The Search for Justice

by Robert L Shapiro

  After making a number of phone calls to family members, O.J. got on a plane back to Los Angeles, landing before noon. Skip Taft and Cathy Randa met him and drove him back to Brentwood. Immediately upon entering the grounds of his home on Rockingham Drive, he was handcuffed on orders by L.A.P.D. Detective Philip Vannatter.

  Skip Taft had called O.J. ’s attorney, Howard Weitzman, who had represented Simpson in 198, when he pleaded no contest to charges of spousal abuse. Weitzman prevailed upon Van-natter to take the cuffs off, and at noon O.J. was then taken downtown by the detectives, with Taft and Weitzman following in their car.

  In the police car on the way down to the station, O.J. told the police that when he ’d gotten the call in his hotel room about Nicole ’s death, he was completely distraught. “I just kind of went bonkers for a little bit,” he told them.

  There ’s been much speculation about why O.J. gave his statement without a lawyer being present. It was clear to me from our first meeting that he was a very strong-willed person, used to making his own decisions, running his own show, and his position was that he was completely innocent, and so he had no reason to hide behind lawyers. In fact, he talked quite freely to the police in the car on the way to the police station—they even took notes during the ride, about where he was in Chicago and what he was doing there. At that point in time he was under great emotional and physical stress. The mother of his children had been murdered; and he ’d made the Chicago round-trip in less than twelve hours, with little more than an hour ’s sleep. Not only was he suffering from shock and grief but sleep deprivation as well. Even before he ’d gone to Chicago, he ’d been up the previous morning at five to play his routine Saturday golf game. The man was in no condition to answer questions or reconstruct his previous twenty-four hours to police or anybody else. And yet, he had insisted he was capable of doing it.

  Once they got to the station, Detective Vannatter told Weitzman, “We want to talk to O.J., but we ’d really like to talk to him alone. If he wants a lawyer present, we won ’t talk to him right now.”

  Weitzman and Taft both insisted that they be present for O.J. ’s statement. But the police held to their position: If there were lawyers, there would be no interview. And O.J. wanted to talk to them. So Weitzman reluctantly said, “Well, my client is more than willing to cooperate. However, I must ask that you tape-record the conversation.” This the police agreed to do.

  Although Weitzman was widely criticized for allowing the interview to happen—and I was among those being critical—I soon understood that in order to prevent O.J. from doing or saying something he ’d set his mind on, he almost had to be physically tackled. As a boxer—middleweight class, albeit an amateur—I would have tried.

  “Gentlemen,” I would ’ve said to the police, “my client is exhausted and grieving. He ’s been up all night; today he has to prepare to bury the mother of his children. He ’s more than willing to cooperate, but right now, under doctor ’s orders, he ’s going to bed.” And that, for at least a couple of days, would have been that.

  O.J. ’s statement to the police about his whereabouts the previous twenty-four hours was exculpatory—that is, he accounted for his whereabouts—and after they taped it, they told him he was allowed to go back home.

  After I went over all of this with Taft and Kardashian, I said I wished to talk with Simpson alone. When they left the room, I explained the attorney-client privilege of confidentiality to O.J. “I ’m not here to judge you,” I said. “You can tell Taft one thing, Kardashian another, but if you want my help, what you need to tell me is the truth.” I stopped a moment, preparing to ask the question that would decide where we went from here. “O.J., did you do this?”

  Although his face was haggard, his eyes were steady when he looked directly at me and responded in a strong voice. “I did not do this,” he said firmly. “Nicole and I were together for a long time, Bob. We had our problems, sure, but we shared two beautiful children together, and she was a great mother.” He paused, and then said, “Besides, I have such a good life. Four great kids. Fame, fortune, and wonderful friends. How could anyone think I would destroy all of it? I wouldn ’t. I couldn ’t do this. I didn ’t do this.” It struck me then that this man had, until this week, led a charmed life, repeatedly overcoming obstacles that would have daunted others—and he was completely able, he believed, to overcome this one as well.

  It was time to get down to serious business. Once suspicion is focused on someone, a client must prepare for the prosecution to come at him with everything they ’ve got. And the hardest thing to come to grips with is that once the system locks in, a client ’s innocence will have nothing to do with the outcome of a case.

  Even as we spoke, the district attorney ’s office was gearing for battle as if it were mounting a military invasion, complete with heavy artillery. I knew that they would have the best lawyers, the best investigators. Indeed, what we later learned was that it was the largest effort ever expended by a prosecuting agency. There ’s been a lot of talk about the “Dream Team”—how many lawyers there were on it, how much it cost. Given what was coming at O.J. from the prosecution, we might ’ve been forgiven for believing that we were outgunned. There are eight to nine thousand members of the Los Angeles Police Department and nine hundred deputy district attorneys. It is the largest prosecutorial agency in the world. In an ordinary murder case, two deputy district attorneys would ’ve been assigned; in this case, there would be forty-five working full-time, not to mention the rest of the L.A.P.D. resources, as well as the assistance of the Chicago police department, the FBI, and Interpol.

  Reaching for a sports analogy, I thought about my own experience and training as an amateur boxer. Boxing and trial law have a great deal in common. The contest is not about mass or weight; it ’s about speed, agility, quick thought, and footwork. You have to think on your feet, and can never show any fear, no matter how badly you ’ve been slowed or hurt by the opposition. Not only must you know what the other side is thinking, you must think it before them, and think quicker. There is an axiom in boxing: A good big man will beat a good small man. We had to be better than good. In short, we had to start thinking like the prosecution—how they were building their case and how we were to counter it. It was ironic to discover later that while we began to think like the prosecution, the district attorney ’s office hadn ’t yet started thinking strategically at all, and the police, in their rush to judgment, their “sure thing,” were running around making mistakes.

  To find out exactly what the police knew and what evidence, or lack of it, they had would require getting expert witnesses of our own, putting together a parallel investigation of our own, and moving quickly to get our own people in the field before any more time passed. There was no time to lose. Time was of the essence and we were already two days behind.

  There was no way to know for certain if O.J. was the primary suspect, the only suspect, or if in fact he would be charged at all. At this point, it appeared to me that he believed the whole matter would be dealt with and cleared up simply and quickly. I didn ’t want to dampen his natural optimism; I knew he would need to draw on it as events unfolded. However, as his advocate, it was my job to be pragmatic and prepare for the worst. First, there was the matter of Taft and Kardashian and their roles.

  Taft, as O.J. ’s business attorney, was certainly covered by the attorney-client privilege and had separated himself because of his professional representation. However, Kardashian ’s status, because he knew all the important players intimately, was crucial to us. Kardashian ’s ex-wife, Kris, now married to former Olympian Bruce Jenner, had been Nicole ’s close friend; they shared the same circle of girlfriends and their children played together. Kardashian, as a lawyer O.J. had been relying upon for advice, had and would continue to have access to information that would be difficult for me to get; conversely, this information would be invaluable to the prosecution. Although he hadn ’t practiced law in years, his knowledge of the case and
people involved were essential. I wanted his help.

  It was then decided that Howard Weitzman, whose firm specialized in civil cases and who had been primarily doing civil litigation, would be asked to step aside. Skip immediately met with Weitzman to tell him that I ’d been retained by O.J. I then talked to Weitzman, who was extraordinarily gracious. We discussed the transition, and he subsequently issued a public statement that in the interests of his client, given both their close personal relationship and his own professional commitments, he thought it was best to withdraw. There were rumors at the time that the reason Weitzman left the case was that O.J. had made a confession to him. That is categorically not true.

  There were also rumors (which continue to this day) that at one point we were prepared to enter a plea bargain. This, too, is categorically untrue. Since my client steadfastly maintained his innocence from the beginning and never once wavered, there was never a plea bargain considered, by anyone.

  The words “plea bargain” are right up there with “legal loophole” and “technicalities” in their negative connotation; they make it sound like the courts are helping criminals get away with something. Prosecutors, on the other hand, refer to the process as “case resolution” or “case disposition.” These terms more correctly reflect the role of lawyers, which is to resolve a case to everyone ’s satisfaction. Nobody holds it against either party when a settlement is negotiated in a civil case, but when you try negotiation in a criminal case, the media takes it to the street. However, plea bargaining is not detrimental to the justice system; in fact, the system would completely founder without it. Ninety percent of cases are resolved by pleas. Imagine if they all went instead to trial. The court system would bog down almost instantly, and cases would be systematically dismissed, one after the other.

  That said, it doesn ’t mean that prosecutors give away cases. Each case has a certain value in terms of what can be proven, what the real offense is, and what the fair sentence should be based on the individual, the individual ’s record, and the likelihood of recurrence. When a case comes up, judges, defense, and prosecuting lawyers ask what the logical end result of the case will be—and if we can get there without a trial. First of all, is the defendant willing to plead guilty and admit responsibility to something? And if so, to what? These are the questions we faced on Christian Brando ’s case, for instance, and I had dealt with them as well on behalf of other clients. But in this case, suffice it to say that O.J. Simpson wouldn ’t have considered pleading guilty to any charge, let alone first-degree murder. And the district attorney wouldn ’t have offered anything less.

  Speed is essential in criminal cases. Memories fade, evidence dissipates. Since we had few facts to go on, the people who had seen or been with O.J. throughout the day of the crime were clearly going to be key witnesses, and there were two in particular who were key to establishing his innocence. Brian “Kato” Kaelin had spent much of the evening of the murder with O.J., and Allan Park was the limo driver who had picked him up and taken him to the airport. I wanted to talk to both of them immediately.

  I wished to talk to them both that very night, before their stories eroded from repetition, before anyone had a chance to interrogate them at length with techniques that might favor a particular point of view. And I wanted to tape-record the interviews so that no one could dispute later what questions were asked and answered, or suggest that the questions were improper, or that undue pressure was put on either man.

  From Skip Taft ’s office I called Allan Park, and with Skip present and his secretary coming in and out, we talked over the speaker phone. Park was a conscientious young man who had just begun working part-time for Town and Country Limousine, the company that O.J. used regularly. The company ’s owner, Dale St. John, happened to live across the street from Park, and was O.J. ’s normal driver, but on this night he was unavailable and had sent Park in his place.

  Park told us that he had arrived at O.J. ’s about 10:25 P.M. (twenty minutes early, he said), parked outside the gate, got out of the car and had a cigarette, and then had gone up to the gate at 10:40 and rung the buzzer. When no one replied after several attempts, Park got back into the car and called his boss, who told him that O.J. always ran late and that he should wait until at least 11:15. As they were talking, Park saw Kato Kaelin coming around the side of the house with a flashlight. Almost simultaneously (at around 10:57, he estimated), he also saw someone go into the house. When Park saw the lights go on in the house, he then buzzed the intercom again. O.J. answered it and, according to Park, told him he ’d overslept and been in the shower and that he would be down in just a few minutes.

  It was Kaelin who opened the gate so that Park could drive the limo up to the front door. He ’d felt or heard thumping sounds near the back of the house, Kaelin told him, and that ’s why he had the flashlight. He wondered if perhaps it had been an earthquake, or perhaps a prowler.

  O.J. showed up about five minutes later, in a hurry because he knew it would be a race to the airport. As he would later tell the police, “I was doing my little crazy what I do…. Anybody who has ever picked me up says that O.J. ’s a whirlwind, he ’s running, he ’s grabbing things, and that ’s what I was doing.”

  After his luggage was loaded into the limo, O.J. went into the kitchen to get a better flashlight in order to check the grounds with Kato. When he looked at the kitchen clock, he knew he didn ’t have enough time, and he headed back to the limo. At 11:15, he and Park took off for the airport.

  After ending my discussion with Park, I then interviewed Kato Kaelin at Skip Taft ’s office. Kaelin, at first glance, looks like the kind of person you ’d never want to be your witness; you ’d much rather have him appear for the other side. But his shaggy surfer-dude hair, fragmented grammar, and off-handed manner are deceptive. In fact, although the police had already interviewed him once, when they were first at Rockingham the morning of the murders, their interview wasn ’t particularly thorough or focused. I wondered if they had been somewhat misled by his style.

  As Kato and I talked, I discovered he was a college graduate who ’d played college football. A divorced single father with a ten-year-old daughter—which accounted for his great empathy with Justin and Sydney Simpson—Kaelin had much more intelligence than he was ever given credit for. Although he was very nervous in trying to recollect exactly what had taken place—because he didn ’t want to make any mistakes—he had a good memory and he understood the facts. He was especially torn because of his intense love and loyalty for Nicole. He didn ’t want to take any sides, he simply wanted to be as straightforward as possible; and in doing so, he gave me reason to believe that O.J. was not involved in these deaths in any way.

  An aspiring actor, Kato had met Nicole in Aspen about two years earlier, after she and O.J. had been divorced. Although they were never romantically involved, they became close friends. She and the children lived in a house on Gretna Green, and Kaelin had boarded for a while in the guesthouse there, paying five hundred dollars a month for rent.

  When Nicole purchased the condominium on Bundy, Kaelin agreed that perhaps it was no longer appropriate for him to be living under the same roof with her and the children, so while maintaining his close friendship with her, he temporarily moved to the guesthouse on O.J. ’s Rockingham estate.

  He told us that after O.J. returned from his daughter Sydney ’s dance recital early Sunday evening (Nicole and her family had gone on to dinner at Mezzaluna restaurant), he and O.J. went out and picked up burgers and fries at McDonald ’s, then returned to the house at around 9:45. O.J., who had been on the go since 5:00 A.M., still hadn ’t packed for his red-eye trip to Chicago that night and went right into the house. Kato took his meal into the guesthouse, where he ate it and then made a couple of phone calls to friends. At approximately 10:40 P.M., while he was still on the phone, he thought he heard something or some knocking outside his room, so he nervously went out with a flashlight to investigate. He found nothing, and then, coming
around the house, he saw the limo driver. Kato let him through the gates, helped load the bags into the car once O.J. came outside, and watched them drive away at around 11:15. He was awakened at 5:30 the next morning with the news of his friend Nicole ’s death.

  It was unusual to interview two such key witnesses so early in an investigation. Normally the first thing that happens in a case is that a suspect is identified by the police, then arrested and charged with a crime. A defense attorney isn ’t involved until a client calls and says “I ’ve been arrested, I ’m in jail.” In this case, that hadn ’t happened yet. So far, we were ahead of them.

  Chapter Two

  The primary challenge to the defense is to anticipate the prosecution ’s case. Since I ’m not at all reluctant to admit that I don ’t know everything, I seek out other professionals who can think like the prosecution with me. When I ’m putting together a defense team, I try to find the most credible experts—people who ordinarily and often testify for the prosecution and are or have been employed by government agencies. These people not only gain the respect of a jury, but my getting them keeps the “top of the line” experts out of the hands of the prosecution.

  We have to find out what the police know, and do what they ’re doing as they ’re doing it. And not only must we do what they ’re doing, we must do things they should be doing but for whatever reason aren ’t. Most important, they make mistakes, and we have to find out what those mistakes are. Fast. So it was on Tuesday, June 14, at ten o ’clock at night—one A.M. in the East—that I was on my car phone to New York, tracking down Dr. Michael Baden, the noted pathologist and former chief medical examiner.

  I knew that forensic science would play an integral part in this case; the D.A. ’s office was already talking about the importance of blood evidence. I had worked often with Dr. Baden, most recently on the Brando case, where he was able to establish the trajectory of the bullet that had killed Drollet, and in doing so refute the prosecutor ’s case. Baden, who has conducted more than twenty thousand autopsies in his career, had done distinguished pathology investigations into the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X.