GALVESTON — In the first week of trial for a man who burned his infant daughter in a microwave oven, testimony has focused on the attack and the immediate fallout.

However, the case could hinge on whether Joshua Mauldin, 20, knew what he was doing at the time of the abuse.

Mauldin — with his wife, his mother and his infant daughter — drove to Galveston from Warren, Ark., the Mauldins’ former residence, reaching the island shortly after midnight on May 10.

They checked into Quality Inn Suites on Seawall Boulevard. While his wife, Eva, was getting toiletries and his mother was getting food at a nearby restaurant, Joshua Mauldin was alone in the room with his infant daughter, Ana.

In opening arguments Thursday, defense attorney Sam Cammack admitted to jurors what Mauldin himself had admitted to police on May 15 — that Joshua Mauldin had placed his infant daughter in the hotel room’s safe and then the refrigerator, before finally putting the 2-month-old in the microwave oven and turning it on.

Cammack told jurors that Mauldin was mentally ill at the time, hearing voices and unable to control his actions. For Mauldin, Cammack said in court, the entire attack occurred as if it were something Mauldin was watching unfold on a movie screen but could not prevent.

Cammack said Mauldin had suffered from various disorders since he was 10.

Mauldin had told police he took the child out of the oven after no more than 10 seconds. Police later said the child could have been cooking inside the appliance for 10 to 20 seconds. Even case investigators said no one likely would ever know exactly how long the child was inside. The oven is an older model, with a dial like an egg timer to set a number of minutes to cook. The oven has no feature to tell users how many seconds it has been operating.

However long the child was in there, it was long enough to give her scars that will last a lifetime. Doctors ultimately had to amputate most of her left ear. Bright-red burn marks looked like rivers streaming down her left arm, leading to a hand that was melted and mangled with a round blister bigger on her palm than the palm itself.

The girl received skin grafts at Shriners Burns Hospital and survived her injuries. She now lives with relatives in Texas who are sworn not to have any contact with Joshua or Eva Mauldin.

Joshua Mauldin faces a charge of injury to a child. Because of the severity of the child’s injuries, the charge carries a possible prison term of five to 99 years.

He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. State law defines insanity, for purposes of prosecution, as a mental defect that causes the defendant not to realize that what he or she did was wrong. Once a defense makes an insanity plea, the defense must show the defendant was insane. Prosecutors do not have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Mauldin was sane.

In her opening statement Thursday morning, prosecutor Xochitl Vandiver told jurors that Mauldin had enough presence of mind to lock the room’s door during the attack.

The string of witnesses whom Vandiver and prosecutor Kayla Allen put on the stand Thursday and Friday also recounted how Mauldin had given a series of different explanations for Ana’s burns.

He first said he did not know how the child got burned. Later, he suggested a sunburn during the trip from Arkansas caused the injuries.

Even later, he said he had spilled scalding water on the girl, before finally admitting to putting her in the microwave.

Dr. Robert Gordon is a Dallas-based psychologist who was a pioneer in the fields of both forensic psychology and jury research.

His efforts have earned him statewide awards for work in his field, and he has led both the Texas Psychologists Association and the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists.

Gordon said jurors could take Mauldin’s locking the hotel room door two ways.

“(Vandiver’s) insight is well taken, but it’s only one piece from which an inference could be made,” Gordon said.

“Her perspective is this was cold, calculated, antisocial conduct, but he obviously knew what he was doing was wrong, or he would not have locked the door.

“It’s clear prosecutors are pointing to him being a sociopath who is manipulating the court system to extricate himself.”

However, Gordon also said the defense would have a chance to cast the door-locking in a different light.

“The defense can easily say it was a factor that was not dispositive of his mental clarity, but that it was more an automatic or reflexive response,” Gordon said.

More troublesome for the defense could be Mauldin’s multiple false explanations for the burns, the first of which came only minutes after the child was burned to the first police officers and medics responding to the 911 call made by a hotel desk clerk.

Defense attorney Greg Russell is no stranger to high-profile criminal cases in Galveston County.

He defended David Hisey in two trials during which Hisey was convicted of strangling his elderly parents.

Russell also has handled everything from misdemeanors to capital-murder cases, and he said that Mauldin’s multiple accounts could come back to haunt him.

“It seems to me, if the defendant was trying to cover up and not tell the truth about what happened, that alone would suggest he did know what he did was wrong,” Russell said. “Otherwise, he would have said from the beginning, ‘Sure, I did. I put her in the microwave. What’s wrong with that?’”

Dr. Gordon said he agreed with Russell.

“It defies rational explanation that he would try to cover it up if, in fact, he couldn’t distinguish the wrongness of such conduct,” Gordon said. “I’m sure that won’t be lost on the jury.”

However, the insanity defense requires the defense to show only that Mauldin was unaware his actions were wrong at the time he committed them, regardless of his mental state later, even minutes later.

“I’m not a psychiatrist, and I guess a person can snap out of insanity, but if that’s the theory, then he must have snapped out pretty quickly,” Russell said.

Gordon said baby Ana’s injuries could even work to Mauldin’s advantage, in court.

“The argument could be, what happened to that child was so obscene a conduct that it could only be the behavior of someone who was crazy,” Gordon said.

“Were he not mentally ill, it wouldn’t have happened, because this was something no person sane could do.

“It’s a compelling argument, because this was so ghoulish, bizarre, damaging and hurtful that everyone would like to believe it was something only a crazy person could do.”

Testimony in the trial resumes Monday morning, as the prosecution continues to make its case.

Afterward, the defense will present its case, after which each side gets a chance to rebut the other’s witnesses and evidence.

When both sides finish, attorneys will make closing arguments to jurors, who will then decide whether to find Mauldin guilty or not guilty.