugn Marge Farber.* Throughout he described her as a woman scorned who lived only for revenge on Coppolino. "She would sit in his lap in the electric chair," said Bailey, "just to see that he dies." When Coppolino moved to Florida, Widow Farber and her two daughters followed, settling in a house next door. Bailey developed testimony that Marge wanted to marry Coppolino after his first wife, Carmela, died in Sarasota last year. But he married a well-to-do divorcee six weeks after Carmela's death. It was only then, Bailey said, that Marge Farber turned on her erstwhile lover. Even Keuper conceded that her conduct was "disgusting"; after the verdict was in, asked if she had been a dream witness, he replied, "No, a prosecutor's nightmare."
