MARTINEZ, Calif. — Murder defendant Susan Polk's brazen arguing with the judge and her compulsive attempts to have the last word have been a constant cause for admonishment from the court and criticism from the court of public opinion.

But it was her husband's last words to a colleague that may have caused the most damage to Polk's case Monday.

Four days before he was stabbed to death with a paring knife, psychologist Felix Polk told a friend that his wife had murder on her mind.

"He told me that his wife Susan was going to kill him and that he was at a hotel hiding out," testified Dr. Neil Kobrin, a clinical psychologist and former president of Argosy University, a psychology school outside of San Francisco, where Felix Polk was on faculty.

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Felix Polk was "hiding out" at the Lafayette Park Hotel and Spa, in room 304, about six miles east of the $1.85 million Craftsman home in Orinda, Calif., an idyllic property surrounded by oak trees, which the couple shared during better times.

Polk is acting as her own attorney in her first-degree murder trial. And while she admits she stabbed her husband to death on Oct. 13, 2002, she says it was an act of self-defense during a life-or-death struggle for the blade.

Jurors previously listened to 911 calls Felix Polk made from the hotel in the days before his death. The couple was in the throes of a contentious divorce and custody battle, and Polk allegedly kicked him out of the home and threatened to shoot him.

"Did Mr. Polk express fear to you about his wife?" Assistant District Attorney Paul Sequeira asked the witness.

"Yes, he did," Kobrin said.

Polk, 48, says she was the one who was fearful.

"The defense is going to show that my husband threatened to kill me many, many times, for many, many years," Polk said during a sidebar Monday.

Prosecutors claim she was the one who talked about killing Felix Polk for years. When she learned a divorce court had granted him possession of the home and custody of the couple's 15-year-old son, Gabriel, the talk escalated into action, prosecutors claim.

A sheriff's deputy testified Monday that he was called to the home several times in those tense last days, when Polk moved her husband's belongings into a poolside cottage.

It was the same cottage where Gabriel would discover his father's partially naked, bloody body on the night of Oct 14, 2002.

Deputy William Alexander's report described Felix Polk as uncomfortable around his wife but hesitant to have her arrested.

Susan Polk faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of murdering of her 70-year-old husband.

Accusing the dead

Polk claims her husband's comments to friends and calls to police were a ruse, an attempt to set her up for more of the alleged physical and emotional abuse she says she suffered during their 30-year relationship.

She attempted to discredit her late husband during her cross-examination of Kobrin, and accused Felix Polk of drug abuse, philandering and having sex with his patients.

"Do you remember being at cocaine parties with my husband?" Polk asked.

"No. Absolutely not," Kobrin said.

"Didn't he have a reputation for abusing cocaine?" Polk asked.

"Not to my knowledge," Kobrin said.

The defendant met Felix Polk when she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl suffering from panic attacks and he was a 40-year-old Berkeley psychologist and married father of two.

The therapist-patient relationship turned sexual a year later, Polk says. They were married by the time Polk turned 25, and eventually raised three sons together.

Polk has stated during her questioning, despite prosecution objections, that she believes her husband was having a romantic liaison with a colleague and former student.

"Did you know that she was his mistress?" Polk asked Kobrin about the woman.

"I didn't know that," Kobrin said.

"You didn't know they were lovers?" Polk said incredulously, one hand on her hip and a notepad in the other hand.

"I didn't know that," Kobrin repeated.

Gabriel Polk, now 19 and a witness for the prosecution, said the affair was one of many countless "delusions" his mother harbored, in addition to allegedly believing she had been raped by her parents, that her husband was an agent with the Israeli Mossad, and that her children had been molested by daycare providers.

Polk claims her husband led her to falsely believe such things. She also claims Felix Polk psychologically brainwashed Gabriel, turning him against her, just as the district attorney has led him "by the nose," she says, to make disparaging allegations about her since the death of his father.

"Did my husband tell you he was trying to get me committed?" Polk asked Kobrin.

"No," he said.

"Did he tell you I was crazy?" Polk continued.

"Not in so many words," Kobrin said.

"Tell you I was delusional?" Polk continued.

"Yes," Kobrin said.

Adam Polk, 23, is set to testify against his mother next month. But Eli Polk, 20, has stuck by his mother and will testify in her defense when she begins her case in the coming weeks.

Eli is currently in custody over a domestic violence dispute with his former girlfriend. He denies the charges. He has a hearing in that case Tuesday morning, in the same courthouse where his mother's trial will resume at 9 a.m.

'Denied'

Polk speaks at length during sidebars about what she believes to be prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, and Monday was no exception.

She accused the judge of trying to find "loopholes" that would benefit the prosecution, for instance refusing to grant Polk's request that Alexander's police report — a document the judge deemed hearsay — be entered into evidence.

"Ms. Polk, we go through this speech every time I rule against you," Judge Laurel Brady said.

"Objection!" Polk interrupted.

Minutes later, Polk reprimanded the judge for interrupting her while she was making an argument to the court.

"Your honor, it's very hard for me to make a statement," Polk said, "when you keep interrupting."

Her remarks drew giggles from the gallery, where trial watchers have faithfully filled the seats each day, many of them interested as much in the defendant's persistent antics as they are about the facts of the case.

"I admonish the court to hush up the DA's little rooting section back there," Polk said.

Silence ensued as Polk waited for the judge to follow her request. Brady took a deep breath and directed her comments at Polk instead.

"Ms. Polk, if you were a defense attorney and you continued to make aspersions against the court you would be in custody right now. Don't interrupt me," Brady said.

Polk later asked that her trial proceedings be tape-recorded, "independent of your court reporter."

"Denied," Brady said.