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Wellesley doctor seeks to overturn conviction for murdering wife

E-mail|Link|Comments () October 9, 2009 07:59 PM

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

An attorney for Dirk Greineder, who was a renowned Wellesley allergist when he was accused of his wife's 1999 murder, argued today in the state's highest court that his client's trial was riddled with errors and his conviction should be overturned.

Greineder at his 2001 trial

"As a result of a series of errors committed by the judge, the prosecutor, defense counsel, and even the jury, Dr. Greineder did not receive a fair trial and, as a result, his resulting conviction must be deemed both unreliable and constitutionally invalid," attorney James Sultan told the Supreme Judicial Court.

But Varsha Kukafka, the attorney representing the Norfolk County district attorney's office, asked the court to affirm Greineder's 2001 conviction.

A jury found Greineder guilty of murdering his wife, Mabel, by beating her with a hammer and slitting her throat at a Wellesley pond on Halloween Day 1999. Prosecutors had argued that the defendant killed his wife of 32 years to conceal his secret sex life. The jury rejected Greineder's claims that his wife had been slain by an unknown killer.

At a hearing that stretched for nearly an hour today, Supreme Judicial Court justices peppered lawyers for both sides with questions.

Justices scrutinized, among other things, Sultan's claim that the trial judge had improperly held voir dire, a process in which jurors are questioned to determine their suitability to serve, in a closed-door hearing at the trial. That, Sultan said, would have violated Greineder's constitutional right to a public trial.

Sultan leaned heavily on a statement in a transcript in which Superior Court Judge Paul A. Chernoff said he was conducting "a non-public individual voir dire of the jurors."

But Kukafka said no one had come forward to say they were barred from the courtroom, no member of the sizeable press contingent covering the story objected, and there was a sidebar conference during that same session, suggesting that there were other people present in the courtroom.

"What should occur is that this court should look at what [Sultan] has presented ... and say there's nothing in the record that shows that this judge closed the courtroom," she said.

Chief Justice Margaret Marshall expressed frustration with the lack of further evidence for Sultan's claim. "We just don't have a record here, that's my problem. ... I just can't tell what's happening here," she said.

The court took the case under advisement.