As we prepared for the trial, we knew we had to confront the existence of the 911 tapes and the issue of spousal abuse, and be prepared to argue that such abuse does not automatically lead to murder. Our own surveys showed that 99 percent of the people polled had heard the tapes; of those, a majority believed that they were an accurate reflection of Nicole and O.J. ’s relationship. Trying to get the tapes excluded would be a pretty futile move at this point.
There was no point in hiding it—after all, O.J. had pleaded no contest to the charges. They ’d fought after coming home from a party, where they ’d each had a great deal to drink. Nicole admitted later that she went after O.J. first, throwing things at him, accusing him of being with other women. He overreacted, he blew up, and he wrestled her, which was wrong, and he admitted it. And he went to counseling because of it. He also readily admitted to yelling at Nicole and kicking at the door in 1993, He wasn ’t proud of any of it. They had fights, they had battles. They broke up, they got back together, they broke up. After the 1993 reconciliation—initiated by Nicole—didn ’t work out, O.J. was resigned to their marriage being over, and he resumed his relationship with Paula. If he were truly a man out of control, he would ’ve gone over the top with Keith Zlomsowitch, or the rumors about Marcus Allen. And he didn ’t.
In mid-September, we observed Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the most solemn of Jewish high holy days. Accompanied by my parents, Linell and I attended services at Stephen Weiss Temple, a magnificent sanctuary high atop Mulholland, overlooking the San Fernando Valley.
A reform temple, where the prayers are translated from Hebrew into English, Stephen Weiss has one of the largest Jewish congregations in the United States. Because of this, simultaneous services are held at six different venues on the temple grounds.
We first had occasion to meet with the chief rabbi, Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin, when Brent applied to Stephen Weiss—Michael Milken Community High School, which is affiliated with the temple. I had found Rabbi Zeldin to be a warm, compassionate man, equally adept and wise discussing temporal matters as well as spiritual ones. Quite often, when helping children apply for admission to a private school, parents find themselves answering a variation of the question of what the child can do for the school. Here, we had experienced the reverse: The people at Stephen Weiss were always concerned about what they could do for Brent, and for us as a family. I was surprised to find myself feeling quite emotional about being part of such a place, and great pride at being a Jew.
However, I hadn ’t been attending temple regularly, and on this particular night I expected to feel only the usual dutiful responses. I was tired, achy, anxious. Was I getting the flu? I ’d been restless at night, waking up and thinking of things to talk to Johnnie about, questions I had for the investigators, procedural questions for Uelmen, science questions for Scheck and Neufeld. We ’d started out ahead of the prosecution; had they gone past us?
As the Yom Kippur services went on, I found that the rich voices of the rabbis and cantors singing the ancient prayers were deeply moving to me. When services were over, I came away grateful for the opportunity to have a brief time of spiritual contemplation in the midst of what was distinctly unspiritual turmoil.
Johnnie Cochran had established himself as a leading criminal defense lawyer when he was asked by then—District Attorney John Van de Camp to be an assistant district attorney in the late seventies. It was the first time in the history of the office that a criminal defense lawyer had been appointed to that position.
Cochran was a visible presence as a prosecutor and took a lead role in investigations of police shootings. Upon leaving the D.A. ’s office, he reestablished his private practice, concentrating primarily on civil cases in which he represented civilians against the police department and, in more recent years, entertainment figures involved in criminal cases. Cochran ’s entire practice is staffed by African-Americans, and he is justifiably proud of the reputation the firm has established over the years. Most of his career has been in the downtown Los Angeles courthouse, and he viewed himself, quite correctly, as an expert with downtown juries. He carries himself well, with both dignity and energy, and has a unique ability to vigorously represent his clients and at the same time maintain good relations with prosecutors, police, and government officials alike. This is a quality and attitude I pride myself on, and I welcomed it in Johnnie.
From the beginning, I liked his intuitive understanding of people. A consummate politician, he prided himself on being able to get along with everyone. He is especially good at speaking on his feet; he ’s completely extemporaneous, even in trial, and eloquent on the issues he ’s most passionate about. In private, I rarely saw him show anger, and when negative things were said about him, he shrugged the comments off as unimportant. When the Los Angeles Times published a particularly unflattering article, Johnnie simply ignored the story. I respected his ability to know when to be tough and when to tone things down, both in and out of court. We made frequent jokes at each other ’s expense—I chided him about his unduly loud neckties, he kidded me about my diminishing hairline.
I had expected there would be competition between us, and I wasn ’t surprised or unduly alarmed when I started seeing the signs. Competition is, as I ’ve said, as intrinsic to the nature of defense attorneys as their muscular egos.
In September, I was contacted by the editors of Vanity Fair magazine and asked if I would assent to an all-defense-team photograph, including lawyers, support staff, and investigators. The portrait, to be taken by Annie Leibovitz, would be for the December “Hall of Fame” issue. I agreed, and on the appointed day, as everyone began to gather at the office, and Leibovitz and her crew of eight or nine people spent the better part of the morning setting up to shoot in the firm ’s law library, I got a call from Johnnie.
“Bob, I can ’t be in this picture,” he said. “Michael Jackson hates Vanity Fair, and he ’s said he doesn ’t want me to have any part of this.”
I was taken completely by surprise. But I knew that Jackson was a valued, longtime client, and Johnnie had to honor his wishes. I realized that was why Carl Douglas and Shawn Chapman hadn ’t shown up yet, either.
When I apologetically repeated what Johnnie had told me to Annie Leibovitz, she said, “That can ’t be true about Michael Jackson hating Vanity Fair—I ’ve just been contracted to do a cover story on him!”
Whatever the reasons, it seemed that no one on Johnnie ’s staff would be participating.
With the other lawyers, the office staff, and the investigators, there was enough of the Simpson defense team to make a decent showing. But there wouldn ’t be a single black professional face in the picture. This wouldn ’t represent either the composition or the spirit of the defense team. In fact, it would signal dissent among us. I saw that I had no choice. Over Lee Bailey ’s strenuous objections, and with great apologies to Annie Leibovitz and her hardworking crew, I canceled the picture.
Everyone who had assembled for the photo session was very disappointed. The lead lawyers had been in the spotlight for months, and this would have been a chance for those who had received little or no public acknowledgment to be recognized for their long days and weeks of hard work, and maybe even have some fun.
The following day was miserable for everyone, with tension and a new uncertainty permeating the office. In addition, there were news reports that Johnnie had given interviews announcing that O.J. would testify on his own behalf. I was upset to hear this. We hadn ’t even finished picking a jury yet, the evidence wasn ’t all in. It was only September. We were nowhere near making that decision, or helping O.J. to make it.
That night I scheduled a staff party at a friend ’s home for a private screening of a new Tom Hanks film, Forrest Gump, and to celebrate investigator Pat McKenna ’s birthday. It was a long-overdue social break for all of us. Everyone but Cochran attended.
I was so distracted the whole evening that at one point Jo-Ellan Dimitrius came up to me and said, “What ’s g
oing on with you, Bob? You ’re in awful shape.” Right then I knew I ’d picked the right jury consultant.
After Jo-Ellan and I had talked for a while, I realized that what was happening between Johnnie and me had to be confronted and resolved. I headed for the phone and quickly arranged a meeting for the following morning.
Later that night, I ran into Michael Viner of Dove Books. Viner told me that he ’d be publishing a book soon by Nicole ’s friend Faye Resnick.
“I just wanted you to know there ’s nothing negative in the book about you,” he said.
“Resnick can say whatever she likes about me,” I told Viner. “I ’m not on trial for murder. But my client is. At this point, anything published having to do with this case raises the serious possibility of compromising his right to a fair trial.”
The next morning I began the meeting with Johnnie and our crew on a firm and somber note. Although Bailey had headed back to Boston, Gerry Uelmen was on the speakerphone, and Jo-Ellan and her assistants were in the room, as were all the other lawyers and investigators. I simply restated the facts of my being hired as lead counsel to conduct the defense. All decisions relative to the case and to our client—and all public statements or interviews about those decisions—had to first go through me. As to our client ’s testifying, the press didn ’t need to know each step of our decision making. Staking out a position in public, before all the evidence was in, was unwise. Furthermore, and Johnnie agreed with this, the defense team not only needed to show an image of solidarity, we actually had to be in solidarity with each other. The battle we were waging was daunting enough without faction fighting.
As we talked, the meeting relaxed into something more closely resembling a bull session, with everybody saying what was on their minds. None of us could ’ve done this alone, we agreed. “It ’s almost impossible just to keep up on the reading,” Johnnie said.
When we adjourned, I was glad we ’d all had the chance to air our differences, no matter the initial reason. The tension seemed to have dissolved, and we all appeared to be on the same team again.
Later, I called Annie Leibovitz and once again apologized for wasting her time. She said I could make amends to her and her editors if she could take my picture, alone, for the magazine ’s Hall of Fame issue. Mindful of O.J. ’s concerns about lawyers wasting time and money, I checked with him first, and then agreed on the condition that it could be done easily and quickly. She assured me that it could.
I met with her at the office, late on a Friday afternoon. I had boxed that week and was sporting a black eye. Because it looked more like dirt on my face than anything heroic, I assumed Leibovitz would want to make it disappear with some kind of makeup. After taking a look, she decided instead that it was a good metaphor, and we got down to the no-time-wasted business of a fast photo session. No hair stylist, no makeup, no jacket, and the office around me looking like a tornado had blown through it. In retrospect, maybe that was the metaphor. (We used the picture on the jacket of this book as well—but somebody cleaned up the eye.)
In late September, Tracie Savage, a reporter with Channel 4—KNBC, the local NBC affiliate—reported that DNA tests performed on O.J. ’s socks found at Rockingham identified the blood as Nicole ’s.
When I heard Savage ’s report, I almost smacked the side of my head with my hand, the way you do when you come out of a swimming pool with water in your ears and a ringing in your head. If this information was true, I thought angrily, it had gone directly from the police to a television reporter, completely bypassing the lawyers, the judge, and the discovery process. If it wasn ’t true, it was misinformation from an inside source and manipulation of a reporter.
The next morning there was a heated chambers conference with Judge Ito, who acknowledged, “If I was in your shoes, Bob, they ’d have to peel me off the ceiling.”
Marcia Clark assured us that the socks had not yet been sent to Cellmark for DNA testing. Only standard serology tests had been done at the L.A.P.D. lab, and only she and assistant district attorney Lisa Kahn knew the results, which thus far excluded O.J. and possibly included Nicole.
I told Judge Ito that I strongly suspected that Tracie Savage ’s information came from the Scientific Investigations Division (SID) of the police department. He agreed to schedule an immediate hearing and brought in Michelle Kestler from the L.A.P.D. crime lab (whose husband was a police detective) and Donna Jones, the deputy city attorney (who is married to a police captain). Kestler, who adamantly denied being the source of the leaks, said that the socks would be sent out for DNA testing on Monday, September 26, which coincidentally was the first scheduled date of jury selection.
Although I wanted the attorney general ’s office to investigate, Ito felt that response was too harsh. Instead, he instructed Donna Jones to begin an internal affairs investigation. The following night, KNBC ’s Tracie Savage not only stuck by her story on the air but embellished it: Both types of DNA testing had been performed on the blood on the socks, she reported, and the blood was unquestionably Nicole ’s.
Judge Ito was livid. Publicly chastising Savage for inaccurate and false reporting, he threatened to keep the news media out of the courtroom entirely. Again, this wasn ’t the remedy I sought. I wanted to know where the false information was coming from and stop it, arguing that it was maliciously interfering with O.J. ’s right to a fair trial. The leaks always seemed to come after we ’d had a good day in court with favorable rulings.
When Ito continued to take off on the media ’s irresponsible behavior, I said, “You know, this may not be a media problem at all. In fact, the media may be relying on what they believe to be good sources.” I made it clear on the record that I didn ’t believe the leaks were coming from the district attorney ’s office, and I knew they weren ’t coming from us. I didn ’t say outright that the L.A.P.D. was conducting a deliberate misinformation campaign to taint the jury pool, but I did continue to insist that there be an official investigation. Ito said that he ’d take it under advisement. And he let us know that he was still reconsidering the whole idea of the media in the courtroom—television cameras in general and Channel 4 in particular. One ultimate result of the furor over the news leaks was that Judge Ito issued an order that all test results go directly and only to him.
A few days later, I spoke with an old friend who had met with the news director at KNBC. The employees of the station absolutely stood by their story, which they insisted came from a source inside the police department.
“I guess they ’d rather stick with their story—and call the judge and the district attorney liars while they ’re at it,” I said.
“Evidently so,” said my friend. “They ’re acting like their job is to make the news, not report it.”
I could see that this kind of thing frustrated O.J. to no end. The degree to which wrong information was repeated, or confidential information was leaked, simply confounded him. As the jury selection and pretrial hearings progressed, he became more knowledgeable about the legal issues and more active in decision making. Watching him, I understood how it was that he had come so far from his difficult beginnings. He would be the first to argue that he wasn ’t a scholar, but he had an acute and curious mind, and an obvious vital interest in how his case was being conducted.
Yet O.J. was also keenly aware of what was happening in the “outside world,” especially with his friends. He grew quite agitated and sad when Bobby Chandler, an old Buffalo teammate and one of O.J. ’s dearest friends, was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer at the end of September.
Throughout the early days of going in and out of O.J. ’s office at Kardashian ’s, I would often run into Bobby Chandler. He was a spectacular man, a gifted All-American with great style and humor who had become a lawyer, practiced for a short time, and then pursued a broadcasting career. He understood the law; but more important to all of us, because he visited the jail almost religiously, he understood O.J.
Not yet fifty—and looking much younger�
�Chandler seemed the least likely candidate to be diagnosed with a terminal illness. He never smoked or drank, he worked out regularly, and he seemed a source of boundless positive energy. O.J. told me that four of their Buffalo teammates had died of cancer, and there had been some speculation about toxic material adjacent to a practice field. In spite of his diagnosis, Chandler was about to undergo an arduous chemotherapy regimen in hopes of arresting the progress of the disease, if not its ultimate outcome. O.J. was distraught with worry for his friend, who had been so stalwart.
“He ’s been so great to me,” he said. “Now he needs me, and there ’s nothing I can do for him from in here.”
As we continued to argue the pretrial evidentiary motions, we focused on a second Rockingham search warrant that had been issued three weeks after the murders. The warrant had turned up two home video cassettes with notes on each, written by Nicole. “O.J., it ’s probably too late, but I thought you ’d want to have these,” she had written. The videos were taken during O.J. and Nicole ’s wedding, and the births of Sydney and Justin.
Although the district attorney ’s office and the police said that these pointed to a motive for O.J. ’s rage and the subsequent murders, to anyone else they indicated a desire on Nicole ’s part for another reconciliation. If Nicole hadn ’t desired to remind her husband of the good times they ’d shared, and the children that had come from their marriage, why would she have sent these videos to him, in a gesture that seemed almost loving? This didn ’t seem like the action of a woman who was hunted or stalked by someone she wanted nothing further to do with.
The Search for Justice Page 18