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L. A. SENTINEL AND DENNIS SCHATZMAN
1994
How Do You Spell Loyalty? Answer: A.L. C.o.w.l.i.n.g.s.
By DENNIS SCHATZMAN Staff Writer
When freshman tailback Jason Simpson was flunking out of the University of Southern California in 1988, athletic department officials made several calls to O.J. Simpson's office to ask him to come and see about his son.
"We'd leave messages with O.J.'s secretary," one officials told the Sentinel, "and who come's in--Al Cowlings."
Cowlings--boyhood friend and teammate of Simpson's at San Francisco' s Galileo High School, USC and later the Buffalo Bills and the San Francisco 49ers--is by all standards Simpson's most loyal friend.
Cowlings was the driver who led law enforcement officials through a Southern California low-speed chase, with Simpson in the back seat holding a gun to his head and talking to policemen on a cellular phone.
He also kept Simpson away from the ex-wife's gravesite where he intended to go and reportedly was to take his life.
When reached at his home on Monday, Cowlings first told the Sentinel, "I've got to go. Please leave me alone."
A few minutes later, after hearing a plea from a Sentinel reporter on his answering machine, he called back and said, in a much calmer voice, "I just can't talk to you now, brother. Maybe further down the road. But not now."
When told that several people in the Sentinel said they were praying for him, Cowlings said "thank you."
Simpson had failed to turn himself in to answer to charges that he was a suspect in the murder of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her companion, Ronald Goldman. Both were found stabbed to death in front of the ex-wife's home in the early-morning hours of June 13.
The Hall of Famer was arraigned before Municipal Court Judge Patti Jo McKay on Monday, where he pled not guilty to two charges of murder.
Cowlings was arrested, charged with harboring a fugitive and later released on $25,000 bond. But virtually everyone is crediting Cowlings with bringing a suicidal Simpson back to authorities on Friday night.
The academic situation with Simpson's oldest son by his first marriage shows what else Cowlings is willing to do for his friend.
"Jason was just a sweet kid," one administrator confided. "You can tell that he wasn't out to hurt anybody, but he was doing things to hurt himself by trying to get his daddy's attention."
The younger Simpson, who flunked out of USC after one semester, was in the former USC coach Larry Smith's first recruiting class.
Cowlings, the administrator confirms, was well aware of the problems between Jason and O.J.. "He (Cowlings) came in here and told us that he and others have tried to get O.J. to pay more attention to Jason."
The former defensive end, told USC officials that he had also dealt with Jason's problems when he attended Army and Navy Academy High School in Carlsbad, California. Dr. Fred Heinle, the school's principal, would not respond to press inquiries.
Cowlings' strength and commitment is well known to people close to him. "He is the most gentle person I ever met," said Jackie Cooper, a long-time friend of the two, who lives near Palm Springs, "and I think the strongest.
Cooper told the reporters that Cowlings called him the day after the bodies were discovered. Cooper says both he and Cowlings were concerned about the Simpson children.
"A.C. and I didn't even talk about the Simpsons' marital problems, " Cooper recalled, "but when we were with O.J. (at a Palm Springs golf outing over the Memorial Day weekend) that's all we talked about. That's all he wanted to talk about."
Cooper elaborated on the Memorial Day golf outing. He says Simpson said he was interested in buying property in the desert to improve his golf game and, to "help him go on without Nicole.
"They couldn't be together," Cooper continued. "He tried very hard. He was just in love with her and it was magnified because he couldn' t have her. They loved each other, and neither of them could totally give it up. They couldn't live together, and they couldn't live without each other. He seemed to understand that (Nicole Brown) was something he had to give up on."
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, How Do You Spell Loyalty? Answer: A.L. C.o.w.l.i.n.g.s.., Los Angeles Sentinel, 06-23-1994, pp PG.
O.J.'s Hearing Begins Today; Defense Gets Blood, DA Gets Hair
Each side exudes confidence as preliminary hearing begins to determine if Simpson should be held over for trial on double murder charges.
Prosecutors agreed Tuesday to split a blood sample with the defense in the O.J. Simpson case, and the other side agreed to provide a sample of the defendant's hair to the prosecution.
Such physical evidence is likely to be crucial at the upcoming preliminary hearing for Simpson, which is set to begin today, Thursday, at 9 a.m.
Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark said, however, that it would not be until today before the state's forensic scientists finish going over all 60 or so items seized at the crime scene.
Clark, and Simpson lead counsel Bob Shapiro, stated in court Tuesday that they were both ready to proceed to the hearing today, which was something of a surprise.
Their remarks came in response to a question from Municipal Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell, who wanted to know if it was realistic to assume that the hearing would be convened in two days as scheduled.
The prosecution indicated it would need about one working week to present its case during the hearing, which is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to hold Simpson for trial.
Police have been unable to find a murder weapon--despite a much publicized search of a field behind a Chicago hotel where Simpson stayed briefly on June 13--much less link it to the defendant. Thus, the other forensic evidence will likely be key in tying the 46-year-old celebrity to the killings.
Simpson's side, in fact, has indicated--though not stated categorically- -that it will put on an "affirmative defense" case at the preliminary hearing. That means they will simply contend he did not kill Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and her friend, Ron L. Goldman, 25, on the late evening of June 12.
During the evidentiary hearing Tuesday, Clark said she would be happy to allow the defense to watch the state's forensic scientists as they conduct tests on the evidence.
Shapiro said that was unsatisfactory, that he was not interested in an "over the shoulder" examination. He said his team of forensic experts wanted to conduct independent tests.
Shapiro did say he would have no problem in surrendering the hair sample. But he said his side "would like to know, though, for the analysis whether they are going to compare a follicle (of hair) that they have or a shaft?"
He also asked for a portion of the prosecution's sample.
Clark said there was plenty of hair found at the crime scene to accommodate that request. She did not know whether the prosecutor's analysts would look at the follicle or a shaft.
She provoked titters in the courtroom when she said "you cannot split hairs," meaning they cannot be split between follicle and shaft for DNA testing.
"Hairs cannot be split for examination the way that blood can," she added.
The prosecution had earlier indicated that it wanted a sample of Simpson' s hair.
"The police reports in the case, as well as evidence presented to the grand jury, reveal that one of the items found at the homicide scene was a knit cap," Clark wrote in her motion.
"Inside the cap, black curly hairs were detected which have been determined to be of African American origin. Further scientific testing and comparison of the hairs found in the knit cap ... with samples from the defendant, will reveal whether the hair found in the cap could have come from the defendant."
The dark blue cap was found at the foot of one of the victims' bloodied bodies.
Legal experts said any test results from hair samples probably would be used only to bolster other evidence in the case.
"Some materials are pretty rich in DNA to begin with. Blood is pretty rich. Hair is notoriously poor," Mark Storlorow, director of operations for Maryland-based Cellmark Diagnostics, told reporters.
Shapiro said Monday that the evidence includes "blood samples and testing, Mr. Simpson's Ford Bronco, a ski cap ... found near the victims, and certain gloves found at the premises of the residences of Mr. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson."
In another development, Nicole Simpson's father challenged one element of the defendant's alibi.
Louis Brown said his daughter had spoken with her mother about 10 on the night of the murders, not 11 as a coroner's report indicated.
Attorney F. Lee Bailey said Monday that Simpson's claim that he was home at 11 waiting for a limousine to take him to the airport was more credible if, in fact, his second exwife was still alive at the time.
But Louis Brown said his wife spoke to her daughter an hour earlier. He said he contacted the phone company to get an accurate time on the call, but was told it would require a court order.
Simpson's home is only a couple of miles from his late exwife's. After Tuesday morning's hearing, Shapiro said he and his team were "very much pleased with the results of the hearing before Judge Kennedy, " and he repeated that his side is ready for today's hearing.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT James Bolden, O.J.'s Hearing Begins Today; Defense Gets Blood, DA Gets Hair. , Los Angeles Sentinel, 06-30-1994, pp PG.
Trial Lawyers in Simpson Case Give Bravura Performances Filled With
In the parlance of show business, lawyer performances in the O.J. Simpson preliminary hearing have been bravura, filled with righteous indignation and pathos, professionalism and posturing.
There is no jury in this case yet, but attorneys on both sides seem well aware that in the vast audience of TV viewers tuned to this sensational case could be the jurors who will one day judge Simpson on murder charges.
And if it's not exactly "L.A.Law," it runs a close second.
"There are a lot of good lawyers there," said Harland Braun, a criminal defense attorney. "Probably no one is as good as they are in the movies where you have a script. But there is an emotional intensity here that is incredible. It's as if people feel that O.J. is a member of their family who has been charged with a crime."
Braun and other members of the Los Angeles legal community gave both sides high marks for professionalism. He said the defense is doing "the best that it can with some difficult evidence" and praised the tactic of challenging every minute detail produced by prosecutors.
"It is apparent that both sides have capable, experienced trial lawyers. They are two evenly matched teams," said Loyola University Law Professor Laurie Levenson, who has been monitoring the proceedings.
She also said TV in the courtroom clearly is affecting lawyering styles.
"I think the witnesses are less conscious of the camera than the lawyers, " said Levenson. "The witnesses seem to lean back and try to think of what they have to recall. But the lawyers almost play to the camera."
When Simpson's cool, dapper lawyer, Robert L. Shapiro, no stranger to the media, accused fiery prosecutor Marcia Clark of "grandstanding, " she rolled her eyes and declared sarcastically: "I can't believe I just heard Mr. Shapiro say that."
When he used the legal jargon associated with DNA evidence, she relished using one-upmanship to challenge his accuracy.
Braun said Clark's aggressive style in court could backfire.
"It looks like an overwhelmingly strong case for the prosecution," he said. "The only problem would be if Simpson looked like he was the victim of an overbearing prosecutor." He suggested she tone down her approach.
Legal experts agreed that Deputy District Attorneys Clark and the more low key William Hodgman scored a decisive advantage by opening their case with the startling disclosure that Simpson bought a 15- inch knife five weeks before his ex-wife and her friend were stabbed to death.
"It was an excellent move," said Levenson, a former prosecutor. "It started the case very dramatically and it put a knife in O.J. Simpson' s hand."
A nice flourish, said University of Southern California Law Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, but he notes that they have yet to link the wounds on the victims to that knife. And no murder weapon seems to have been found.
Should the defense show up with the knife Simpson bought and an innocent explanation of its whereabouts, "It would be a major embarrassment for the prosecution," he noted.
Chemerinsky notes that the Simpson preliminary hearing is not like any other.
"The prosecutors are treating it more like a trial," he said. "They have decided to do this very methodically and present the case they have. This also is their chance to condition the potential jury pool which they know is out there watching."
Gerald Chaleff, president of the Los Angeles County Bar, said the prosecutors also may be working to overcome Simpson's key advantage- -his popularity with the American public.
"There are many people in certain communities who think there are other motives for this prosecution," said Chaleff. "Who he is, what his race is, what his wife's race was. There's still a reluctance on the part of many people to believe he really did it.... The prosecution doesn't want to be accused of being unfair."
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT James Bolden, Trial Lawyers in Simpson Case Give Bravura Performances Filled With. , Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-07-1994, pp PG.
O.J. Simpson Preliminary Hearing Enters Second Week
Simpson's supporters, always passionate in their loyalty, cite many reasons why he couldn't have killed ex-wife and her friend.
By DENNIS SCHATZMAN
In the opening days of perhaps this century's most closely watched preliminary hearing, not only was O.J. Simpson on trial for a double murder, checkbook journalism and television media, and the academic qualifications of the manager of the Los Angeles Police Department' s crime lab were also put on trial.
Unlike most preliminary hearings, however, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark began building her case chronologically instead of the more standard strategy of setting the crime scene and then placing the defendant within it.
"She's trying to counteract Simpson's popularity by putting on a piece- by-piece case in a very clever way," observed Philadelphia Daily News columnist Elmer Smith, who covered the feisty Philadelphia courts, the nation's oldest unified court system, for six years.
Lead defense attorney Robert Shapiro and his battery of legal experts, have been equally as masterful in Smith's opinion. "They are clouding the issues; they parry every point; they are fighting every image and perception that the prosecution lays out," Smith says. "They are making the prosecution put on more of a case in this preliminary hearing than they intended."
Not taking anything away from either legal side, Smith believes that if Shapiro wins, it will have a lot to do with the public perception that O.J. Simpson couldn't have done this deed.
Based on numerous interviews and conversations with African Americans rallying outside the Los Angeles County Criminal Courts Building they are using rationalization to justify their loyalty to Simpson by denigrating Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, the ex-wife and her friend whom Simpson is accused of fatally slitting their throats on June 12.
Many interviewed are blaming "the mafia" for the murders; others are painting Mrs. Simpson as less than a lady, and that Goldman, perhaps was a paramour. Others cite her personalized license plate (L84AD8) which means "late for a date" as a testament to her less-than reputable character.
Many whites are equally as certain that Simpson is innocent. One example, two elderly white ladies walking together on Spring street outside the courthouse carried these two signs: "Free O.J., Fire (black Police Chief) Willie (Williams)" and "We Love You, Chief Gates."
Can you imagine," mused Smith, "some of the same people who love (former L.A. Police Chief) Daryl Gates, love O.J. Try figuring that one out."
Last week, the preliminary hearing opened with Shapiro challenging the prosecution's first witness, Michele Kestler, manager of the LAPD' s crime lab, on how many hairs were needed from the defendant's head in order to make a thorough analysis. He also peppered her repeatedly with questions about whether or not enough blood samples from the murder scene would be left for independent analysis by defense experts.
And, after the second day of the hearing, a curiousity-seeker found a bloody kitchen knife wrapped up in a polka-dot blouse near the crime scene. Thursday's hearing opened not with the preliminaries, but rather, with a continued evidentiary hearing that essentially began earlier in the week. It concerned whether or not one of Simpson's head hairs- -as the defense was initially willing to give up--would be sufficient for analysis, or 100 hairs as demanded by the prosecution.
Shapiro took this opportunity to challenge Kestler's qualifications. Kestler testified that she was a "criminalist" with a master's degree from one of the California State colleges.
"Your Honor," Shapiro asked Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy- Powell, "has she (Kestler) been made an expert witness?"
"She's only giving a litany of responses (identifying several items in police possession alleged to have blood on them)," Judge Kennedy- Powell responded, "not expert testimony."
Later, when called to cross-examine Kestler, Shapiro asked the bench: "Your Honor, we have not received a copy of Mrs. Kestler's curriculum vitae (resume)." "Do you need, it?" Kennedy-Powell asked. "We may want to contest her," Shapiro shot back.
Kestler said she had one in her computer back in the crime lab. Kennedy- Powell recessed court for 45 minutes.
During the recess, Shapiro chatted gleefully with reporters in the courtroom. Linda Deutch, veteran reporter with the Associated Press, asked why he wasn't returning calls from reporters. Shapiro said he has been getting about 150 phone messages a day, and he had to work on the case at home a few days "just to get away from the madness." But Shapiro promised that he would always "talk to members of the written media," a not-so-subtle slap at the broadcast media.
When asked by this reporter what he thought of Kestler as a witness, Shapiro smiled before taking a sip from his water bottle, and said, "She's a criminalist (one who works in a crime lab), not a criminologist (one who scientifically studies crime and criminals)." What's the difference, came the follow-up question? "The same difference as between being an optometrist (eye examiner) and an ophthalmologist (a medical specialist that deals with the structure, function and disease of the eyes)."
When court reconvened, Shapiro questioned Kestler's three-page resume which he called a "statement of qualifications."
Shapiro pointed out that Kestler hadn't been in a college classroom since 1970, that she had attended a few seminars on DNA blood sampling, and that she had never had formal training in the science of analyzing hair. He told her that she had never given a lecture on either of the subjects, and she had only written one article in any scientific, criminal or medical journal. And that article, Shapiro said, was on "clandestine drug labs" in 1982.
How could she, Shapiro asked, say that 40 to 100 hairs are needed for scientific analysis when Dr. Henry Lee (a noted criminalogist hired by the Simpson team) who has a 50-page curriculum vitae says that only one to three hairs are sufficient?"
Shapiro repeatedly questioned her on the blood splotches found at the murder scene, and whether or not she had discussed the case with her husband, a homicide detective with the LAPD.
After lunch, Clark struck back through Kestler, who introduced a chapter of a book co-authored by Shapiro's expert, Henry Lee which says that between 40 and 100 hairs from all parts of the scalp are needed for analysis.
Kennedy-Powell then ruled for the prosecution on the hair issue.
Next, Gerald Uelman, retiring dean of the Santa Clara (Ca.) School of Law, and a co-counsel for Simpson, asked the judge to rule on a motion to suppress evidence they filed the day before which contends that the police violated federal and state constitutional standards when they scaled the fence of Simpson's home just hours after the murders, searched the grounds, and also searched Mrs. Simpson's condominium improperly without first obtaining a search warrant.
All sides agreed to hear that motion this week.
Thus, the real preliminary hearing began with the calling of Allen Wattenberg, owner of Ross Cutlery to the stand.
Wattenberg testified that Simpson, who was filming a television pilot show outside the store's Broadway street entrance, came in and purchased a German-made stiletto knife from him and his salesman, Jose Camacho.
Under questioning from the prosecution, Wattenberg admitted that his office kept sloppy records and had no receipts of the purchase.
More compelling, however, was that Wattenberg admitted that his brother, Richard, had signed a contract with the National Inquirer to sell the knife purchasing story to the seamy supermarket tabloid. The $12, 500 fee, Wattenberg testified, was to be split three ways, even though he had limited contact with Simpson, and his brother wasn't there at all.
Later Camacho, who was called to testify before the grand jury, said he agreed to the fee because he saw where Richard Wattenberg was getting ready to get paid, and he wasn't.
When admonished about his being told that he wasn't supposed to talk to anyone about the case when he left the grand jury, Camacho said he was told by a district attorney employee named "Patty" that he could talk to the media if he wanted to.
Friday's hearing was the first time that photos of the gruesome torsos were brought to light. As a hushed courtroom of reporters, victims' family members and spectators looked on, Simpson grimaced at the sight of his slained ex-wife and Goldman.
Witness Sukru Boztepe, and later his wife, Bettina Rasmussen, testified that they had followed Mrs. Simpson's Akita dog--whose paws were covered with blood--to the blood-soaked walkway leading to the death scene.
"The blood seemed to be coming down like a river," Rasmussen testified. At one point, she turned to look at Simpson. The football star-turned- actor/sports analyst looked away.
Another witness, Pablo Fenjves, a neighbor of Nicole Simpson said he heard the wail of a dog that started about 10:30 p.m. and continued for "about an hour or so."
Steven Schwab, another neighbor, testified that he was walking his dog when he saw the Akita standing on the corner of Bundy drive and Dorothy street unattended. The dog was barking constantly at the house in front of it.
Under cross-examination, Schwab became hesitant about what time all this transpired. First he said he spotted the dog sometime after " The Dick Van Dyke Show" went off the air at 10:30 p.m. But then he explained that he normally walks his dog after 11:30 p.m. after all his favorite television shows go off. On Sunday, however, his favorite shows come on an hour earlier.
Smith, the Philadelphia Daily News columnist, believes that these early days of the preliminary hearing, "have not changed the public' s perception of O.J. Simpson." As the prosecution continues to present its case, those perceptions could change, he said.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, O.J. Simpson Preliminary Hearing Enters Second Week., Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-07-1994, pp PG.
O.J. Case Shows Presumption Of Innocence Not Always Easy ( Los Angeles Sentinel )
O.J. Case Shows Presumption Of Innocence Not Always Easy.
The prospective juror scratched his head in puzzlement when asked if he understood that O.J. Simpson was presumed innocent as he begins trial for the murders of his ex-wife and her friend.
"I really don't get it," the man confessed. "...I think he should be required to prove his innocence."
The prospect was not alone.
Superior Court Judge Lance Ito has expressed concern that a full 95 percent of those filling out jury questionnaires in the Simpson case disagreed with two basic tenets of American jurisprudence: the presumption of innocence for an accused and the prosecution's burden of proof -- a requirement that the state prove a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or set him free.
Legal scholars and criminal lawyers alike say the concepts, while basic to the U.S. system of justice, are confusing to the average person because they fly in the face of common sense.
"People believe where there's smoke there's fire," said Loyola University Law Professor Laurie Levenson. "If someone is arrested they must have done something. And, in fact, if the criminal justice system is working correctly it's more likely that people being brought to jail are more likely guilty than innocent."
In addition, she said, "The public tends to see this as a sporting contest. They expect both sides to fight it out and the better side will win."
Lost in translation, she said, is the idea that the defense need not put on any evidence if the prosecution case is inadequate and the defendant need not testify.
Most prospective jurors have said they understand that Simpson is "innocent until proven guilty." But in the next breath they say they' d like to hear him testify.
Simpson is accused in the fatal June 12 stabbings of Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and Ronald Goldman, 25, outside her Brentwood condominium.
"Do you understand that O.J. Simpson doesn't have to do anything in this trial?" attorney Robert Shapiro has asked jury prospects. "He can sit over there and take a nap if he wants to."
The prospects inevitably shake their heads in agreement but appear mystified.
Innocent until proven guilty -- the words are hammered at over and over by lawyers.
"We all mouth these words," said Levenson. "But the legalese doesn' t mean anything to people. The term presumption of innocence is overused in our society. It's like `In God we trust.' No one stops to think what it means."
Simpson defense attorney Johnnie L. Cochran has tried to overcome resistance to the idea by pointing at Simpson across the courtroom and repeatedly announcing: "Mr. O.J. Simpson sits there cloaked in the presumption of innocence."
Prospective jurors usually nod blankly.
Defense attorney Leslie Abramson, who represents Erik Menendez in another celebrated murder case, has a different take on why jurors have a hard time presuming innocence.
"The media convicts everyone who is arrested," she said. "There's such hostility toward anyone charged with a crime these days. There' s such an endless drumbeat of exposure to crime....Everything in our society tells us the important thing is to catch criminals. People don't want to spend money on trials."
Abramson said she always asks prospective jurors if they agree it is better for 10 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be wrongly convicted. Often, she said, they don't understand that concept either and think it's some sort of tradeoff. She tries to educate them in the morality of the law.
In the Menendez case, Erik and his brother, Lyle, admitted shooting their parents to death but maintained they acted in self-defense against monstrously abusive parents. It was a complicated idea, Abramson acknowledges, and resulted in two deadlocked juries for the brothers.
"People don't understand that `I didn't do it' is not the only defense, " she said. "For them, everything is a whodunit. The why-dunits are far too subtle for the public and the media."
In Simpson's case, she said, the presumption of innocence may actually have more strength than in the average case because "people just don' t want to believe in his guilt. He's probably getting more reasonable doubt than most."
Prominent criminal defense attorney Harland Braun said he understands jurors' confusion because presumption of innocence is "an antiquated concept."
"I tend to doubt that you are ever accorded the presumption of innocence in the real world," he said. "But the point is we as a people don' t trust the government. We put the burden of proof on the government because we are afraid they are going to convict innocent people. We want the government to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."
Why then are Americans unable to grasp that concept? Some experts say the fault is in schools, which fail to emphasize constitutional principles in teaching.
"Our public education system has never tried to teach people much about the Bill of Rights and their meaning," said UCLA Law Professor Peter Arenella, citing a recent public opinion poll that showed most Americans, if given a chance to vote on the freedoms assured by the Bill of Rights, would reject them.
Legal scholar Sam Pillsbury, a professor at Loyola University Law School, said the problem is reconciling concepts with reality a challenge that extends to lawmakers and the U.S. Supreme Court, which have made some changes over the years seeking to redefine the burden of proof.
As for the prospective juror who thought Simpson should prove his innocence, defense attorney Carl Douglas extracted from him a grudging promise to follow the law even though he insisted to the last that he disagreed with it. The man is still in the pool of potential alternate jurors.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT David Smallwood, O.J. Case Shows Presumption Of Innocence Not Always Easy. , Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-12-1994, pp PG
Courtroom Bias, Credibility Also on Trial In Simpson Case
By DENNIS SCHATZMAN
The fate of Dan Abrams, the youthful and talented reporter for cable television's Court TV channel, gives one a bird's--eye look at the dilemma Southern California's criminal justice system has when it comes to the issues of credibility and fairness.
During the final morning session of the six-day preliminary hearing of double murder suspect O.J. Simpson, sheriff's deputies threw Abrams out for allegedly violating the Municipal Court's "no gum chewing" rule.
It was not until he was returned to good graces in the afternoon session did it finally come to light what really happened.
Abrams was sucking on a mint when a fellow journalist quietly asked for one. When Sgt. Vartsch caught Abrams discretely passing the mint, the deputy booted him during the 15-minute break.
Fellow reporters went ballistic. "Wasn't that the same deputy," asked one visiting reporter, "we've been seeing all week sucking on Lifesaver after Lifesaver all this week." Mimicked one veteran courtroom reporter as if she was the now-famous limousine hitchhiker seen on a popular beer television commercial: "Yes, he is."
As in Abrams' case, it was clear to even the untrained eye, a double standard was clearly applied to virtually every phase of the preliminary hearing.
Kathleen Kennedy-Powell, the Municipal Court judge presiding over the hearing, showed that she was every bit the formal prosecuting attorney that she is.
Judge Kennedy-Powell gave every benefit of the doubt to the prosecution; she allowed them to introduce sloppy records; she looked askance when the Los Angeles Police Department's laboratory personnel failed to explain why they had failed to analyze the blood samples a full three weeks after the crime had been committed.
She provided the county's deputy coroner the same courtesy. The judge sat silent as this doctor, working on the most sensational murder case of his career, could not explain why he had not determined the time of death. That job was made more difficult, he alluded, because he failed to keep certain food remains of the victims, one of the five primary ways the exact time of death can be determined.
Judge Kennedy-Powell sat by silently and heard veteran homicide detectives testify with straight faces that the reason they went to Simpson's home five hours after the bodies were found was to notify the next of kin and to find a safe place for the Simpsons' small children.
Then they changed--actually augmented--their story to say the reason they scaled the wall and began snooping around without a search warrant was because they felt there might be persons in and around the house dead, dying or in fear for their lives. Yet, they testified under cross examination, they neither drew their guns nor searched the upstairs of the mansion once they gained entry to the home.
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is pretty clear. It says that people are entitled to privacy and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure unless a duly authorized search warrant is issued.
However, it never occurred to the officers--these veteran homicide detectives, testified under oath--that they could have called in for a search warrant on their cellular phone.
How they gained entry is another story.
Detective Philip Vannatter swore up and down that Arnelle Simpson, the Hall of Famer's daughter, "invited" him and his colleagues into the home at 6 a.m. Ms. Simpson testified that she did no such thing.
Even at the end of the hearing, Kennedy-Powell was still not finished sucking up to the prosecution.
Before the six-day hearing began, Judge Kennedy-Powell let it be known that witnesses could not make physical contact with the defendant. Arnelle Simpson, for example, couldn't touch her father's shoulder or hold his hand--no matter how briefly--either on her way to, or coming from, the witness stand.
But Kennedy-Powell was more than happy to allow prosecuting attorneys to hug family members of the victims--in full view of the cameras, mind you.
The guilt or innocence of Simpson will ultimately be determined in a Superior Court. It is my hope that the trial will be conducted in an unbiased manner. For it certainly didn't appear that everything was conducted according to Hoyle in the preliminary trial. Perceptions carry as much weight as reality. Its like chewing gum and a breath mint.
Speaking of perceptions, as one law professor told our class years ago: "It's not what it is; it's what it looks like it is."
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, Courtroom Bias, Credibility Also on Trial In Simpson Case., Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-14-1994, pp PG.
O.J.'S JUDGE: Were Her Decisions Political?
Noted attorney believes judge in O.J. Simpson preliminary hearing made rulings based on political correctness.
By DENNIS SCHATZMAN
When Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell denied O.J. Simpson' s lawyers' motion to suppress evidence found on his property without a search warrant, she was--in the minds of some legal experts--looking over her shoulder at an ultra conservative Southern California public that has punished jurists who issued unpopular rulings in the past.
Carl Jones, one of the nation's most successful criminal trial attorneys, said it was possible, based on the evidence presented by the defense, for a judge to have at least ruled some of the evidence inadmissible.
"But I think you would have had to have a judge ready to retire to have had the guts to issue that ruling," Jones, whose superior courtroom acumen once got him investigated for winning 17 murder acquittals in a row, mused. "It was just not the politically correct thing for her to do.
"But whenever you have an acquittal," Jones explained, "it was always preceeded by a preliminary hearing where some judge felt there was enough evidence to hold the case over for trial."
Attorneys for O.J. Simpson--accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, and her ..., Ronald Goldman--say that the acquiring of a blood-stained glove and the analyzing of several drops of blood, both found on the former Hall of Famer's property, were illegally obtained several hours before a search warrant was legally issued.
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects people's right to privacy by prohibiting unlawful search and seizure unless there are emergency circumstances.
Los Angeles Police Department detectives testified that because they feared there were possibly people inside Simpson's mansion in lifethreatening situations, it warranted illegal entry and the subsequent search.
Jones said he would not be surprised if Kennedy-Powell was thinking about what happened to former Los Angeles Superior Judge Gittelson who ordered that the Los Angeles Unified School System bus students to achieve racial desegregation in the nation's second largest school system.
"He was defeated in the next election," reminded Jones.
The Pasadena, California-based attorney also cited the past and current plight of Municipal Court Judge Ronald Schoenberg in a 1989 case involving- -O.J. Simpson.
Schoenberg became a target of an ill-fated recall attempt after the judge sentenced Simpson to probation and community service for beating his then-wife, Nicole, in a domestic altercation.
Schoenberg also came under fire when the district attorney's office claimed that the jurist was star struck when he issued the tepid edict.
The judge struck back by setting the record straight in a press conference where he proved that the district attorney's office agreed with the sentence.
Ditto Superior Court Judge Joyce Karlin, who gained national attention- -and the wrath of the African American community--when she sentenced Korean grocer Soon Ja Du to probation for the March 12, 1991 killing of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins.
Karlin narrowly missed being thrust into a runoff recall election by a scant 400 votes.
Like many legal experts keeping a close eye on this case, Jones was not surprised with Kennedy-Powell's decision to bind the case over for trial.
"My general observation was that one has a snowball's chance in an oven of having these charges dismissed at the preliminary hearing level," Jones said. "So you knew what was going to happen at the outset of the hearing."
Jones, 57, quoted a couple of old law school adages which explain the difference between preliminary hearings and actual trials.
"If a trial requires 95 percent proof (to be presented)," Jones explained, "then all a preliminary needs is five percent proof.
"Or," he continued, "if a trial represents the total human body, then a preliminary is just a skeleton."
Jones' exceptional court prowess drew the attention of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors during the mid-1970s after he won an astounding 17 murder acquittals in a row.
Chuckling about the situation now, Jones told about how one of the five supervisors introduced a motion to have him investigated "to see whether or not the district attorney's office worked as hard against me as they did against other defense lawyers."
Among the defendants Jones represented during that period was "Doc" Holiday, former head of the Black Guerrilla Family, Fat Fred Knight, defendant in the famous 54th Street Massacre, and Harvey Rader, a man accused of murdering a whole family in Northridge, Ca. whose bodies were never found.
Jones is currently representing one of the defendants accused of gunning down four adolescents last Halloween in Pasadena. He is also counsel to several members of a San Fernando Valley family reputed to be drug dealers accused of killing dealers who would get their drug products from them.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, O.J.'S JUDGE: Were Her Decisions Political?., Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-14-1994, pp PG.
O.J. Simpson's Ex-Wife, Friend Slain: Police Tight-Lipped, Release
By DENNIS SCHATZMAN Staff Writer
Los Angeles police officers first handcuffed, then unhandcuffed, football Hall of Famer O.J. Simpson before whisking him from his Brentwood mansion to police headquarters for questioning just over 12 hours after his ex-wife and male friend were murdered on front of her trendy West Los Angeles condominium late Sunday night.
Accompanied by his attorney, Howard Weitzman, Simpson was summoned home from Chicago where he was to participate in a training session with Hertz Rent-A-Car employees early Monday morning, Weitzman confirmed.
Simpson is known almost as much for his ads for the rental car agency as he is for his legendary athletic prowess.
According to police reports, Nicole Brown Simpson, the athlete-turned- actor's second wife and Ronald Lyle Goldman, a friend of hers, were found slain outside her home at 875 S. Bundy Dr. shortly after midnight Monday morning by a passerby.
Weitzman said the estimated time of the deaths was "between 11 and 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
Weitzman's office said he was "too busy" to respond to press inquiries, but he found the time to be interviewed by local broadcast reporter Harvey Levin.
If the estimated time of death is accurate, then Simpson was either resting comfortably on American Airlines "red eye" Flight 668 bound for Chicago, or was somewhere between the parking and the gate running through the airport terminal trying to get on the plane.
One man who can confirm Simpson's presence on the airline was famed photographer Howard Bingham.
"I saw him on the plane, and we talked for a few minutes," Bingham told the Sentinel from a phone booth in Baltimore. "Once we landed, Bingham continued, we talked for a while at the baggage claim area where he picked up his golf clubs and a bag."
Bingham says Simpson did not appear to act out of the ordinary, or act as if something pressing was on his mind -- "like murder."
Simpson's flight arrived at O'Hare Airport at 3:34 a.m. Pacific time and checked into a hotel on the airport grounds about 6 a.m. Central time. He caught a return AA flight at 9:41 a.m. and arrived in Los Angeles at 11:08 a.m. Monday morning.
By noon his $1.2 million Brentwood mansion was crawling with LAPD technicians, photographers, officers, detectives and other police personnel.
Commander David Gascon, the LAPD's official spokesman, would neither confirm nor deny that Simpson was a suspect in the slayings. "We have not said that (Simpson is a suspect) publicly," Gascon told the Sentinel. "We asked him to come in (from Chicago) and he did."
Once he arrived at his home, however, Simpson was handcuffed and questioned by detectives up against a tree in his yard in full view of television cameras. It was not until Weitzman arrived were the handcuffs removed.
Police spokesmen termed the handcuffing incident "a mistake."
Gascon would not tell the Sentinel what evidence was found at the O.J. Simpson home. Sources within the LAPD, however, have leaked to other media that "incriminating evidence" was found in the former athlete's home.
Presumably, they were referring to a blood-stained glove allegedly found on the premises.
Close associates and fans of Simpson are beside themselves, and are standing behind the former Hall of Fame running back.
Juanita Moore, Simpson's barber for many years, says he is innocent, "it's as simple as that.
"I know him to be a wonderful person" said Moore who cuts hair at Sissors Palace on West Adams Boulevard, "and I don't believe he had anything to do with it."
Moore, who also knew the slain ex-wife, said she last saw Simpson at a May 23 birthday given in her honor.
The Simpsons were not strangers to the judicial system. Married in 1985, the couple divorced in 1992.
In 1989, Simpson pled no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge. He admitted slapping and kicking his wife in their home.
Born Orenthal James Simpson in 1946, Simpson was a worldclass sprinter and All-American running back at the University of Southern California. He was drafted in the first round of the 1969 National Football League draft by the Buffalo Bills. He played eight years with the Bills and two years with the San Francisco 49ers until he retired in 1979.
In 1985, Simpson was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, O.J. Simpson's Ex-Wife, Friend Slain: Police Tight-Lipped, Release., Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-16-1994, pp PG.
Were The Handcuffs Really Necessary?
By DENNIS SCHATZMAN Staff Writer
Think hard. How many times did you see convicted cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer handcuffed during his well publicized arrest and subsequent trial? If you say "none" then you get the prize.
Now, kids, what is the difference between Jeffrey Dahmer and Orenthal James (better known as "O.J.") Simpson?
First, Dahmer was a suspected -- and later convicted--serial murderer of young, mostly minority boys, and a nobody.
Simpson, of course, ran through offensive lines as an All-American running back at USC, Hall of Fame runner for the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco Forty-Niners, did color commentary for NBC Sports and also ran through airports for Hertz car rental television ads.
Simpson is also a "material witness and possible suspect in the murder of both his blonde ex-wife, Nicole, and a waiter at a trendy restaurant she frequented.
So why was Simpson handcuffed not long after he returned from Chicago after learning of the murder of his ex-spouse, and Dahmer wasn't?
Oh, did I mention that this is Southern California, and that theirs was a biracial marriage.
We all saw it, right on our television sets. Simpson was standing by a tree in front of his home, being interviewed by a detective, hands cuffed behind his back--until his lawyer, Howard Weitzman, showed up. Handcuffs disappeared quickly.
When asked about the handcuff question, Commander David Gascon danced around the issue.
"You seem more concerned about his (Simpson) being handcuffed than the death of two individuals," said Gascon, "or that there are two children without a mother."
Would that answer suggest that Simpson is a prime suspect? "We have not said that publicly," Gascon responded.
Was Simpson placed--albeit briefly--under arrest? "No," continued Gascon, "he was not placed under arrest."
So why was he handcuffed? Still no satisfactory answer. The black/white double standard just won't go away.
And, it just didn't happen to O.J.; this is not an isolated incident with prominent black men and local law enforcement.
A few years ago, former Los Angeles Laker forward-turned Realtor Jamal Wilkes was stopped in his car and beaten by some of LA's finest.
Ditto former Cincinnati Reds Hall of Famer Joe Morgan.
As Morgan was walking (not running, mind you) through Los Angeles International Airport, he was "mistaken" for a drug dealer and summarily thrashed by the local constabulary.
The beating cost the local government several hundred thousand dollars in a needless settlement.
Which brings us to the question at hand. Let's say that it is absolutely unreasonable to assume that O.J. sliced up his ex-wife and friend in front of her condo on South Bundy Drive, drive up to his home in Brentwood, wash up, dress drive about 25-30 minutes to LAX, run through the terminal on bad knees and arrive at the gate in time to board Flight 668 at 11:45 p.m..
Why is that unreasonable? Because the bodies were discovered around midnight in a well-lit residential area. Although the coroner's office had not established an estimated time of death by press time, it is highly unlikely that two bodies could lie around unnoticed for hours.
Further, according to Gascon, Simpson was called in Chicago and asked to return by an LAPD detective, which he did almost immediately. And, he allowed "dozens" of officers, LAPD technicians and photographers to enter his home, Gascon intimated to this reporter, after being asked whether a search warrant was issued for Simpson's residence.
So why was a cooperative "material witness" handcuffed in front of a tree and questioned like a common gangbanger?
Old habits die slowly.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, Were The Handcuffs Really Necessary?., Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-16-1994, pp PG.
Court Reporting 'Is Just Fine, Thank You'
Dennis Schaztman, staff writer
Arnella Sims, the lead certified shorthand court reporter for the O.J. Simpson preliminary hearing, says she couldn't look at the defendant, even though he sat directly in her eyesight for six days--and just a few football yards away.
"It was very disturbing, Sims told the Sentinel. "Had I looked at him (Simpson) I would not have been able to concentrate," she admitted. "The man's fine; what can I say?"
Consider how O.J. felt. Anyone watching the proceedings could not help but to notice the tall, fashionably dressed court reporter who- -in a phrase Virgil Hightower, a childhood friend of Sims' aunt, and an uncle of a Sentinel reporter, would use--"is quite pleasing to the eye."
And, when a reporter asked how she saw doing during a morning hearing break, Sims replied, "I'm fine."
Good looks not withstanding, Sims is one of the Municipal Court's ablest transcribers--and one that is used to the pressure of high profile proceedings. Included in her 18 years experience as a court reporter, was the dubious distinction of being one of two reporters to transcribe the 1984-86 McMartin Preschool child molestation felony preliminary hearing, the longest in U.S. history.
The Simpson case, however, had a lot more tension, says the Crenshaw High School graduate (Class of '72). "This case was gavel to gavel live on television. The press coverage," she explained, "I've never seen anything like this."
Sims was picked for this assignment "because I was at the top of the list to do a big prelim," she said. She then chose her "team" of fellow reporters; Robert Gunn, Rose Forbess and Laurie Small. All of them are friends and eminently qualified court reporters.
Their work was given rave reviews from everyone participating in the proceedings, Sims beamed. "The judge (Kathleen Kennedy-Powell) said we did a very good job. Gerald Uelman (Simpson's co-counsel) told me that it was an excellent transcript, and Marcia Clark (Deputy District Attorney) said she wishes our team would do the trial."
Sims' resume reads like a "Who's Who In Court Reporting."
After earning the Dean's Award from the now-defunct Miller Community College of Court Reporting in 1973, Sims became a freelance court reporter before joining the Municipal Court in 1975. She has held every elected office in the Los Angeles Municipal Court Reporters Association, including a stint as president from 1983 to 1986.
Sims repeated that fete in the California Court Reporters Association, serving as secretary, vice president and president (1989-91).
Her plans next year are to run for the board of directors of the National Court Reporters Association. "I don't think I will have a hard time (winning election)," Sims responded to a question about her chances. "They've been getting after me to run for years. I've just been too busy."
Too busy? Now what would give us that impression?
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, Court Reporting 'Is Just Fine, Thank You'., Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-21-1994, pp PG.
O.J. SIMPSON TRIAL: District Attorney's Office Will Be Fair, Says
By DENNIS SCHATZMAN Staff Writer
In an early morning private session with key members of the African- American community this week, Los Angeles District Attorney Garcetti assured his audience that his office will not only strive to insure that the perception of justice is preserved, but that actual justice is done.
Among the topics discussed during the Tuesday morning free-wheeling session held at the Los Angeles Urban League offices were the controversial "Three Strikes" law, the Geronimo Pratt case, the juvenile justice system, domestic violence and the O.J. Simpson murder case.
According to meeting participants, Garcetti, who had met with Jewish leaders over the weekend, said his meeting with various ethnic leaders is an ongoing project to get out from behind his desk to find out what the concerns among the people of Los Angeles county.
"He said he did not want to be locked in an ivory tower surrounded only by assistant district attorneys," recalled Kenneth Thomas, publisher of the Sentinel, and a member of the Urban League board of directors.
Responding to questions, Garcetti said emphatically that the issue of race will not be raised by the prosecution, in direct response to recent published reports that LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman's past racial proclivities will be challenged by Simpson's defense lawyers.
Although The Urban League's John Mack felt that the predominant issue in the Simpson affair was not race, but class, Thomas agreed on the class issue, but added that "race is very much involved, especially when there is a black male defendant accused of killing a white female victim, because even conscientious 'impartial' jurors take their prejudices with them into the jury room, which prejudices invariably affect their views on the effect, sufficiency and weight of the evidence."
On the question of leaks to the media, Garcetti said that none of the leaks (on the $10,000 and passport purportedly found in the car AlCowlings drove Simpson around in on June 17, for example came from his office. The district attorney said he has talked to Police Chief Willie Williams "on more than one occasion," and the chief has assured him that the LAPD will use its best efforts to prevent any leaks of any information on the case.
On the issue of the "911" tapes, Garcetti said their release resulted from a legal determination that release was required under the Freedom of Information Act.
Garcetti said he is confident a fair and impartial jury could be found in Los Angeles county if the attorneys from both sides are given the opportunity to probe the prospective jurors themselves to uncover any biases they may have.
The state's recently passed "three strikes" law, Garcetti said, does not properly address the problem as it had been originally intended. The original intent, he said, was to put away for good, felons who had committed three violent crimes.
Garcetti said his office has over 600 "three strikes" cases on the district attorney's docket 'and they're not going anywhere."
His office has drafted its own "three strikes" bill which will be submitted in the next legislative session.
When questions were raised about the Geronimo Pratt case, Garcetti says a deputy district attorney has been placed on the case full-time.
Pratt, a former Black Panther, has been in jail for 24 years on murder charges on flimsy evidence and on the testimony of Julius Butler, an alleged government informant and top official in the First African American Episcopal Church.
There was also some discussion on the juvenile justice system. Garcetti said that Assembly Bill 2428 has been introduced to help "break the cycle of violence among our youth."
The composition of the district attorney's "death penalty committee" was criticized. The committee, which decides which cases should seek the death penalty, is an all-white, all-male panel. The last black to serve on that committee was Audrey Collins, a former top-ranking prosecutor who was elevated to the federal judiciary.
Garcetti's office was also criticized for the perceptions that were created when just after the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, the district attorney made a number of public comments on the issue of domestic violence. Several attendees said it gave the impression that Simpson, who had reportedly been involved in spousal abuse, was therefore, by implication, guilty of murder.
The district attorney explained that once his office determined that a crime had been committed and there was evidence in their possession that convinced them that the defendant had committed the murder, " then I felt comfortable in talking about the bigger issue of domestic violence."
Among the invited leaders who attended were Joe Hicks, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Joseph Duff, president of the Los Angeles Branch, NAACP; Constance Rice, regional director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational fund, The Reverends Cecil Murray, Leonard Jackson and Roosevelt Dorn, all of the First AME Church.
Dorn is also a judge in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, O.J. SIMPSON TRIAL: District Attorney's Office Will Be Fair, Says., Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-21-1994, pp PG.
South L.A. Resident Recalls the 'Human Side' of O.J. Simpson
By DENNIS SCHATZMAN
Jean Pacheco will never forget the day that an almost total stranger named Orenthal James Simpson left three $500 bills on her coffee table.
The story doesn't begin there, of course. It begins on an American Airlines flight to Washington D.C. on July 2, 1981.
"I was seven months pregnant with my son Anthony," Pacheco, an administrator with the U.S. Postal Service, recalls. "I was on my way to a two-week training session on supervisor retraining.
"I was very uncomfortable in my coach seat," Pacheco continued. "and I really wasn't paying too much attention to the man strolling up and down the aisle getting gawks and stares from the other passengers."
A few moments later, Pacheco recalled, a flight attendant asked her if she would like to move up to first class where she would be more comfortable. She did. It wasn't until later that she found out that it was Simpson who had arranged it.
"O.J. sat next to me and we talked about my pregnancy," said Pacheco. "He rubbed my stomach and asked if it was going to be a boy. He was very nice to me; he didn't get fresh. He was just someone who cared."
A few months later, Pacheco gave birth to Anthony. Not long after she brought Anthony home to her house near Century Boulevard and Main Street, "O.J. came to the house.
"He told me that he had called the hospital (Kaiser) to see how I was doing and they told him that I had delivered," Pacheco remembered. "The hospital had told me that I had received some calls, but they didn't say from who."
Pacheco said Simpson stayed a little while, held Anthony, and then left. A little while later, she saw something green sticking out from under the ashtray on her coffee table. It was three $500 bills. "I just stood there with my mouth open.
"I'll never forget that," Pacheco promised. "He didn't come over in a stretch limousine. He came as a real human being."
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, South L.A. Resident Recalls the 'Human Side' of O.J. Simpson., Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-21-1994, pp PG.
Perception vs. Reality ( Los Angeles Sentinel )
Perception vs. Reality.
The calls and letters have been coming into the Sentinel from white Americans from as far away as Florida, asking the same questions:
"Do you really think that race is playing a role in this O.J. Simpson investigation and upcoming trial?"
Questions are not just coming from the white general public. These inquiries also come off the lips of television news reporters working on related stories, and public relations persons calling the newspaper on other business.
These people just cannot believe that racism can exist in these proceedings and investigations. People of color--particularly those having firsthand knowledge of the criminal justice system in Southern California--may take a different view. And here is why:
In the very beginning, Los Angeles Police Department detectives scaled the wall of Simpson's mansion without bothering to call for a search warrant, even though they have a cellular phone in their possession. Does anyone think that would have happened if it were Frank Sinatra' s property they were invading in the wee hours of the night?
Less than six hours of getting a call about the murder of his exwife, Nicole and her friend, Ronald Goldman, a cooperative Simpson rushed home from Chicago and was immediately handcuffed under a tree in his front yard. How many times did you see convicted murderer Jeffrey Dahmer handcuffed?
Even before the preliminary hearing, the LAPD, with the tacit approval of both the City Attorney and the County District Attorney's offices, released edited versions of the infamous "911 tapes" alleging that Simpson brutalized his ex-spouse. And, the mainstream media, embarrassingly, was more than happy to oblige by broadcasting them.
In the courtroom, a Municipal court judge sat by silently for six days as the prosecution introduced ill-prepared witnesses--even witnesses who sold their stories for the proverbial "30 pieces of silver"-- sloppy records and even okayed a warrantless search, and in many other ways gave the District Attorney's office every benefit of the doubt.
Now comes the disturbing news that one of the lead detectives-- Mark Fuhrman--has a well-documented history of racism and violence, and in the defense's mind, could have planted the evidence.
Psychiatrists who examined Fuhrman during his military career reportedly told the New Yorker magazine that the detective stopped enjoying his military career because he told them "that there were these Mexicans and niggers, and volunteers, and they would tell me they weren't going to do something."
In police life, Fuhrman has been "overzealous" in using violence during arrests, particularly of minority men.
With this background, one cannot help but to ask, why is Fuhrman one of the lead detectives in a double murder whose victims are white, and the accused is a black man?
All too often perceptions become reality in the minds of the beholders. That is unfortunate.
Yet what is one to do; what is one to believe, when the very entities that are being accused of racism keep shooting themselves in the foot?
The Sentinel certainly hopes that racism does not rear its ugly head in this O.J. Simpson case. But it is up to the criminal justice system to put greater effort into correcting both the realities and the perceptions that racism exists within its ranks.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, Perception vs. Reality. , Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-21-1994, pp PG.
Simpson's Defense Will Add More Black Lawyers-Cochran
By DENNIS SCHATZMAN
Major league criminal defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran, now firmly ensconced on O.J. Simpson's defense team, says he is making arrangements to bring on veteran trial attorney Carl Jones and the nouveau phenom Edi O. Faal onto the team.
Cochran, who was accompanied in court by two of his associates, Carl Douglas and Shawn Chapman, joined the Simpson defense team last week, becoming the first African Amerian member of the former Hall of Famer' s up-to-then all-white legal team.
During a recess in Monday's deliberations over admissible DNA blood samples, Cochran told the Sentinel that Chapman, a former public defender, "is well versed" on death penalty issues. Douglas, who often acts as co-counsel with Cochran on many high-profile cases, "is an all- around, supremely confident attorney."
Jones, a Pasadena attorney, is known as a brilliant and tenacious trial lawyer who once was investigated by the County Board of Supervisors after he had won an unprecedented 17 murder acquittals in a row.
Faal, a native of the African country of Gambia, attained legal notoriety when he defended Damian Williams in the famous Reginald Denny beating trial. Cochran called Faal a "brilliant tactician."
Cochran also said a black investigator will be added to the team.
Simpson is charged with the double murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and waiter Ronald Goldman.
Simpson's initial decision to hire the popular, but all-white team of Robert Shapiro, law school dean Gerald Uelman and mega-lawyers F. Lee Bailey and Harvard University Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, had rankled some black leaders, like Celes King, III, prominent Los Angeles civil rights leader and owner of the West Coast's largest bail bond agency.
"Why didn't he call Johnnie Cochran, or Carl Jones or Edi Faal," King wondered last week, rattling off the names of three prominent local African American trial lawyers.
Now it appears that Cochran, Jones and Faal will all be involved.
Meanwhile, Superior Court Judge Lance Ito, presiding over Monday's three-hour motion hearing on the splitting of the blood samples found at both the murder site and at Simpson's estate, signaled--in rap singers Run DMC fashion--that "it's (his) house now."
Unlike Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell, who appeared overly accommodating and even tentative on questioning evidence while presiding over Simpson's preliminary hearing, Ito challenged attorneys on both sides of the table on issues involving how much of the blood samples should be given to the defense, if any should be given at all.
When Ito asked lead prosecuting attorney Marcia Clark how many blood samples were "too small" to share with the defense for independent analysis, Clark first said she didn't know.
Unimpressed, Ito asked again--a total of eight times, in different tones of voice--until Clark was forced to go back to her office and get the list.
At one point, Ito admitted his dearth of knowledge on DNA profiling or DNA fingerprinting as the process is also known. "The only science I studied at UCLA was political science," he deadpanned.
And, Ito showed that he was not afraid to change his mind in public.
Early in the proceedings, Ito ordered the prosecution to surrender to the defense 10 percent of the blood samples found at the murder scene, at Simpson's estate, on the Ford Bronco and on the glove found at the Bundy Drive murder site. Then Clarke complained that by doing that "you are taking evidence out or our hands forever ... evidence that will never be brought before the jury."
Ito then ordered a hearing for Friday morning where both sides must present expert testimony on how much blood is needed to conduct DNA testing.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, Simpson's Defense Will Add More Black Lawyers-Cochran., Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-28-1994, pp PG.
People Still Remember the Kindness of O.J. Simpson
By DENNIS SCHATZMAN
Want to know more about the kindness of O.J. Simpson? Ask Debra Overstreet, an administrative assistant to the Rev. Dr. Will T. Washington, pastor of the Christian Community Center on South Broadway.
"I read your article on O.J. Simpson and the young lady he helped on the American Airlines flight to Washington D.C. (see "South L.A. Resident Recalls Human Side of O.J." July 21 edition, page 3)," Overstreet' s July 21 letter to a Sentinel reporter begins. "This prompted me to write and tell you about the O.J. I and my then-7-year-old son, Cardell, Jr. Met. He is now 17 years old and will be leaving for Howard University in August.
"It was back in the summer of 1984 at the Olympic Games," Overstreet explains. "My son and I were leaving the stadium, walking towards Vermont Ave. off Exposition Blvd. Cardell was trailing behind me because he was upset that I had refused to purchase him another toy."
Overstreet said that as she walked ahead of her son, she heard a man' s voice call out to Cardell: "What's wrong, young man? Did you enjoy the events?" Then, she says, the voice said, "You are such a handsome boy, why are you looking so sad?"
The mother turned around at that point and recognized the man behind the voice: O.J. Simpson. "He went on talking to Cardell, encouraging him to be happy, and not sad. ... I do not believe Cardell knew who he was at first. He introduced himself to me as O.J. and complimented me on what a handsome son I had. By this time," Overstreet continued, "Cardell knew who he was and was beginning to get excited."
"Not only did he say encouraging words to Cardell," Overstreet recalled, "he stood there while I took pictures of him with my son repeatedly. He also stood there while I asked someone to take shots of myself and him.
"There is no way," Overstreet's letter concludes, "under the heavens that I believe he would kill anyone in such a manner as his ex-wife and her boyfriend were killed. O.J. is a very kind person."
Other Sentinel readers having a human interest story about O.J. Simpson (hopefully with photos) call (213) 299-3800 ext. 256.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, People Still Remember the Kindness of O.J. Simpson., Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-28-1994, pp PG.
Cochran Gives Simpson Team Respected, Trial-Smart Attorney ( Los Angeles Sentinel )
Cochran Gives Simpson Team Respected, Trial-Smart Attorney.
The addition of Johnnie Cochran Jr. to O.J. Simpson's legal team gives the defense a respected, seasoned attorney with courtroom smarts and a willingness to risk his reputation for a big case.
And, in a case that has recently taken on racial overtones, it also gives the team its first black lawyer, one with close ties to the city's African American leaders.
Cochran, 56, first gained the public's attention in 1966 by representing Leonard Deadwyler, an African American man who was fatally shot by police when he didn't pull over while rushing his pregnant wife to the hospital.
Although Cochran lost that case, he quickly established himself as one of the nation's top lawyers. His client list includes Michael Jackson and one of the defendants in the Snoop Doggy Dogg murder case.
He is so well respected in legal circles that when a Municipal Court judge was charged recently with manslaughter in a car crash, Cochran got the job as defense attorney.
In Cochran, Simpson has a talented trial lawyer, joining attorneys who made their names in other areas--Robert Shapiro for his pretrial wheeling-dealing and Gerald Uelmen for his legal research and writing.
Also on the team are F. Lee Bailey, another well-known trial judge, and appeals specialist Alan Dershowitz.
Simpson, 47, pleaded innocent to two counts of murder in the slashing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
Cochran is well-regarded among black leaders and has been active in civil rights causes. At this week's meeting between District Attorney Gil Garcetti and black leaders to discuss the Simpson case, Cochran was one of the participants.
His links to the African American community are considered important because the Simpson case recently has touched on racial issues. Defense team members suggested they may try to show a racist white cop tried to frame Simpson by planting a bloody glove at Simpson's house.
But Cochran has shown he isn't afraid to take chances. He surprised many black leaders when he agreed to represent Reginald Denny, a white man attacked by black rioters, in Denny's civil trial in federal court.
The Simpson case, meantime, won't be the first clash between Cochran and Deputy District Attorney William Hodgman. The two sparred in the 1990 trial of "Diff" rent Strokes" star Todd Bridges, who was charged with assault in the shooting of a narcotics dealer at a drug den.
Bridges was acquitted, and after the trial Hodgman made what turned out to be remarks that would ring true in the Simpson case.
"When you have a celebrity defendant, the normal rules don't apply, " said Hodgman. "And I think that's what happened here."
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT James Bolden, Cochran Gives Simpson Team Respected, Trial-Smart Attorney. , Los Angeles Sentinel, 07-28-1994, pp PG.
O.J.'s all-white defense team: Black leaders upset
What does O.J. Simpson have in common with actress Sherrie Belefonte, singer Michael Jackson, rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, and fellow athletes Mike Tyson, Vince Coleman and Daryl Strawberry?
All of them have hired white lawyers to get them out of trouble. But did they really hire them, or did someone else hire these attorneys for them?
Simpson, who is charged with the double murders of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman, has hired a battery of high-priced lawyers to defend him.
His decision to hire popular Robert Shapiro, law school dean Gerald Uelman and mega-lawyers F. Lee Bailey and Harvard University Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, has rankled some Black community leaders, like Celes King III, prominent Los Angeles civil rights leader and owner of the West Coast's largest bail bond agency.
"WHY DIDN'T he call Johnnie Cochran, or Carl Jones or Edi Faal," King wondered, rattling off the names of three prominent local African American trial lawyers.
"It is now time for people to understand that O.J. Simpson is no longer private property of the white community when it comes to spending his money." Jones, one of the three lawyers mentioned by King, explained that even though "There is temptation to criticize those celebrities for making those decisions, in reality, are they really making these decisions, or are those decisions being made by others (agents, etc.) close to them?"
The NNPA has learned that Jones may be joining the Simpson defense team, and that Cochran, arguably the area's most south-after Black trial lawyer, has repeatedly recommended Jones to the highest echelons of the Simpson defense team.
Cochran's firm is currently representing Arnelle Simpson, the defendant' s 25-year-old daughter.
Jones has said that Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell denied Simpson's lawyers' motion to suppress evidence because she was looking over her shoulder at an ultra conservative Southern California public that has punished jurists who issued unpopular rulings in the past.
HE SAID IT is possible for the judge to have at least ruled some of the evidence inadmissible. "I think you would have had to have a judge ready to retire to have had the guts to issue that ruling," mused Jones, whose superior courtroom acumen once got him investigated for winning 17 murders acquittals in row. "It was just not the politically correct thing for her to do."
Jones also said he would not be surprised if Kennedy-Powell was thinking about what happened to former L.A. Superior Judge Gittelkson who ordered the L.A. Unified School System bus students to achieve racial desegregation in the nation's second largest school system.
"He was defeated in the next election," reminded Jones.
Simpson's battery of lawyers are crossing swords with a district attorney' s office that has been under heavy and prolonged criticism for having a poor winning record in high profile criminal cases.
Among those lost were the McMartin Pre-School Child Molestation case, the Simi Valley trial against four officers caught on video tape beating Black motorist Rodney King, and the Menendez Brothers double murder cases. It is rumored in L.A. that the defense will counter the prosecution by asserting that two knives, and therefore tow killers, were involved in the murders of Ms. Simpson and Goldman.
THE NEWS OF the Jones possibility was not the least bit comforting to King.
"It does not explain the lack of sensitivity up to this point," barked King. "They had this sensational preliminary hearing, and now they will go out and get some Blacks?" King, who is chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality of California and a prominent Republican Party activist, also points out that there appears to be no Blacks involved in any other part of the defense strategy.
"These are no Black investigators; and in the case of Al Cowlings, they didn't even consider using a Black bail bondsman," seethed King.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, O.J.'s all-white defense team: Black leaders upset., Michigan Citizen, 07-30-1994, pp PG.
L.A. Journalists Take Bashing Over News Coverage of Simpson
By DENNIS SCHATZMAN
``I have to leave early to attend the Mid-Summer's Night Madness benefit with Magic Johnson."
-Jim Hill, Sports Director, KCBS-TV
It was this kind of perceived name-dropping comment that served to make an already bad situation only worse.
The scene was Atlanta's jampacked Westin Peachtree Hotel ballroom for a spirited workshop about media coverage on the O.J. Simpson murder trial sponsored by the National Association of Black Journalists at it's annual convention.
On trial last Saturday morning was the media--more specifically, journalists and editors--based in L.A.
A panel had been assembled to criticize the Fourth Estate that has dissected the Simpson affair for the past seven weeks. Only one panel participant--Andrea Ford of the Los Angeles Times-however, had any first-hand experience covering the story.
Among the other panelists were the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Washington Post columnist Donna Britt (who wrote in her column two days after the Ford Bronco chase: ``If he did it, he should have pulled the trigger." ) Paula Walker, news director for WNBC-TV in New York; Jim Gaines, managing editor of Time magazine, Starr Jones, a former New York City prosecuting attorney and legal analyst for NBC Network News, and Charles Smith, star forward for the New York Knicks.
The bashing began with a video tape which opened with Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post's media critic, describing the coverage as ``breathtakingly bad reporting." Case in point: the initial reporting of the infamous nonexistent ``bloody ski mask." Served up as the sacrificial lamb was Jeff Wald, news director for Los Angeles' KCOP-TV13.
When Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark acknowledged in open court that there was no ski mask, ``I said `it couldn't be,'" Wald said as his perplexed face countenance projected upon the screen. He and his reporters thought for sure there had been a ski mask. They thought they had it on good information.
Coming to his--and presumably all of media's--defense on the tape was Warren Olney, a veteran reporter, television anchor and host of KCRW--FM's ``Which Way L.A." a highly respected radio talk show in the Los Angeles area. ``With instant coverage," Olney explained, ``Often comes inaccurate information."
But Olney had only struck the tip of the iceberg. Not only does instant coverage on a major story beget potential inaccuracy, it also raises the possibility of reporters and editors being ``had", ``fleeced" or just plain ``used" by news sources with agendas which have nothing to do with neither fairness nor accuracy.
Virtually every reporter in the room has experienced being ``used." Knowing that, one wonders why they whooped and howled at Wald.
Many of the panelists blamed the race issue almost entirely on the media and the pollsters they hired to gage the pulse of public opinion. Rev. Jackson claimed that ``the combination of race, plus the intrigue and the money" fueled the Simpson news coverage. ``Some stations are being (financially) bailed out by OD'ing on O.J."
There was no mention, however, of the prosecution team's releasing of the ``911 tapes" or of Simpson's being handcuffed under a tree long before charges were leveled against him, a reminder to many of how LAPD officers often treat black men--no matter how rich or well known.
The polls used by the media were criticized because they asked questions about Simpson and broke the answers down along race and gender lines.
Nothing, however, was said which explained that all polls break their answers down by race, gender, economic status and age.
With Time Magazine's Jim Gaines sitting to his right, Jackson called news magazine's much criticized darkened O.J. cover a ``racist" act.
``I've been taking a lot of jokes about ritual slaughter," Gaines, the lone white panelist, deadpanned. ``So I know exactly why I'm here."
Gaines blamed the enhanced cover on ``a weekend staff" that made the decision. ``If I had known that it would be offensive, I wouldn't have run the cover."
The managing editor's explanation drew conflicting arguments from numerous conference participants. Anthony Lanier, graphic editor of the Quincy (Mass.) Patriot-Ledger explained that Matt Mahurin, the freelance artist commissioned by Time ``is known for his subdued images."
Lanier referred to a July 18, 1988 Newsweek article on the controversial artist that describes his work as ``dark, demented figures that howl from the page.''
Jackson reminded Gaines that the last several news magazine covers featured African Americans in threatening or hostile situations.
Hill was criticized for ``grand-standing" during his live appeal to Simpson to abort his 60-mile odyssey along I-405 and turn himself in. WNBC's Walker doubted whether or not Simpson heard the appeal since he didn't have a television in his Ford Bronco. Later, she backed off a little when told that Simpson could have heard it on All-News radio station KNX-AM which also broadcast the appeal.
But Walker didn't back off for long. She questioned whether television sports reporters and weather persons were anything but ``comic relief."
The bashing of L.A. journalists did not set well with many. Several in the Los Angeles delegation took offense to the criticism. Perhaps KABC-TV's Mark Brown summed it up best.
``We are under a great deal of stress here (in Los Angeles). Every six months or so it seems that `the career story' pops up in Los Angeles, " Brown explained. ``There was the McMartin (preschool child molestation trial) story, then came Rodney King, then Latasha Harlins and Soon Ja Du, Simi Valley, then the riots, followed by the fires and the mudslides, then the federal Rodney King Beating trial, the Reginald Denny beating trial, followed by the earthquake. Now this.
``Most journalists,'' Brown added, ``don't get any stories of this magnitude in a lifetime."
And so it goes. The real ``L.A. Story."
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, L.A. Journalists Take Bashing Over News Coverage of Simpson., Los Angeles Sentinel, 08-04-1994, pp PG.
SIMPSON CASE: Despite Promises, Leaks Keep On Coming
By MALAIKA BROWN and DENNIS SCHATZMAN Staff Writers
Last month, Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti told black leaders that his office is not, and would not be, the source of any past or future leaks of information on the O.J. Simpson murder investigation to the news media.
And, Garcetti said he had talked to Los Angeles Police Chief Willie Williams ``on more than one occasion'' and that the chief had assured him that the LAPD would not provide leaked information to the press.
Ironically, just as newly released public opinion polls show that the vast majority of Americans believe Simpson is not guilty of murdering his ex-wife and her friend, testimony given to the now-defunct grand jury was leaked to key reporters.
Later in the week, the grand jury released the 408-page transcript for public consumption.
When asked to comment on the apparent about-face, Garcetti did not return calls.
Meanwhile, with over 250,000 callins, hundreds of photographs, and thousands of pages documenting the investigation, prosecutors and the defense in the O.J. Simpson murder trial have their work cut out for them.
Still, Simpson's defense team, led by attorney Robert Shapiro and recently expanding to include Johnnie Cochran, want more. On Friday, attorneys on both sides met briefly in Judge Lance Ito's courtroom amicably--even comically-hammering out, partially at least, how willing the prosecution is to turn over its evidence.
Under the 1963 ``Brady vs. Maryland'' U.S Supreme Court decision, prosecutors are required to hand the defense any evidence that might prove the innocence of the defendant. Simpson's defense team has asked for everything from equal access to the limited blood specimens taken from the crime scene and Simpson's Brentwood home; fingerprints; records on all unsolved homicides in California with similarities to the Simpson case; as well as information on any ``associates'' of victims Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
``There are going to be some serious leads to follow up,'' said co- defense counsel Gerald Uelmen, ``and not on the eve of the trial.' '
In particular, prosecutors have information from a Northern Californiabased prowler who was allegedly casing homes near Nicole Simpson's condominium the night of the murders. Cochran argued that the witness ``has given testimony ... that is totally inconsistent with the theory of a lone assailant'' committing the brutal murders.
Cochran said his side has not been given access to the witness who said also that the assailants were of different ``ethnic backgrounds' ' than the defendant. ``These [leads] need to be pursued vigorously, '' he said.
The legal teams agreed to meet informally this week to continue discussions on what the prosecution is required to turn over under the Brady decision. Meanwhile, Sept. 19 has been set as the tentative date for jury selection to begin in the trial.
According to prosecutors, they have already given the defense 500 photographs and 1,300 pages of information. Previously, the defense secured access to the prosecution's DNA testing process. Prosecuting attorney Bill Hodgman said on Friday that the defense would have access to fingerprint analysis ``if and when they became available.''
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Brown, Malaika; Schatzman, SIMPSON CASE: Despite Promises, Leaks Keep On Coming., Los Angeles Sentinel, 08-04-1994, pp PG.
Give L.A. Journalists A Break, It's Their Job ( Philadelphia Tribune, The ) By Dennis Schatzman
"Big bleeping deal," responded a journalist from Baltimore. It was this kind of name-dropping comment by the veteran Hill that served to make an already bad situation only worse.
The scene was Atlanta's jampacked Westin Peachtree Hotel ballroom last week for a spirited workshop about media coverage on the O.J. Simpson murder trial sponsored by National Association of Black Journalists at it's annual convention.
On trial last Saturday morning was the media-more specifically, journalists and editors-based in L.A.
A panel had been assembled to criticize the Fourth Estate that has dissected the Simpson affair for the past seven weeks. Only one panel participant-Andrea Ford of the Los Angeles Times-however, had any first-hand experience covering the story.
Among the other panelists were Rev. Jesse Jackson, Washington Post columnist Donna Britt (who wrote in her column two days after the Ford Bronco chase: "If he did it, he should have pulled the trigger." ) Paula Walker, news director for WNBC-TV in Dallas; Jim Gaines, managing editor of Time magazine, Starr Jones, a former New York City prosecuting attorney and legal analyst for NBC Network News, and Charles Smith, star forward for the New York Knicks.
The bashing began with a video tape which opened with Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post's media critic, describing the coverage the coverage as "breathtakingly bad reporting." Case in point; the initial reporting of the infamous nonexistent "bloody ski mask," served up as the sacrificial lamb was Jeff Wald, news director for Los Angeles' KCOP-TV13.
When Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark acknowledged in open court that there was no ski mask, "I said 'it couldn't be,' Wald said as his perplexed face countenance projected upon the screen. He and his reporters thought for sure there had been a ski mask. They thought they had it on good information.
Coming to his-aid presumably all of media's-defense on the tape was Warren Olney, a veteran reporter, television anchor and host of KCRW- FM's "Which Way L.A." a highly respected radio talk show in the Los Angeles area. "With instant coverage," Olney explained, "Often comes inaccurate information."
But Olney had only struck the tip of the iceberg. Not only does instant coverage on a major story beget potential inaccuracy, it also raises the possibility of reporters and editors being "had," "fleeced" or just plain "used" by news sources with agendas which have nothing to do with neither fairness nor accuracy.
Virtually every reporter in the room has experienced being "used." Knowing that, one wonders why they whooped and howled at Wald.
Many of the panelists blamed the race issue almost entirely on the media and the pollsters they hired to gage the pulse of public opinion. Rev. Jackson claimed that "the combination of race, plus the intrigue and the money" fueled the Simpson news coverage. "Some stations are being (financially) bailed out by OD'ing on O.J."
There was no mention, however, of the prosecution team's releasing of the "911 tapes" or of Simpson's being handcuffed under a tree long before charges were leveled against him, a reminder to many of how LAPD officers often treat Black men-no matter how rich or well known.
The polls used by the media were criticized because they asked questions about Simpson and broke the answers down along race and gender lines.
Nothing, however, was said which explained that all polls break their answers down by race, gender, economic status and age.
With Time Magazine's Jim Gaines sitting to his right, Jackson called news magazine's much criticized darkened O.J. cover a "racist" act.
"I've been taking a lot of jokes about ritual slaughter," Gaines, the lone white panelist, dead panned. "So I know exactly why I'm here."
Gaines blamed the enhanced cover on "a weekend staff" that made the decision. "If I had known that it would be offensive, I wouldn't have run the cover."
The managing editor's explanation drew conflicting arguments from numerous conference participants. Anthony Lanier, graphic editor of the Quincy (Mass.) Patriot-Ledger explained that Matt Mahurin, the free-lance artist commissioned by Time "is known for his subdued images."
Lanier referred to a July 18, 1988 Newsweek article on the controversial artist that describes his work as "dark, demented figures that howl from the page."
Jackson reminded Gaines that the last several news magazine covers that featured African-Americans in threatening or hostile situations.
Hill was criticized for "grandstanding" during his live appeal to Simpson to abort his 60 mile odyssey along I-405 and turn himself in. WNBC's Walker doubted whether or not Simpson heard the appeal since he didn't have television in his Ford Bronco, Later, she backed off a little when told that Simpson could have heard it on All-News radio station KNZ-AM which also broadcast the appeal.
But Walker didn't back off for long. She question whether television sports reporters and whether persons were anything but "comic relief."
The bashing of L.A. journalists did not set well with many. Several in the Los Angeles delegations took offense to the criticism. Perhaps KABC-TV's Mark Brown summed it up best.
"We are under a great deal of stress here (in Los Angeles). Every six months or so it seems that 'the career story' pops up in Los Angeles, " Brown explained. "There was the McMartin (preschool child molestation trial) story, then came Rodney King, then Latasha Harlins and Soon Ja Du, Simi Valley, then the riots, followed by the fires and the mudslides, then the Federal Rodney King Beating trial, the Reginald Denny Beating trial, followed by the earthquake. Now this.
"Most journalists," Brown added, "don't get any stories of this magnitude in a lifetime,'
And so it goes, the real "L.A. Story."
Dennis Schatzman is a staff writer for the L.A. Sentinel.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, Give L.A. Journalists A Break, It's Their Job., Philadelphia Tribune, The, 08-09-1994, pp PG.
Not Spousal Abuse
In a recent column written by noted Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Boyarsky, noted civil rights attorney Melanie Lomax asserted for public consumption that the O.J. Simpson murder case was also a case on spousal abuse.
Lomax, a well known feminist, appeared to be echoing similar sentiments earlier championed by Gloria Allred, another well-known civil rights attorney in the Los Angeles area.
It is wholly presumptuous, and could well be considered a violation of the Canons of Legal Ethics for attorneys-black or white, male or female-at this stage of the proceedings, to proclaim in the media, or for media purposes, that the eclipsed issue in the O.J. Simpson case is spousal abuse.
The Simpson case is about the homicide of two human beings. If Simpson is guilty as charged, it will indeed demonstrate the extreme example of criminal behavior against other human beings, and may indicate that the emotions generated in an intimate interpersonal relationship between two partners (perhaps intensified by a ceremony of marriage which transforms the partners into spouses) may be ongoing and may exacerbate to the extreme abuse. Such abuse is neither limited to spouses nor to the female gender.
If such attorneys are reacting to the reports of previous (alleged) abuse, then their complaint is properly directed to the "victims" who for any variety of reasons, fail to report or prosecute such occurrences; the police authorities who fail to arrest or charge alleged perpetrators; the district attorney of city attorney who fails to pursue or prosecute and/or the judiciary, which fails to appropriately deal with convicted abusers.
Also, the complaint is properly directed to the public at large for its lackadaisical attitude toward such conduct.
At this juncture, it is absurd to proclaim that the O.J. Simpson case is about spousal abuse. To so proclaim is to prejudge the case by presuming guilt based on media hype, and before one iota of evidence is presented.
If Simpson is found "not guilty," then the Simpson case does not demonstrate one darned thing regarding spousal abuse.
It is criminal to emasculate the presumption of innocence either directly, or by implication. It is a violation of the Canons of Ethics. A violation of the Canons of Ethics seems apparent when learned counsel who are also "officers of the court," verbalize prejudgments on the innocence or guilt of an accused which could and have jeopardized a person's right to a fair trial. How do they dare to compound the evil that violation begets, regardless of whatever agency they purpose to promulgate.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, Not Spousal Abuse., Los Angeles Sentinel, 08-25-1994, pp PG.
The Simpson Case: 'They Have the Wrong Man' Declares Local ( Los Angeles Sentinel )
THE SIMPSON CASE: `They Have the Wrong Man' Declares Local Clairvoyant.
The real murderer of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman is a left-handed 5'8", 180-pound white man with a gap in his front teeth by the name of Brandon Clark.
So say Ernesto A. Moshe Montgomery, a clairvoyant, former British Intelligence psychic spy and chief Rabbi of the Beta Israel Temple Black Jewish Synagogue in Los Angeles. The psychic learned of Clark "from the vibrations I felt when I went to O.J. Simpson.
"He has a criminal record," Montgomery told the Sentinel. "Robbery was his motive. I've sent communications to Police chief Willie Williams, Mayor Richard Riordan and Simpson's attorney, Robert Shapiro."
Don't laugh. Dr. Montgomery has apparently been right before. In a letter he sent to Assemblyman Richard Katzon Jan. 11, 1992, Montgomery predicted: "Los Angeles will be hit by a devastating earthquake on the 17th of January 1994, which is a prelude leading to the big one."
For confirmation, Montgomery produced Katz's response, dated Feb. 4, 1992. In part, it read: "I appreciate you taking the time to write me regarding this impending catastrophe to hit our state. I have sent you letter and background information regarding your past predictions to the state office of Emergency Assistance."
Montgomery's past predictions have not been taken lightly by members of the news media. He has been a featured guest on dozens of radio and television talk shows in the Los Angeles area, and has been the subject of numerous feature newspaper and magazine articles.
Nor have his predictions been scoffed by some members of government or heads of state.
As 16-year-old boy in Kinston, Jamaica during the start of World War II, his psychic powers (his forte was war, he says) came to the attention of British Intelligence, and was recruited into a branch of clairvoyants headed by Ian Fleming, who later gained international fame as the author of the James Bond novels.
Adolph Hitler, Montgomery explained, had a group of clairvoyants he consulted with, and the British wanted a similar branch to compete with Hitler's.
"When Hitler began to lose the war, he sent for his clairvoyants," Montgomery recalled, "But by that time, they were all dead because 90 percent of them were Jewish, you see."
Montgomery first came to the United States in 1963 when he was asked to participate in the investigation on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He has newspaper clippings showing him shaking hands with the chief of the Dallas Police Department.
Born of Ethiopian Jewish parents in Kinston, Jamaica, in 1925, Montgomery says he first realized he had the gift of clairvoyance when he was five years old.
On the Simpson case prediction, Montgomery says his vibrations tell him that "they are holding the wrong man. They don't have any evidence on Simpson." That, he says, comes not from his role as a psychic, but from his role as a former police officer in Jamaica.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, The Simpson Case: 'They Have the Wrong Man' Declares Local. , Los Angeles Sentinel, 09-01-1994, pp PG
Simpson Defense Shifts to Files of LAPD Detectives ( Los Angeles Sentinel )
Simpson Defense Shifts to Files of LAPD Detectives.
When Robert Shapiro took on the role as lead attorney on the O.J. Simpson defense team in June, he vowed to file a barrage of motions and other court documents in hopes of vindicating his client, accused of the double murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and friend Ronald Goldman.
And, with less than a month before jury selection is set to begin in the most widely watched murder case, the all-star Simpson defense team is making Superior Court Judge Lance Ito earn every bit of his healthy judge's salary. This week, though, Ito's patience has grown thin.
At the close of Monday's hearing in the case, Ito calmly passed out to attorneys, copies of a "draft" protective order - more commonly known as a "gag" order. Obviously disturbed by leaks to media of court documents, Ito proposed filing future court documents under seal, barring the public from viewing them until they are argued in court.
After being dealt a couple of severe blows last week. Team Simpson shifted the attention from equal access to blood samples and procedures for gathering evidence, to four Los Angeles police detectives at the Bundy Avenue murder scene of the July 12 murders.
At issue for the defense are the personnel files of LAPD Detectives Philip Vannatter, Tom Lange, Ron Phillips and the defense team's main target, Mark Fuhrman. The detectives were at the condominium of Brown- Simpson collecting most of the evidence that will be used against Simpson when trial begins.
The attorneys asked Ito to grant permission to view police records for possible complaints that may detail allegations of incidents where the detectives failed to follow department policies and procedure. But special attention, though, has been placed on Fuhrman, who defense attorneys say has a history of resentment toward African Americans and Hispanics.
Fuhrman, according to the defense motion, once attempted to get a police disability pension by claiming he could no longer control his anger toward African Americans and Hispanics. The detective has also had problems with regard to the two groups during his stint with the United States Marine Corps.
"His credibility is in question," said attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. III, who spearheaded the arguments for the defense. Cochran told Ito that the defense's interest in Fuhrman's as well as the other officer' s personnel files "is not a fishing expedition" as alleged by Robert Tourtelot, an attorney for a law firm representing Fuhrman.
Tourtelot, who said he was "outraged" by the defense's "truth-be-damned- tactics," said the life that his client knew up until June 13, 1994, has forever been taken from him. The attorney said Fuhrman's right to privacy should be weighted against Simpson's desire for personnel records.
Minutes earlier, Dona Weisz-Jones, an attorney representing the city of Los Angeles and the four officers, argued that the defense's request was "overboard and irrelevant" to the murder case. Tourtelot has asked Ito to order the defense to pay the $8,205 it cost to prepare and argue their motion requesting Fuhrman's records.
Meanwhile, Ito, who was scheduled to began vacation next week, asked both sides to be ready to argue final motions in the case scheduled to begin the trial phase Sept. 18.
Among the arguments, a motion by the defense to quash a search warrant it has deemed illegal, the release of the personnel files of the four officers, and whether to reveal the contents of the "mystery" envelope handed over to the courts in July.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT James Bolden, Simpson Defense Shifts to Files of LAPD Detectives. , Los Angeles Sentinel, 09-01-1994, pp PG.
'Trials' Net Same Result: Simpson Found Not Guilty ( Los Angeles Sentinel )
`Trials' Net Same Result: Simpson Found Not Guilty.
Two mock trials held in relation to the upcoming double murder trial of O.J. Simpson netted similar results, both favorable to the star athlete accused in the June 12 murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and friend Ronald Goldman.
The mock proceedings, conducted by separate organizations, hundreds of miles apart, both rendered "not guilty" verdicts for Simpson. In South Los Angeles, members of the Unity Survival Action Coalition voted to acquit Simpson, as did a group of citizens reportedly hired by a n Arizona firm to decide his future.
Of twenty (UNAC) members who participated in the proceeding, 18 found Simpson not guilty of the murder charges, and, of the two lone members who are convinced of Simpson's guilty, they split on whether he should receive life in prison or the death penalty.
In addition to the mock trial, the coalition, whose members consist of residents, activists and community leaders, released partial results of a survey it has been circulating through the community for the last week. The survey results, said Dr. James A. Mays, who heads the grassroots group, "were surprising."
According to Mays, of 200 surveys that have been tabulated, over 80 percent were submitted by women. Of the number, 90 percent of the surveys were completed by what he termed as women who were "middle aged, working class, militant pro-O.J."
The survey's question, 113 of them, ranged from "How do you feel about O.J., the person?" to "Should spousal harassment be tolerated?" to the media's role in shaping opinions and thoughts with regard to whether Simpson is innocent or not.
Meanwhile, officials with the district attorney's office deny an Arizona newspaper's report that 17 citizens were the attitudes that have resulted from extensive media coverage of the Simpson pretrial hearings.
The Arizona Republic reported that nine black and eight white jurors were impaneled in Phoenix at the behest of the L.A. County District Attorney's Office. Truck driver Charles Scruggs was one of those jurors. Scruggs said he was paid $125 to participate on the panel. They too found Simpson "not guilty."
"There is no murder weapon, no eye witnesses, nothing to really tie (Simpson) to the scene. It's inconclusive," Scruggs told the newspaper.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT James Bolden, 'Trials' Net Same Result: Simpson Found Not Guilty. , Los Angeles Sentinel, 09-08-1994, pp PG.
O.J. Simpson Trial: Frustrations Grow as Parties Prepare Case of the ( Los Angeles Sentinel )
O.J. SIMPSON TRIAL: Frustrations Grow as Parties Prepare Case of the. Century
After a brief display of frustration following a series of severe blows to the defense of football superstar O.J. Simpson last week, lead attorney Robert Shapiro found himself apologizing for an expletive he uttered, as prosecutor Bill Hodgman was addressing the court.
"I apologize to Mr. Hodgman, it was unprofessional of me" Shapiro later stated in court. "I meant no ill by it." Shapiro's remark came as Hodgman was explaining to Judge Lance Ito, how "substantial compliance" was being made by the prosecution with respect to the reciprocal discovery process.
His response was no surprise to courtroom observers. The well dressed veteran criminal attorney was noticeably unhappy with Ito's latest ruling where, with less than a month remaining before his client is scheduled to stand trial for the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
Last week, lawyers for Simpson shifted attention from blood samples to the four Los Angeles police detectives at the scene of the July 12 murders. At issue: the personnel files of LAPD Detectives Phillip Vannatter, Tom Lange, Ron Phillips and the defense team's main target, Mark Fuhrman.
Ito denied the defense's motion to view the files for "possible complaints that might detail allegations of incidents where the detectives failed to follow department policies and procedures." Special attention-by the defense was place on Fuhrman, who defense attorneys said had a history of resentment toward African Americans and Hispanics.
Fuhrman, according to motion filed by the defense, once attempted to get a police disability pension by claiming he could no longer control his anger toward blacks and Hispanics. Fuhrman, the motion continued, also had problems with regard to the races during his stint with the United States Marine Corps.
"His credibility is in question," Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. III contended. But after hearing the arguments of Fuhrman's personal attorney and lawyers for the city of Los Angeles, Ito disagreed.
The detectives were at the Bundy Avenue condominium of Brown-Simpson collecting a majority of the evidence that will be used against Simpson.
"If you don't like the message, slay the messenger," said Fuhrman' s attorney Robert Tourtelot. "The police officers on the scene did not murder Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ronald Goldman."
Meanwhile, in other pretrial rulings and developments: Judge Ito delayed the original Sept. 19 date to begin selecting a 12-member jury until Sept. 26. Simpson, who has long been pushing for a speedy trial, nodded "yes" to when asked by Ito if he would waive his rights to a speedy trial. Attorneys for several media outlets and the American Civil Liberties Union argued Wednesday that a proposal for a "gay order" by Judge Ito was overboard and unconstitutional. Ito proposed sealing all legal documents in the case until they were argued in court. Prosecutors are still considering whether they will ask for the death penalty for Simpson. The decision however, must be made prior to jury selection so that a "death qualified" panel (jurors not morally opposed to death penalty) can be selected. Upon his return, Ito, who began his long-awaited vacation last Friday, asked both sides to be ready to argue final motions in the case. Among the arguments, a motion by the defense to quash a search warrant it has deemed illegal. A witness called by the grand jury has refused to testify because he fears for his life. Michael John Dutton, 32, said he would risk going to jail before he testified at a hearing only to gather evidence on the football superstar. He claims he knows absolutely nothing about the June 17 disappearance of Al Cowlings and O.J. Simpson. Ito issued an order that allows the defense to continue to keep secret from the prosecution, the contents of the "mystery envelope" turned over to the courts in July.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT James Bolden, O.J. Simpson Trial: Frustrations Grow as Parties Prepare Case of the. , Los Angeles Sentinel, 09-08-1994, pp PG.
'He's Innocent,' Insists O.J.'s Sister-in-Law ( Los Angeles Sentinel )
`He's Innocent,' Insists O.J.'s Sister-in-Law.
While sitting in the safe confines of her mother's home in San Francisco, Vetrerdata Jones tried valiantly to explain to a Sentinel reporter, in a carefully monitored interview, what she had written in a recent letter to her former brother-in-law, O.J. Simpson, before emotion overcame her and she broke into unapologetic sobs:
"Basically, I just wrote to let him know that I gave an interview (to syndicated television news magazine, "Hard Copy"), the 33-year- old woman nicknamed "V.J.," said. "And I let him know how much I loved him and I reminded him of how much of a positive influence he was in my life..."
Jones burst into tears. After she retained her composure, she said, "O.J. was my best friend for a lot of years. I could go to him and talk about anything; men, sex, drugs anything!"
V.J. also included in her personal letter, two poems written especially for him by Karen Wolfe, a friend of hers who lives in Long Beach.
The younger sister of Simpson's first wife, Marguerite, V.J., a professional telemarketer, remembers when Simpson was dating her older sister when he was a student/athlete at San Francisco City College.
"I was about five years old then," V.J. recalled. "I remember that he would give me a quarter for every step I could jump over (from off the front porch)." Sometimes the couple would play a game with her by having her run between them when they had different flavored milkshakes from which she could sip.
Those were happy days for Simpson and the Jones girls. These days, however, their families are filled with conflict and controversy. Although Marguerite and O.J. have been divorced for many years, the sisters came to help when they were called.
According to Jones in her "Hard Copy" interview, the women were called to Simpson's estate on the day the defendant and Al Cowlings took police on that famous low-speed chase around I-405.
Jones didn't speak about that day with the Sentinel, but she did say that "I'm praying for him. I believe he's innocent. I don't think he's capable of doing anything like that. And I'm not buying that `heat of passion (stuff)."
The "anything like that" Jones referred to are the charges that Simpson brutally stabbed to death his second wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman on June 12.
Although Jones is upset with many people over many aspects of this whole Simpson controversy, she saves her most lethal venom for the television news media for the way they broadcast the "911 tapes" of Simpson allegedly harassing Nicole in her Gretner Green Street home.
"It was very painful," Jones recalled with disgust, "and it really makes me angry the way he was - and still is -being convicted in the media. They broadcast those tapes without knowing what was really going on with Nicole.
"I am not comfortable talking about what may have provoked him to go there (slang for making the decision to physically abuse Nicole), " Jones added. "She had to be doing something really wrong for him to go there (abuse her)."
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, 'He's Innocent,' Insists O.J.'s Sister-in-Law. , Los Angeles Sentinel, 09-15-1994, pp PG.
O.J. Simpson Trial: With Death Penalty Ruled Out, Lawyers Prepare to ( Los Angeles Sentinel )
O.J. SIMPSON TRIAL: With Death Penalty Ruled Out, Lawyers Prepare to do. Battle
With the issue of whether O.J. Simpson should face life in prison or death if found guilty in the double murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown- Simpson and friend Ronald Goldman behind them, lawyers for the athlete- turned-actor have begun focusing on their defense strategy for the trial set to begin in less than two weeks.
Sources close to Simpson said this week, while he is relieved with the elimination of the district attorney's option to seek the death penalty against him, he has vowed to take the stand in his own defense in attempt to convince all 12 jurors of his "complete innocence."
Friday's decision by prosecutors to seek life in prison rather than the death penalty rested easy with Simpson's attorneys, but caused an uproar among women's rights groups, who described the district attorney's office decision as "strictly political."
Feminist attorney Gloria Allred lead the call of those who were angered by the decision. Allred drew extensive criticism from black women' s groups last month, when the lawyer with the Women's Equal Rights Legal Defense and Education Fund suggested that Simpson be sentenced to death if found guilty.
Allred stressed that the jury as "the conscience of the community, " should decide Simpson's fate. She said Nicole Brown-Simpson's life "is no less valuable that anyone else's life."
But black leaders, nothing that a majority of death row inmates are African American, applauded the decision. Los Angeles Urban League President John Mack along with other community leaders, met with district Attorney Gil Garcetti during the preliminary trial to discourage the prosecutor from seeking th death penalty.
"There is no justification, there is no circumstance, that would justify the death penalty, Mack said following the decision. "We don't need to add another person to that already crowded line."
Meanwhile, one of Simpson's attorneys, F.Lee Bailey, dismissed a local newspaper's report of dissension within the all-star defense team. The veteran lawyer called the report, and another regarding a possible bite mark on the upper back of Nicole as bulls__t.
Bailey took issue with an article in the newspaper, that the legal team is wrestling with communication problems, strategy disputes and shifting balance of power among attorneys. While Robert Shapiro is the lead attorney, the paper reported, trial attorney Johnnie Cochran, a long time pal of O.J., is increasingly asserting himself.
"Bull!," Bailey said of the report. "Somebody is reaching for news. That's absolute bulls__t. If somebody's got an ego problem Shapiro will fire them the next day," he said. "He can fire anyone he wants as long as he is lead attorney."
As for a report by CBS that the Simpson defense team hired a South Florida forensic dentist to examine a bite mark of Nicole Simpson- Brown's back, Bailey's response sounded a broken record. "The bite mark story is absolutely bulls__t he explained. "There is a mark, he added, "I don't think it's relative to anything. I'm satisfied it's not a bite mark."
In other news involving the O.J. Simpson case: A "mystery witness" who refused to testify before the grand jury because he says he fears for his life. was ordered to jail by a Superior Court judge, John Michael Dutton, 32, said he would rather go to jail before testifying at the hearing, only to gather evidence on the football superstar. He claims what he knows has absolutely nothing to do with the June 17 disappearance of A1 Cowlings and O.J. Simpson. In a recent issue of Time Magazine, the publication is reporting that the estranged girl friend of A1 "A.C." Cowlings, Jennifer Peace, told a grand jury panel that Simpson admitted to Cowlings that he killed his ex-wife while in a rage. According to the article. Cowlings also told Peace that on June 17, the day of the slow-speed freeway chase, he was trying to assist O.J. in fleeing from police, not to save his life. The parents of Nicole Brown-Simpson were awarded legal guardianship of O.J.'s two small children while he fights the double murder charges he faces in his upcoming trial. Reports released by officials at the Los Angeles County Auditor Controller's Office indicate the prosecution of the former football star is well on its way to becoming the most expensive murder trial in Southern California history. In an updated estimate of trial expense, the current cost to tax payers had reached $302,478 through July 31.
The estimate includes $29,024 in salaries and overhead of court facilities for Simpson's arraignment, preliminary hearings and other pretrial hearings, $112,000 in costs for jailing and transporting Simpson, and $160,000 in cost to the district attorney's office. The trial is suspected to surpass the $1.81 million tab it took to convict Richard Ramirez in the famous "Night Stalker" case. Beginning Sept. 26, at least 1000 potential jurors begin a lengthy screening process to serve on the panel in the most widely watched murder trial in history. The process, according to an Aug. 9 transcript of a meeting with Judge Lance Ito and attorneys for the prosecution and defense, will last until Christmas.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT James Bolden, O.J. Simpson Trial: With Death Penalty Ruled Out, Lawyers Prepare to. , Los Angeles Sentinel, 09-15-1994, pp PG.
Process of Choosing Trial Jurors Underway
O.J. Simpson smiled at prospective jurors as he sang to himself quietly during Monday's lengthy juror elimination process.
With the elimination of a majority of jury hardships out of the way, selection of possible jurors has officially begun, as has "The People vs. Simpson," the double murder trial that will decide the fate of the former superstar NFL running back.
Over the next three to four weeks, 12 jurors and eight alternates will be chosen from the narrowed lists of candidates. But for the most part of this week, Judge Lance A. Ito heard reasons why potential panelists should be excused from serving on the trial expected to last as long as six months.
Reasons ranging from medical conditions to family problems to the financial hardships that may be caused by an employer's refusal to pay the salary of an employee for the full duration of the lengthy trial. At least 90 of the final 220 finalists said that serving on the jury will cause some type of hardship on them.
On the first day of selections, listing one of the hardships on about half the prospective jurors claimed that serving on the panel would pose some type of problem in their lives. But one of those hardships, a middle aged African American single parent, came back the next to offer her services.
The woman, listed as juror #790 told Ito that she might be able to arrange for her parents to care for her 9-years-old child if she is chosen to the panel. She met briefly with Ito and attorneys for both sides in a sidebar conference, but was released from duty moments later.
Meanwhile, lawyers for Simpson hope that key points made during last week's pretrial hearings will help persuade the 12 member panel to acquit their superstar client. Although prosecutors won the week-long argument of whether to allow evidence taken during a second search of the Simpson estate. The defense was successful in pointing out procedural errors of police detectives in the June 28 search.
It was by far the defense's best week with regard to mounting successful arguments that probable cause did not exist to disallow the seizure of evidence. The defense was able to persuade Ito that the manner in which the search warrant was carried out was less than acceptable, with respect to the 4th Amendment.
With the threat of the death penalty out of the way if he is found guilty of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and friend Ronald Goldman, Simpson will more than likely take the stand in his own defense to, as stated by a friend following a jail visit, attempt to convince all 12 jurors of his "complete innocence."
In other news in the O.J. Simpson case: For the first time since his arrest in June, family members of O.J. Simpson have begun filtering into the Los Angeles County jail facility where he is being housed. Simpson's older sister, Shirley Baker, showed support for her brother last week, attending the final pretrial hearing in his well-publicized double murder trial.
Over the weekend, Eunice Simpson, the wheelchair bound mother of the star athlete, was led into the special visiting area, separate from the visiting room of other inmates. Simpson's mother used network television to tell the world that her superstar son was innocent of the murders. Ito agreed to postpone the conclusion of a hearing on the legality of several police searches until Oct. 5. Attorneys for both sides will argue a prosecution motion to delay the questioning of jurors until after the conclusion of a hearing on the admissibility of DNA evidence.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT James Bolden, Process of Choosing Trial Jurors Underway. , Los Angeles Sentinel, 09-29-1994, pp PG
OCTOBER
Hunger of Public Seen To Outrank Ito's Threat ( Los Angeles Sentinel )
Hunger of Public Seen To Outrank Ito's Threat.
Courtesy has been a given among journalists outside Department 103 of the downtown Criminal Courts Building, where football superstar- turned-actor, O.J. Simpson is on trial for the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
But once inside the tiny court room of Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito, after sometimes half-hour waits jockeying for position, the lyrics of a popular rapper probably describes it best: "It's a doggy dogg world."
Reporters have reportedly witnessed scurrying into the court room, racing for the prestigious end seat, located on the first row of seats designated to press covering the trial. The seal, joked one trial observer, "is magic."
And, although it hasn't been confirmed, as is much of the reports in the Simpson case, the observer said, he has been told the seat has a better view of all the parties and happenings in the court room.
Simpson's double-murder trial formally began Monday amid the anticipation and media hoopla appropriate for a case that has attracted unprecedented worldwide attention. Hardly any one will see a thing.
The jury selection process will be conducted outside the courtroom pool camera's eye as part of the judge's effort to protect potential jurors from the media glare.
For most of the next months news from the case will be dominated by the tedious, yet critical task of choosing 12 jurors and eight alternates, unpolluted by pretrial publicity and Simpson's fame. Also expected is a continuation of pretrial battles and a lengthy fight over DNA evidence.
Monday began the anticipated start to a case that has been packed with drama. The public, however, will have to wait until opening statements for answers to many questions raised in the case, including a clear narrative from the prosecution on just what it believes Simpson did and his motive.
Even then there might not be as much "O.J. info" as people want.
Ito, angry over what he called erroneous news reports, threatened last week to yank the TV broadcast plug on the whole thing.
Whether broadcast or not, the Simpson case's grip on the public isn' t likely going to loosen, and the information, accurate or not, will keep coming. It will take much more than an outraged Ito for the networks to dismantle their towering camera platforms adjacent to the courthouse, and cancel their anchors' plane trips west.
The case has just too much of everything for everybody: celebrities, sex, high-tragedy and low-comedy; there are racial, class and criminal justice issues, to say nothing of a vivid cast of characters. From a porn actress to two Katos; one being Simpson's house guest, the other, a dog with bloody paws.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT James Bolden, Hunger of Public Seen To Outrank Ito's Threat. , Los Angeles Sentinel, 10-06-1994, pp PG.
Is D.A. stretching evidence to get O.J. Simpson convicted? ( Philadelphia Tribune, The ) By Dennis Schatzman Special to the Tribune
"Everyone knows there has to be a motive. No one brutally kills a fellow human being without having at least what they themselves believe to be an awfully good reason for it. Enter, stage left, what may be the most damning evidence? A history of spousal abuse, and in particular, a frantic 911 call in which an enraged O.J. was heard verbally threatening Nicole."
"Trial of the Century" by Robert J. Walton, with F. LaGard Smith Marcon 3 Press
Last week, the Los Angeles Country District Attorney's office, gave yet two more indication that they appear far from having an air-tight case against double-murder suspect O.J. Simpson.
First, prosecutors attempted to belittle the ministerial qualifications of the Rev. Rosey Grier and force him to reveal the contents of personal conversation he had with Simpson in the country jail.
Second, the District Attorney's office is trying mightily to have evidence introduced concerning the alleged marital discord between Simpson and his estranged wife, Nicole, whom he is accused of murdering (along with Nicole's friend, Ronald Goldman).
At issue is a October 1993 "911" tape in which Simpson is heard screaming at Nicole about his witnessing his late estranged wife allegedly performing fellatio (oral sex) on a man in her living room while the Simpson children were in the house.
Prosecutors claim that Grier, a former football star-turned evangelist, waived his penitent-clergy relationship (which gives ministering the right not to testify against the persons they are ministering to) when Simpson allegedly spoke in a loud voice and made statements reportedly overheard by four sheriff's deputies.
During Friday's hearing, Simpson attorney Gerald Uelman argued that as an ordained minister, Grier's conversations with Simpson held in the county jail were "privileged."
Deputy District Attorney William Hogeman wanted to know how long he had been a minister, why he had become one, and who ordained him. A stoic Grier responded tersely that he had been ordained by the Rev. Dr. Frederick K. Price, prelate of the Crenshaw Christian Center.
Price pastors one the nation's largest churches, and his sermons are broadcast nationwide.
Grier also testified the witnessing of the 1968 assassination of New York Senator Robert Kennedy at the old ambassador Hotel, changed his life. The former New York Giants/Los Angeles Rams defensive lineman was the man on the scene who snatched Sirhan Sirhan, the man who shot Kennedy.
When Hogeman asked Grier what he and Simpson talked about in the jail attorney/client third floor visitation meeting area, Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran strenuously objected. "Mr. Grier maintains a penitent/clergy privilege and Mr. Grier is not going to waive that privilege."
Superior Court Judge Lance Ito sustained Cochran's objections.
Hogeman tried another tact. During those talks, the prosecutor asked, did Simpson ever raise his voice? Again Cochran objected, reiterating that during his visits with Simpson, "Mr. Grier has a reasonable expectation of privacy."
Hogeman argued that if Simpson raised his voice whereas other people, namely four sheriff's deputies, could hear his conversation with Grier, then the privilege was waived.
On that argument, Ito overruled Cochran's objection.
"Did Mr. Simpson ever raise his voice?" To Hogeman's question, Grier retorted, "No."
The courtroom dialogue resurrects long standing concerns that sheriff' s deputies in the county jail have been eavesdropping in on private conversations between inmates and people who are entitled to privileged conversations with them.
I think everyone is concerned about sheriff's deputies listening in on privileged conversations, Century City criminal attorney Evan Jenness told the Sentinel. "Sheriff's deputies get bored. But in my opinion, " she added, "there ought to be a bright line rule assuring privacy" between attorneys and their clients within the county jail.
The situation is getting so bad, says Pasadena criminal attorney Carl Jones, that he is instructing his clients to watch what they say, and how loud they say it when court or jail personnel are in the vicinity.
"It seems like every day, some bailiff or sheriff's deputy is volunteering information he heard from some defendant," says Jones. "We are constantly warning prisoners that the people who transport them to and from court, who feed them their meals, are still police officers. They can never be trusted."
On the subject of Simpson's excited utterances captured on 911 tape, and his 1989 nolo contendre plea to spousal abuse charges, one prominent criminal attorney says the District Attorney's office is stretching the evidence and pulling out all stops" to try to convict Simpson.
"It is an indication that they (the prosecution) will do almost anything to win this case," says Janet Levine a noted Century City attorney. "They feel so beleaguered because of successive losses in the Rodney King, and the Menendez Brothers cases that they are pulling out all the stops."
In a recently-released book, Trial of the Century, attorneys Robert Walton and F. LaGard Smith discuss Simpson's marital discord which was first offered publicly by Susan Forward, Brown-Simpson's psychotherapist and author of the bestselling book, "Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them.
Forward claimed that Brown-Simpson told her in various therapy sessions that Simpson had battered her and stalked her. Her public revelation (which many claim was a breach of professional ethics) was followed by the releasing of the 911 tapes by the Los Angeles Police department.
Walton, an Arizona attorney, and Smith, a law professor at Pepperdine University, speculate in their book that the prosecution is "holding the 911 tape over Simpson's head, should he wish to testify on his own behalf. Any testimony which Simpson would offer promises to characterize his relationship with Nicole as non-violent and non-threatening. Such testimony would literally beg to be rebutted by the prosecution, and what would serve better for that purpose than the 911 tape?"
Previous public explanations about the November 1993 emergency police 911 tape indicated that Simpson was screaming about an incident in which he allegedly witnessed his estranged wife performing an oral sex act on one of the owners of the Mezzaluna Restaurant while the Simpson's' two children were upstairs.
Incensed husbands who take desperate steps when they find their wives in bed with other men is nothing new-not in the Black community, and not in Southern California. Earlier this year, a judge sentenced a man to just 18 months for killing his wife whom he found in bed with another man.
Twenty years ago, Black sports reporter Stan Dukes found Avril Berman, a KGFJ news reporter, in bed with Duke's wife, and promptly killed him.
Dukes served a couple of years, according to Sentinel staffers who covered the story at the time.
Ethnic NewsWatch © SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT Dennis Schatzman, Is D.A. stretching evidence to get O.J. Simpson convicted?., Philadelphia Tribune, The, 12-16-1994, pp PG.