The Search for Justice (24 page)

On Monday, August 8, we held a meeting of all lawyers and investigators in the office. The people who were out of town
were linked to the rest of us by speakerphone. We finalized the decision on jury consultants; as I ’d hoped, we hired Jo-Ellan
Dimitrius. Of the three groups we ’d been reviewing, Jo-Ellan ’s was based in California, and had a great deal of experience
with local juries.

Johnnie broke into the jury consultant discussion. No one knew downtown juries like he did, he said. After all, it was his
jury expertise that had gotten Todd Bridges off. Bridges, a former child star charged with murdering a drug dealer, was acquitted
of those charges in a very highly publicized case that had contributed to Cochran ’s reputation.

That night Cochran and I spoke briefly on the phone, primarily about the lawsuit that Mark Fuhrman was talking about filing
against us. I had discussed the matter with Larry Feldman and Tony Glassman and decided not to respond. But Johnnie had prepared
a lengthy response and had engaged his own lawyers to send it out.

“Johnnie, I don ’t think anybody on the team should write anything or file anything without running it past me first,” I said.
“We have to stay cohesive, and focused, for the good of the case.”

“This isn ’t about O.J., Bob,” Johnnie told me. “I have to protect myself. You don ’t have to worry about me, I know what
I ’m doing. I wasn ’t even involved in the case at the time.”

The next day, Captain Scaduto called from the jail; he ’d heard through the grapevine that someone in Cochran ’s office—Carl
Douglas, maybe—was filing a motion concerning O.J. ’s complaints about the poor condition of the jail. “I thought we were
going to try and work this out between us,” Scaduto said.

I assured him that nobody was filing anything, and we were of course willing to wait a reasonable time to see that the problems
at the jail were addressed to everybody ’s satisfaction. After I ’d spoken to Scaduto, I called Johnnie and requested in the
strongest terms possible that Carl proceed no further on whatever it was he was doing. “I have thick skin, Johnnie, so you
can argue with me on issues if you want, I have no trouble with that. But you and I have to speak and act with one voice on
legal procedures and defense team strategy.” Happily, he agreed.

That night I had trouble sleeping for the first time since I ’d taken on the Simpson case. I hadn ’t eaten much all day, I
’d canceled my boxing session with Jason, my trainer, and I tossed and turned much of the night. When I abruptly awoke the
next morning at 6:15, I felt anxious and jumpy. I ’d never been either a plaintiff or a defendant in a court action, and now
I was being threatened with a libel suit. It was all a little unsettling.

On August 1, we conducted a hearing to bring Judge Ito up to date, to let him know that we (the defense and the prosecution)
were making good progress on discovery; that is, we were each responding to the other ’s request for information. There had
been a request from the press asking that they be allowed to see photographs introduced at the preliminary hearing, in particular
the coroner ’s photographs of Nicole and Ron Goldman. They evidently wanted only to see and then describe the pictures, not
reproduce or broadcast them. I argued that while we had a right to a fair trial, the press had no corresponding right to try
the case in the media. Ultimately, ruling that even the descriptions of the pictures would be prejudicial to the case, Ito
kept the photographs sealed.

Afterward, Bill Hodgman, Marcia Clark, and I met in chambers for about forty-five minutes, talking about the different effects
the case was having on all our lives. The story about my work related to the shooting of her ex-husband had come out, and
we agreed that it was completely bizarre—a real case of truth being stranger than fiction. We were doing the jobs we ’d always
done, yet our personal lives didn ’t seem to belong to us anymore. Complete strangers commented on Marcia ’s hair, Hodgman
’s manners, my suits, even my tan. All of our children were being affected by our constant presence on television and
our absence from home. Brent was acting out even beyond what I ’d expected once he hit adolescence, and Grant ’s nightly question
was “When will this be over?”

We talked about DNA for a few minutes. To date, we were dealing with more than one hundred samples, and the last batch of
discovery material had come to nearly two thousand pages. In one memo, I had categorized it as “ecologically improper material.”

Marcia and Bill weren ’t optimistic about the results they were going to get, since RFLP testing wasn ’t particularly successful
with leather, asphalt, or concrete. “It would be a happy day if the results exclude O.J.,” Marcia said. “Then we could just
dismiss the case and move on.”

I was pleasantly surprised by that comment. I guess we were all a little weary. “I ’m having quite a time running my bureaucracy,”
I told them.

“Our bureaucracy is bigger and much harder to deal with than yours is, Bob,” joked Hodgman. It was the most relaxed discussion
I ’d had with them since the case had begun.

On Wednesday, August 10, I got a call from NBC ’s Don Ohlmeyer, who was somewhat dismayed at his network ’s coverage of the
case, which he felt had been pretty negative. Ohlmeyer had been to see O.J. often, and on one visit he ’d even offered to
help pay the $30,000-per-month overtime charges so that he could move to a more comfortable cell. O.J. refused the offer,
saying that he couldn ’t allow Don to do that. “Isn ’t it nice that I have a friend like him?” he said to me.

O.J. was going to Cedars-Sinai Hospital the following day, for the long-delayed lymph node biopsy. The surgery, an outpatient
procedure, was at his expense; the trip to the hospital alone, complete with three unmarked cars and five special deputies,
would cost two thousand dollars. He was understandably nervous but trusted Dr. Huizenga. He ’d been thinking about the results
of the test, about what he ’d do if they showed positive
for cancer. His greatest concern was for his children, especially the two little ones. At the end of that month, he would
sign over guardianship of Sydney and Justin to Louis and Juditha Brown, the term of guardianship to last only “until his release.”

When I left the office that day, KCBS Channel 2 anchor Harvey Levin was waiting for me out in the parking lot. “Bob, can I
get you on camera?” he asked.

“Sure you can,” I said, smiling, and then gently took the microphone out of his hand. We did a quick Abbott and Costello routine,
where I was the interviewer and Levin was the subject. I peppered him with questions about the negative press coverage we
’d been getting.

“Hey, I think I need a lawyer for this,” he said, laughing.

Handing over the microphone, I changed positions with him and stood in front of the camera. “Well, Harvey, business is slow
today,” I said, “so I ’m available for hire.”

He didn ’t want jokes, he wanted something solid. “Just give me ten seconds, please,” he asked. “Anything you ’ve got, on
the record.”

I shook my head. “I ’ve got nothing to say about anything having to do with this case. Absolutely nothing.”

The next morning, the phone rang at six-thirty. It was Dr. Huizenga. Although it would be a while before we ’d know the results
of the tests (which ultimately proved negative), he said the procedure itself had gone well, although the
National Enquirer
was supposedly scaling the walls of Cedars-Sinai.

O.J. called later that morning when he returned from the hospital. He was tired and irritable; he ’d been awakened in the
jail at three-thirty that morning, at four they handcuffed him—from behind—but then didn ’t take him out of the cell to leave
for the hospital for another half-hour. He couldn ’t sit down on the bed, he couldn ’t go to the bathroom. And when he came
back from the hospital and went to make his phone calls, somebody accidentally slammed the iron gate on his hand.

“It doesn ’t hurt right now,” he said. “I ’m probably still
loaded with anesthetic.” He was upset that the early news reports of his trip to the hospital said he was suffering from hemorrhoids.
“They can ’t even get that right,” he said, disgusted. “News is just entertainment to them.”

I
n August, we gave O.J. our copy of the police murder book to examine closely. If he testified, he had to be solid on the facts.
As the most important person in the case—the one who knew more about his relationship with Nicole than anyone else did—he
would be able to spot inconsistencies and errors, which we could then point out to a jury.

He was unhappy with our pursuing avenues of reasonable doubt. Understandably, he wanted to be proven innocent. That would
have required our producing proof of who committed the murders. That was not the defense ’s obligation, and it was beyond
our resources.

After this meeting, I heard from Sara Caplan that she ’d been called to be present during a search of O.J. ’s business office
by four deputies and, I was happy to hear, a Special Master. The search warrant was specific to material dating from January
1 to July 17, 1994. When the deputies discovered brochures on domestic abuse in O.J. ’s files—brochures that he ’d been given
while on probation—Sara promptly declared that these were beyond the scope of the warrant and couldn ’t be seized. The Special
Master agreed. That material became the “mystery document” that Cathy Randa later shredded—which of course made it into the
tabloid headlines as something dire and sinister.

In late August, we met with Jo-Ellan Dimitrius about the questionnaire we would prepare, with the prosecution, to give to
the prospective jury members. We had a tentative draft of the questions we wanted to use, based on responses that Jo-Ellan
had gotten from focus groups. In her meetings with O.J., she was getting to know him and becoming familiar with the themes
of his life—his relationship with Nicole, his feelings for his children, the unlikelihood that he would have committed these
crimes.

I attended one of Jo-Ellan ’s focus-group sessions in Santa Monica. I sat with her behind a glass wall, watching a facilitator
work with a racially mixed group of nine people, reflecting what we believed the jury pool to be. I was fascinated as I heard
their responses to questions ranging from “How many people here have heard of O.J. Simpson?” (unanimous) to “What do you think
the trial verdict is likely to be?” (mixed). Many of them were familiar with the Simpson preliminary-hearing proceedings and
understood some of the legal terms and the issues of evidence as well.