Objection!: How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System

by Nancy Grace

  E X T R E M E M A K E O V E R S

  While the victim is all but airbrushed straight out of the courtroom, defendants get a little helpful airbrushing themselves. There’s a world of difference between the scowling perpetrator in his mug shot and that well-groomed, nice-looking guy seated between a phalanx of defense attorneys. It’s a transformation straight out of that creepy reality show The Swan, where contestants have tons of plastic surgery and then compete in a freaky “beauty pageant.”

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  The murderous Menendez brothers got quite a makeover before their first trial in 1993. The two tennis-playing, sports-car-driving, silver-spoon-fed brats who brutally murdered their mother and father couldn’t have looked more wholesome at trial than if they were posing for a Brooks Brothers catalog. Think they looked all GQ when they were spattered with blood, dreaming up a story for the cops? To see them in court in their preppy getups, complete with pullover sweaters and button-down shirts, you’d think they were coming straight out of an accounting class at Yale. The icing on the cake was supplied by defense attorney Leslie Abramson, who was constantly petting and patting them while picking imaginary lint off their cashmere sweaters, as if she were comforting two little lost boys. Hello! This was their parents’ murder trial! You have to wonder how these nauseating displays of manufactured wholesomeness affected the jury. Obviously something worked, because the jury deadlocked in 1994. A year later, when their second trial began, the brothers grim weren’t so lucky. In 1996, they were convicted of murder.

  A F A M I L Y A F F A I R

  The Menendez trial still has not been put to rest.

  The brothers’ convictions are on appeal in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a federal appeals court that reviews select cases out of state courts within their jurisdiction. Cases in state court are appealed directly to that state’s appeal’s court, such as the California Supreme Court. After that decision, either side can take the verdict up to a higher court, that being the district court of appeals. There are usually one to three federal district courts in each state, depending on the population. After making it through the district-court level, the lowest federal appeals court, the case goes on up to the circuit court.

  There are eleven circuits in the country, divided geographically. California is governed by the Ninth Circuit, well-known as kooky all 1 3 0

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  around. Just so you get a sense of the jurists who will make the decision, keep this in mind: The judges reviewing the Menendezes’ verdicts are part of the same court that declared it illegal for a little girl in public school to utter the words “under God” in the morning Pledge of Allegiance. The Menendez appeal will, no doubt, rely heavily on the “mistreatment” of the brother defendants. I got an earful of their story on July 15, 2004, when I interviewed Tammi Menendez, the wife of jailed double murderer Erik Menendez, on Larry King Live. She married Erik in prison after his conviction and sentence to life without parole.

  She started writing him when the first trial started. Naturally Menendez wrote back. During our interview, she told me that while watching the first trial, her “heart went out to him. I felt sorry for what he was going through. And I wanted to reach out and say I supported him. Then he wrote back, so . . .”

  So she married him! She also moved her young daughter, around five years old at the time, all the way from her home in a small town in Minnesota to just around the corner from the maximum-security prison in California that Menendez calls home. It’s a family affair—she takes her little daughter to the prison for jailhouse visits in the family room with the other convicts.

  In her mind, Tammi has managed to convince herself that the blame rests at the feet of Menedez’s partner in evil, his brother, Lyle, with this rationale: “He [Erik] was the younger brother. . . . I know that Erik wouldn’t have committed the crimes without [Lyle]. . . .”

  Although Tammi doesn’t think so, the truth about Erik’s role in his parents’ murders is hard to swallow. That night we played a portion of the testimony at trial for her. Here’s what she heard: U N I D E N T I F I E D F E M A L E :

  Did you empty the gun?

  E R I K M E N E N D E Z :

  Every shell I had.

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  U N I D E N T I F I E D F E M A L E :

  And what did you do after you

  reloaded?

  M E N E N D E Z :

  I ran around and shot my mom. I was just firing as I went into the room, I just started firing.

  U N I D E N T I F I E D F E M A L E :

  In what direction?

  M E N E N D E Z :

  In front of me.

  U N I D E N T I F I E D F E M A L E :

  What was in front of you?

  M E N E N D E Z :

  My parents.

  U N I D E N T I F I E D F E M A L E :

  So you were firing at your parents?

  M E N E N D E Z :

  Yes.

  I have a hard time dealing with the idea that it is so simple for someone who has heard the truth to gloss over it. Erik Menendez makes no bones about it—he shot his own mother in cold blood. I know he claims his father molested him, but no claims were ever made about his mother. I take his abuse claims about his father with a big box of salt. I wondered about Tammi’s personal ability to ignore her husband’s brutal ambush of his own mom. I wanted to try to get inside the mind of someone who professed to love a man who admits to savagely killing his mother.

  Our conversation continued:

  G R A C E :

  It’s my understanding they’ve got life without parole. I would like to ask Mrs. Menendez a question. I just—

  The dichotomy of shooting your mother dead and then 1 3 2

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  going out and hiring a private tennis coach. You know, when I was that age, I was working two jobs and going to school. A private tennis coach. Your mother is dead?

  I just have a real problem with that. I know that you say your husband is sensitive, and I believe you, but do you ever allow yourself—I know love is blind, but do you ever allow yourself to think about the brutal nature of the murder of Mrs. Menendez, Kitty Menendez?

  TA M M I M E N E N D E Z :

  I think about it a lot, and I think

  about the crimes, and I think about

  what happened. But there again, I

  understand the abuse that he went

  through. And—

  L A R RY K I N G :

  But the mother didn’t do any of the abuse, did she?

  M E N E N D E Z :

  No. But psychologically, you know . . .

  K I N G :

  She supported the father.

  M E N E N D E Z :

  Very bizarre. Very bizarre house. A lot going on.

  Very dominant father. There were many witnesses that testified to that.

  I was obviously confounded at her decision to uproot her little girl to be closer to Erik Menendez. I asked about the effect the relationship may have on her daughter.

  G R A C E :

  I respect Mrs. Menendez, she seems like a kind and gentle person. But I worry about the little girl and O B J E C T I O N !

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  what possessed Mrs. Menendez to uproot her little girl and move her down the street from a jail.

  M E N E N D E Z :

  That’s a difficult question to answer. You know, for a while, I did not bring her into the prison system.

  I kept her away from being subjected to that. But I brought her a few times for holidays, and she—

  It’s not as bad as what people think, as far as the visiting room. She loves to go, and she doesn’t have problems with it right now.

  K I N G :

  But she’s going to grow up with some understanding of who her stepfather is.

  M E N E N D E Z :

  She will. She sees him on TV every now and then.
I don’t let her watch anything that’s on, but she knows that he’s, you know, popular, and she deals with it very well. Psychologically, she seems to be fine with it.

  K I N G :

  Do you have any worries about Erik with her?

  M E N E N D E Z :

  Not at all.

  K I N G :

  Bad influence and the lot?

  M E N E N D E Z :

  He’s so good with her. He’s taught her a lot of good. He’s very gentle. He has more patience than I do.

  This exchange proved to me that not all airbrushing begins and ends in the courtroom. When I think back on the interview with Erik 1 3 4

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  Menendez’s wife, I extend her mind-set to potential jurors. It strikes fear in my heart—a fear that those in a search for truth, responsible for the implementation of justice, could be like Tammi Menendez. Blind by choice. I pray it isn’t so.

  U N F A I T H F U L

  I watched every minute of former NBA star Jayson Williams’s manslaughter trial on my Court TV show, Closing Arguments. We learned during the trial that on the night he shot Gus Christofi, Williams had made fun of and derided Christofi for being hired help.

  The limousine driver was far too starstruck to respond, much less walk off the job. Christofi had even brought along an instant camera, hoping to get a shot of himself with Williams. That never happened. Instead of a photo, Christofi got a gunshot to the chest that left him dead on the floor of Williams’s multimillion-dollar mansion.

  That night, after a party with his posse, Williams had a snootful of booze and brought everybody back to his place for a “tour” of his mansion. Once in his bedroom, Williams took down a loaded shotgun from his gun case and cracked it open, then shut, while pointing it directly at Christofi, who stood only two feet away. The gun “went off,” although a witness testified he saw Williams pull the trigger. As Gus Christofi lay dying on the floor, there were no prayers, no last rites, no comfort or sol-ace for him by Williams. Instead, before the man was even dead, Williams wiped his own prints from the gun and grabbed the dying man’s hand, placing it on the gun to make it look as if Christofi had committed suicide.

  During the trial, I watched Williams in court. It was an Oscar-winning performance. The serious and subdued defendant sported a huge silver cross on his lapel. I’m all for wearing crosses, but not when the crucifix is being used to sway a jury. Think about it: In all the years Williams played ball, do you recall ever seeing him wear a cross O B J E C T I O N !

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  around his neck, boast a Christian bumper sticker on his Mercedes, or even sport a tiny crucifix tie tack? Did he ever mention his religion on air during all the time he was an NBC sports analyst? No. But when push came to shove, Williams pulled out a giant cross lapel pin for his trial. After the jury acquitted him for the shooting death of Mr.

  Christofi, a photograph was taken the next day of Williams on a patio of his mansion, where he and his wife were enjoying a big bottle of cham-pagne. He wasn’t wearing his cross.

  D O G B I T E

  When the Williams jury spoke, court watchers were stunned to hear they acquitted on the top count of aggravated manslaughter, deadlocked on simple manslaughter, only finding culpability on lesser charges like tampering with and fabricating evidence. But don’t worry, it ain’t over yet. After the stunning decision by the New Jersey jury, a jury that included one lady juror who reportedly had eyes only for Williams throughout the trial, the state swears they will retry the deadlocked counts. But that’s not the end of the story. In the first trial, trial judge Edward Coleman refused to allow prosecutors to introduce the similar transaction evidence regarding Williams’s dog, Zeus. The alleged incident happened in August 2001, six months before Christofi died in Williams’s bedroom after being shot in the chest.

  In early 2004, in the midst of jury selection, a handwritten, anonymous letter made its way to the prosecutor’s office. The letter directed state investigators to locate and question Williams’s former teammate

  “Dwayne somebody.” After investigators identified and tracked down the former Nets player Dwayne Schintzius, he told a shocking story about an August 8, 2001, incident when he, Williams, and another friend, Chris Duckery, went to dinner at the Mountain View Chalet. According to court papers, after returning to Williams’s home, Schintzius said he bet $100 that he could drag Zeus, a Rottweiler and reportedly a 1 3 6

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  trained attack dog, out of the house. Well, Schintzius said he did in fact get the dog out of the house, and when he won the bet, he told Williams to pay up. According to Schintzius an angry Williams stalked inside his multimillion-dollar pad, returned with a shotgun, and shot Zeus point-blank, killing him.

  As if that weren’t enough, Williams’s ex-teammate reported that after shooting his own dog, Williams pointed the gun at Schintzius and told him to clean up the dog’s dead body “or you’re next.” Zeus’s remains were never found by investigators.

  When the story got out, animal lovers went berserk, and rightfully so. It almost seemed as if more people were enraged over the shooting of the dog than of the person, Gus Christofi. As of this writing, the former NBA star now faces a full-court press by an animal-cruelty complaint for allegedly killing his dog with a shotgun. The New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals filed the complaint within months of the deadlock over the alleged incident with his pet, Zeus. By that time, of course, the statute of limitations for criminal charges on animal cruelty had expired, so the SPCA opted for civil charges carrying a maximum fine of $250.

  At the time, Williams’s camp responded when Judy Smith, a spokeswoman for Williams, suggested that Jersey prosecutors had cooked up the whole thing and stated, “This is a blatant attempt to pile on and create publicity about an issue that a judge had already ruled has no place in the trial.”

  As of this writing, prosecutors are asking the trial judge not only to retry Williams’s manslaughter case in Hunterdon County, the original trial venue and where the Christofi killing took place, but also to reconsider his earlier decision not to let the jury in the manslaughter trial hear about the alleged dog killing and yet another dangerous alleged shooting incident in the parking lot of the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Williams is currently scheduled to be retried on the remaining reckless-manslaughter charge.

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  M O D E L M O M S

  Could anybody ever forget Pam Smart, who arranged to have her husband murdered by a teenaged lover? Or Susan Smith, who buckled her two boys into their car seats before drowning them and blaming an

  “unknown black man” for the crime? Those two presented like school librarians in court.

  A review of “airbrushed” defendants just wouldn’t be complete without Sara Jane Olson, the doctor’s wife and mother of three who in a former life was known as Kathleen Soliah, a member of the terrorist group Symbionese Liberation Army. Authorities had been looking for Soliah for years because of her involvement in the terrorist group’s plot to plant bombs under two police cruisers in 1975 as revenge for the killing of six SLA members earlier that year. Before Olson was indicted in 1976, she left California, changed her name, and started a new life.

  The woman who eluded authorities for over two decades had recast herself as a church volunteer and soccer mom. During an interview with ABC News after her arrest, she described herself as “just an average American woman.” Not exactly. Her photo had appeared on the television show America’s Most Wanted in a segment on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the deadly activities of the group. The FBI was offering $20,000 for information leading to her arrest.

  In June 1999, while she was on her way to teach a citizenship class to recently arrived immigrants in St. Paul, Minnesota, she was pulled over by police. At the time she was arrested, she was also wanted in connection with a 1975 bank robbery in which Myrna Opsahl, a forty-two-year-old mother of four, was murder
ed. “She can change her name, and she can pretend to be a model citizen,” said Jon Opsahl, whose mom was gunned down at the bank where she had gone to deposit the money from her church’s offering plate. “But I just want her and everyone else to know that she really can’t earn that status, because twenty-1 3 8

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  five years ago she helped murder a true model citizen: my mother.” Opsahl could see through the airbrushing.

  Worried that a jury might see through it, too, Olson derailed plans for what was sure to be a sensational trial and took a plea bargain in October 2001, pleading guilty to two counts of possessing explosive devices with intent to murder police officers. Moments later, she denied her guilt to reporters, saying she feared she couldn’t get a fair trial in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The judge handed down two mandatory sentences of ten years to life, which Olson accepted on the condition that she would serve only five years and four months. But that wasn’t the end of it. The Board of Prison Terms stepped in and amended her sentence to fourteen years to life. The saga continued in 2002, when Olson’s lawyers appealed that decision. Ultimately, Sacramento Superior Court judge Thomas Cecil agreed that the board had ruled improperly. Despite pleas for leniency, Olson wound up getting thirteen years in prison. Olson couldn’t airbrush away her past, but she did rack up a pretty steep bill for the taxpayers while trying.

  Speaking of soccer moms, the ultimate acting award should probably go to Betty Broderick. Meredith Baxter portrayed Broderick in a made-for-TV movie that chilled viewers to the bone. Broderick basically lived in a jealous rage after her husband, Dan Broderick, a promi-nent California lawyer, divorced her and married a younger woman.