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From: Jasper
Date: 10/10/03
Time: 2:59:57 PM
Remote Name: 68.73.199.29
Charlie,
The way the prosecution went after Marry Ann Gerches tells us absolutely that they were afraid of her. They did not want her to testify. They wanted to shut her up, discredit her and send a clear message to anyone, that they were putting their reputations and their freedom in jeopardy by saying anything in defense of O.J. Simpson.
In retrospect I think the prosecution’s biggest targets were Robert Heidstra, Rosa Lopez and Sylvia. They got to Sylvia and they tried to intimidate Heidstra and Lopez in open court with veiled threats of sicking the INS on them. That’s why I paid particular attention to their testimony. It was clearly dangerous for anybody in a vulnerable legal position to testify for the defense. Whether or not the prosecution went after Gerches because she really saw something that could have exposed an undercover operation (legal or illegal), those questions might have been raised and aggressively pursued if she had been allowed to testify.
Hodgman’s irrational objections tell another story. It sounds to me as though he screamed every time Cochran hit a nerve – and Cochran hit a lot of nerves. I know that Hodgman was uncomfortable with the prosecution from the start and Marcia was the one who really ran the show – from the start. Maybe something Cochran said convinced him of something he had only suspected before. Maybe Cochran said something that tied into something else he knew that prove O.J.’s innocence and perhaps someone else’s guilt. Like Hamlet’s mother, he did protest too much. --Jasper