The Search for Justice

by Robert L Shapiro

  The terms “Dream Team” and “Trial of the Century” didn ’t come from me, and I was never comfortable with either of them. My primary focus from the beginning of the Simpson case was to vigorously defend my client and to assemble a team of experts to strengthen that defense. Within a day or two it was clear that this would become a highly visible case, although I couldn ’t know at that point the degree to which the public would continue to demand information and coverage. I believed that the visibility would be good for two things: first, for lawyers (especially criminal lawyers, who have historically always been demeaned) to demonstrate how professional they can be, so that the public would come to understand what the real role of a criminal lawyer is; and second, to serve as some kind of positive symbol at a time when race relations were seriously frayed, especially in my own city. We had been through the Rodney King and Reginald Denny trials, and the riots and the soul-weariness that came with them. We had been through, in my lifetime, the promise of the civil rights movement, which now seems to have come undone. Perhaps, I thought, my being a white Jewish lawyer defending a black man accused of killing two white people, one of whom was Jewish, would strengthen what had become weakened. Perhaps a vigorous defense team that included a respected African-American attorney, and an equally vigorous prosecution team led by a Jewish woman and another black man, could somehow convey the message that the American system of justice is ultimately more important than any racial or religious element within it. Unfortunately, I was wrong on all counts. I was clearly, clearly wrong. Was I naive? Perhaps. But even now I would argue that optimism and idealism—which keep me in this business—are difficult to sustain without sustaining some naivete as well.

  I am not omniscient, and I have no better way of judging guilt or innocence than anyone else. However, I do know one thing for certain: Legally, the result of the trial is correct. This was a solid case of reasonable doubt, and I knew that before the trial itself ever began. Based on the evidence presented to this jury, “not guilty” was the only verdict that could have been returned.

  That doesn ’t mean a significant number of Americans aren ’t sitting out there this minute thinking, “O.J. probably did it.” But under our system, “probably did it” is not sufficient to convict someone. You cannot ask the question on one side of the coin—How does the defense attorney sleep, knowing that sometimes the guilty go free?—without confronting the question on the flip side: How could any of us sleep if innocent people were put away? Or executed?

  I take pride in what I do. I am a professional, I have a constitutionally mandated job, and I work hard at it. Therefore, I ’m able to function as a lawyer and survive as a human being. And so I sleep very well.

  Chapter One

  On Monday, Jun. 13, I was heading back to my Century City office after spending the morning in the Los Angeles Municipal Court. Two different clients, two different preliminary hearings. One was a minor theft case, and I had filed a motion for continuance so we could get additional discovery. The second was more complicated: a white-collar case where a client had allegedly taken money for discounted airline tickets. Just as I pulled into the building ’s parking garage, the car phone rang. It was Dale Gribow, an old friend and Loyola Law School classmate.

  “Bob, have you heard the news about O.J. Simpson?” he asked.

  “No,” I answered, mildly curious. “What about him?” Although we weren ’t close friends, O.J. and I knew each other in passing, and with many mutual friends in Los Angeles, we had often run into each other over the years at various charity events and parties, including one Fourth of July party at his house in Laguna with my wife, Linell, and my two sons, Brent and Grant.

  “It ’s incredible,” Dale said. “Nicole ’s been murdered, and O.J. ’s been taken down to the Parker Center by the police for questioning.”

  “I can ’t believe it!” I said. “Dale, what else do you know about this?”

  He didn ’t have many details; the news reports were still pretty sketchy. All he knew so far was that there had been a stabbing, there was supposedly a second victim, although he didn ’t know who it was, and Simpson had reportedly made some kind of statement to the police.

  “Actually, one of the reasons I called was to see if you were representing him,” Dale said.

  This wasn ’t an out-of-the-blue question: Dale knew I had represented many high-profile clients in the past, and there had been some athletes and celebrities on that list. Not this time.

  “No,” I said. “This is the first I ’ve heard about this. And nobody ’s contacted me.”

  For the rest of the afternoon, local TV anchors repeated the same information I ’d heard from Dale. Howard Weitzman, a Los Angeles attorney, had reportedly been retained by Simpson. Weitzman, an excellent lawyer and a friend of mine, had represented John DeLorean in the famous narcotics case where DeLorean was accused of offering to sell large amounts of cocaine to federal agents, a charge that he was subsequently acquitted of, and Weitzman was currently representing pop singer Michael Jackson. As the news reports accelerated throughout the day and mild gossip and speculation began to buzz throughout the office, all I could think of was that someone I knew had been murdered just ten minutes away from where I was sitting. In fact, I could look out my office window and see Brentwood in the distance.

  That night, Linell and I went to a private party at the House of Blues. A great blues singer was behind the microphone, Cher would be entertaining later, and the champagne was flowing. At about nine o ’clock, a security guard came up to me and said, “You have an emergency phone call, Mr. Shapiro,” telling me I was welcome to take the call in the club ’s private office. My heart started to pound—all I could think was that something had happened to one of our boys. Murmuring a quick excuse to Linell, I followed the guard into the office, where I picked up the phone to hear a totally unfamiliar voice on the other end of the line.

  “You don ’t know me, Mr. Shapiro,” the man said. “My name is Roger King. I ’m the chairman of Kingworld, and a dear friend of O.J. Simpson ’s. He needs a good lawyer right now, and I think you ’re the man to represent him. I ’d like to engage you on his behalf.”

  King, whose company owns and syndicates such television programs as Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and Oprah, had a reputation as a respected and powerful businessman. And he was clearly someone who could cut to the chase when the situation required it.

  “Mr. King, I can appreciate what you ’re asking me,” I said, “and I take it as a compliment. But I understand he already has a lawyer. Besides, it ’s pretty late in the evening, and at any rate, I couldn ’t consider going forward without talking to O.J. himself. We would need to meet personally.”

  “I ’m going to get O.J. on the line right now,” King insisted, “so you can talk to him about this tonight.”

  King then tried to reach O.J. at his home, but whoever answered there said O.J. couldn ’t be disturbed right now for a phone call; he was understandably occupied with other things. King and I continued talking about the situation for about half an hour, during which he kept repeating his intention to retain me immediately.

  “You ’re obviously a loyal friend,” I said, “and this is a generous thing that you want to do for O.J. But let ’s wait until I talk to him before we go any further.”

  When I returned to the table, Linell had grown concerned. She was relieved to hear that the call wasn ’t about the boys, and when I told her about my conversation with King, she asked, “What are you going to do?”

  “I don ’t know yet,” I said. “It has to wait until tomorrow.” Wanting to enjoy the rest of the evening, I didn ’t tell anyone else at the table about the phone call.

  Later that night, I heard from Roger King again as he put me in touch with the head of legal affairs for a motion picture company that had released some of O.J. ’s films. I reiterated that no matter how urgent the matter seemed to everyone, we had to put it to rest until I could actually meet with O.J. Finally, I c
alled Alan Schwartz, one of O.J. ’s longtime friends, in New York. Schwartz, the founder of ABS (a national women ’s apparel manufacturer and retailer), had also been a friend of mine for some time. A hardworking, hands-on man who is at his factory every day at six-thirty in the morning, his opinion of this case and my participation in it would prove to be a big part of my decision. Alan assured me that he had in fact spoken both to O.J. and Skip Taft, O.J. ’s personal attorney, and that they would call me in the morning.

  I arrived at my office early the next day. I had watched the morning TV news programs and wanted an opportunity to read as much of the newspaper coverage as I could before talking to Simpson himself.

  I had learned that Nicole had been killed, along with a second person, a young man whose name was Ronald Goldman. The deaths were the result of multiple stabbings, and the crime scene was out in front of the Bundy Drive condominium that Nicole had purchased shortly after she and O.J. had been divorced in 1993. The two young children of O.J. and Nicole, Sydney and Justin, were unharmed—they had evidently been asleep in their rooms when the murders took place—and were now with Nicole ’s parents, Louis and Juditha Brown, down in Orange County.

  After being notified of Nicole ’s death, O.J., who had been in Chicago on business, had returned to Los Angeles early Monday morning. He was met at the airport by his longtime assistant, Cathy Randa, and Skip Taft. Minutes after they pulled into the driveway at his home on Rockingham, he was in handcuffs, in full view of his companions and the press already assembled in the street in front of his house.

  Simpson had reportedly given the police a statement, but his attorney, Howard Weitzman, had not been present for it. My inner alarm went off when I heard this. It was clear from the TV and news reports (not to mention the initial handcuff incident at his house) that the police considered the man a suspect. What on earth was he doing talking to them, or anyone else for that matter, without legal counsel present?

  By the time O.J. ’s call came, I had learned as much as I could. I had never talked to him on the phone before. In spite of an obvious tension, his voice was measured, much as it had been whenever we had met. Despite my awareness of the tragedy, I realized that this was an important moment. This was one of the greatest football players in history, a man who was still a major sports figure even though he hadn ’t been on the gridiron for the last fifteen years. He was calling to seek my advice, my counsel, and he wanted it immediately.

  “What are you doing right now?” I asked.

  “I ’m just sitting here with Skip Taft and my friend Bob Kardashian. We would like to meet with you.”

  “O.J., stay where you are, I ’m coming right over,” I said. “Don ’t go anyplace, and don ’t talk to anybody else.”

  As I drove, I wondered about the meeting ahead. For one thing, O.J. was represented by my friend Howard Weitzman, which created a somewhat awkward situation. In addition, the first meeting with a potential client is always an anxious situation, especially when the focus of suspicion is already on him. I hadn ’t agreed to anything yet, and I didn ’t have much information. Even without the specifics, I knew that if I was going to take this case, I needed to start thinking like a prosecutor. Since I had actually been one early in my career (and in the Los Angeles D.A. ’s office, too), it wasn ’t so hard to do. What, I wondered, did they have? Was it possible that O.J. could have killed Nicole?

  Some defense attorneys say that they never ask clients whether or not they committed the crime, because they don ’t want the burden of knowing. I disagree. I want to know, I have to know, it ’s in my client ’s best interests that I do know. I ’m never afraid to ask the question right at the beginning, and I keep asking it throughout a case. I want a client ’s confidence, and I want him to have mine, so that we can operate as a single entity. No surprises, no plot twists. I want the truth, no matter what it is, and I want the inconsistencies up front.

  When a client says “I ’m guilty,” what he means is “I ’m responsible”—for setting in motion certain events that culminated in a crime or act of violence. To the public, a defendant is either guilty or not guilty. But a criminal attorney recognizes that the law is not black and white—everything is shades of gray. In a death case, is it murder? Is it manslaughter? Or is it justifiable homicide? In a burglary, is it first-degree or second-degree? What is the difference between assault with a deadly weapon and assault with intent to commit murder? All have the same basic elements, but each has tremendously different legal consequences. It is up to the courts to ascertain the level of responsibility and the penalty, if any, to be paid for it.

  For example, the first time I talked with Marlon Brando ’s son Christian, who had been charged with first-degree murder for shooting his sister ’s boyfriend, Dag Drollet, he told me, “I killed him.”

  “Killing him doesn ’t mean you murdered him,” I said, explaining that there were extenuating circumstances, and thus different degrees of responsibility, that we hadn ’t yet explored. And indeed, as I began to learn the details of the case, I concluded that Christian wasn ’t guilty of murder. At best it was manslaughter, and possibly accidental death as the result of negligence.

  I hired expert investigators (including two who would later work with me on the Simpson case) to do a complete reconstruction of the shooting, which indicated that the victim was in an upright position at the time he was shot. This, we argued, was evidence of a struggle between two men, not, as the police had concluded, the premeditated murder of a sleeping man by someone standing over him. And later, in fact, when Marlon was walking barefoot in the room, he stepped on the spent bullet-shell casing; the detectives had missed it in a two-day search. It was imbedded in the floor, beneath the carpet, at a location and angle that proved the theory of our reconstruction; the shot was fired while Drollet was upright. Thus, the level of Christian ’s responsibility was quite different than the police had originally believed, allowing him to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter, which carries a sentence of three to sixteen years. First-degree murder would have been twenty-five years to life.

  On another occasion, a man walked into my office after shooting his wife and dumping her body on the freeway.

  “You should surrender yourself immediately,” I told him.

  It turned out that he had a significant defense. He had been living in a destructive marriage with a woman who insisted on having sex with a mutual friend of theirs and required her husband to watch. Slowly but surely he was pushed beyond his capacity to think or act in a rational way. Guilty, yes, but of what? Murder? First degree? Second? None of the above. He was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to five years.

  What if he had told me he didn ’t do it and I had built a defense on that? And then found out about the bad marriage and sex angle later—from the prosecution, as they cross-examined my witness? I don ’t want any surprises; I want everything up front from day one. I remembered the strategy one veteran lawyer told me that he always used on his clients at their first meeting: “You tell me what happened, and then I ’ll tell you what happened.” What, I wondered as I drove, was I about to hear from O.J. Simpson?

  Skip Taft has a small law firm, and adjacent to his suite of offices is a room that resembles someone ’s personal study or den, with star-studded pictures on the wall, a large television, a couch, a sound system, and a lot of sports memorabilia. Decorated with classic American pieces and a large wooden partner ’s desk, this is O.J. ’s office, which for years has served as the center of his business and professional activities and his sports corporation, Orenthal Productions. When I arrived, O.J. was waiting anxiously with his two friends.

  Leroy “Skip” Taft, a tall, lanky man in his late fifties who had been a star basketball player at USC, and O.J. ’s personal attorney and business manager for many years, was clearly stressed out. Bob Kardashian, who was only slightly less agitated than Taft, is, after Allen “A.C.” Cowlings, probably O.J. ’s oldest friend. They met on a tennis court twenty-
five years ago. O.J. was an usher at Kardashian ’s wedding; Kardashian was with O.J. when he first met Nicole and had stayed friends with both of them throughout their separation and divorce. A business and entertainment entrepreneur who received a law degree in 1969, Kardashian was and has remained O.J. ’s closest advisor.

  No one can deny the charisma and kinetic energy that O.J. Simpson projects, and I saw from the minute I walked into the room that his frustration, added to the grief and stress of the previous days, was barely contained within the four walls. Clean-shaven, wearing a T-shirt and a pair of slacks, he was in control, but it was clear that he wanted to get his innocence across quickly and without any equivocation whatsoever. Essentially, everything I ’d heard and read in the newspapers so far accurately depicted the previous thirty-six hours.

  After attending his daughter Sydney ’s dance recital, O.J. had flown to Chicago on the Sunday night red-eye to play in a Monday morning golf tournament sponsored by Hertz, the auto-rental company for which he had been a longtime spokesman. At 6:05 L.A. time on Monday morning, he received a phone call at his hotel room from L.A.P.D. Detective Ron Phillips informing him that Nicole Brown Simpson, his former wife, had been murdered.