Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 1
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor: [in progress] that I practiced, that especially in a case like this where there are a certain number of [inaudible], and that is that certain people, they may believe, may have an impact either on the jury, if the jury knows who they are, or on the other side, to kind of get the other side off balance. Do you think lawyers do that?
PAUL GREENWOOD, Deputy District Attorney: I'm sure they do. I mean, I As a prosecutor, I've not had that situation occur, nor have I ever thought that I would need, strategically, anyone in the courtroom. It's nice to have my wife there occasionally for moral support, but I've seen it happen, particularly with family members of a defendant, who come on the closing day. Sometimes even children are introduced as spectators, in order to convey a message to jurors. In this case, of course, the jury has been sequestered, so there is no opportunity for defendants to have family members mingle amongst jurors, which I've seen happen in other cases where jurors are not sequestered, and that concerns me a great deal. In this case, it may be that lawyers are asking people to come in order simply to send a picture message to the jurors, and yet the jurors don't fully realize the impact that those people are supposed to have.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: It it looks like we are going into the courtroom. The jury is not present in the courtroom. The parties are Judge Ito and O.J. Simpson, of course. Let's hear what's going to happen before the jury comes in.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Mr. Simpson is again present before the Court with his counsel, Mr. Shapiro, Mr. Cochran, Mr. Blasier; People represented by Mr. Darden and Ms. Clark. Jury is not present.
The record should reflect that this morning I had a chambers conference with counsel to discuss a questionnaire that will go to the jurors this afternoon, inquiring of them if they are desirous of extending the hours of deliberation into a later session during the evening hours, and whether or not they are desirous or willing to deliberate on Saturdays, with the understanding that any deliberations must be conducted here at the courthouse and in the jury deliberation room.
We also discussed and, excuse me, counsel had no objection to the questionnaire proposed by the Court. Also, the record should reflect that the Court has directed counsel to be available on a one-hour's call for the purposes of responding to questions by the jury and also requests for read-back, and the Court has indicated, also, that a longer time period to be available for the purposes of rendering a verdict will probably be in place, but we'll discuss that when the time comes.
All right, anything else we need to discuss before put on the record before we conclude with Mr. Darden's argument?
[inaudible comment by Peter Neufeld, defense attorney]
Judge LANCE ITO: Sure. All right, Deputy Trower [sp].
BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney: Your Honor?
Judge LANCE ITO: Yes, Mr. Scheck, good morning.
BARRY SCHECK: Yes. Good morning. I just wanted to register, for the record, certain objections one in particular to Ms. Clark's argument and get some determination from the Court on this issue. At one point in her argument, she began making references to the defendant's not performing tests on evidence, and started making comments about experts for the defense who never appeared in court or testified and what they did or didn't do. In particular, the comment that concerned me the most was in reference to EDTA testing. It's one thing to say that Dr. Rieders didn't perform a test using the MS-MS machine, because that certainly came out and was impeachment in the testimony. But, what concerned me was a reference ``Well, the defense had other experts and they didn't come in and give you test results or anything to that effect.'' And that seems to me, improper, because, first of all, it's commenting on a privileged area I think that's 913 and secondly, I think we've already had some litigation on this issue where the Court actually made a finding that the conduct of the prosecution, in terms of trying to find out what, if anything, defense experts were doing in this area, was, in the Court's words, ``reprehensible.'' So, it seems to me that comment on what other experts could have done with respect to their testing, or did do, or anything like that, would be improper, although I have no objection to her making comments about Dr. Rieders. I thought that- And I'd like some kind of guidance from the Court on that issue.
Judge LANCE ITO: Ms. Clark?
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: I don't know what to say, Judge. I I pointed out to the jury what's in the record. I pointed out the truth, and I think I was very specific about the people they called and they didn't call. What I pointed out in to the best of my recollection, is that they called Dr. Rieders to testify about someone else's tests. He performed none. He could have. I talked about Dr. Gerdes and I talked about Dr. Lee, and I talked about Dr. Blake. This is all all in the record. I don't rec I did not refer to other experts that were unnamed or that did not come into the record. I talked about the ones that were in the record, and asked why they didn't perform any tests. I don't So, I don't know what the complaint is.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, Mr. Scheck, do you want to I mean, are there any case citations, because primarily during the course of argument, prosecution counsel are entitled to comment upon the state of the evidence and the failure to call logical and material witnesses, and that's People versus Miller, 50 Cal.3rd at 954, the Court's comments at 996.
BARRY SCHECK: No no. It sounds like, from her comments, I heard something different, and if Ms. Clark doesn't believe she said that, or certainly isn't going to make that argument on rebuttal, then I guess we don't have a quarrel. It seems to me, though, that just to make my point very, very clear, it's one thing to comment on Dr. Rieders and what tests he did or did not perform under the circumstances. I distinctly heard her say ``the defense has other experts that could have done that test.'' And that, I think, is beyond the Miller case and beyond proper comment on the record, and it appears that Ms. Clark agrees, so perhaps
Judge LANCE ITO: Has to be based something based in the record, correct.
BARRY SCHECK: Right. So so so it appears as though there's no disagreement here, but I'm very concerned because
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, let's do this. Let's have our computer maven, Mr. Blasier, see if he can find the appropriate comment and at the next recess we'll take it up if you feel it's something that's appropriate.
BARRY SCHECK: Well
MARCIA CLARK: Your Honor, I I'll tell you what.
Judge LANCE ITO: No, no. We've just settled it.
MARCIA CLARK: Well, no, because in case Let let I don't know. What You We can't all remember we say over the period of hours, but I will say this any reference to other experts would have been, ``They could have brought someone in.'' Not, ``They had someone available.'' But, assuming What if that's the case?
Judge LANCE ITO: Ms. Clark?
MARCIA CLARK: Don't do it? Wait? OK.
Judge LANCE ITO: Discussion's over.
MARCIA CLARK: All right.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right. Thank you.
Deputy Trower, let's have the jurors, please.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: Well, it seems that there is less tension, thus far, amongst the parties. Judge Ito seems to be a bit more calm, Barry Scheck being very polite. Barry Scheck said, which you might find interesting, he said to me yesterday that Mr. Simpson told him to go get his hair cut for his closing argument. And I found that intriguing, only in the sense that O.J. Simpson seems to be a hands-on client who has assumed a role in directing how much of this case goes on. And, in your experience, when you were working as a barrister, in particular, did you find that, from time to time, clients tried to run your case, or were you able to run your case?
PAUL GREENWOOD: Certainly, depending on the personality of the defendant, as a defense lawyer, some would approach me and basically try to dictate how they would approach the case, but in the end, you have to explain to them that, obviously, you take their instructions, there are certain things within guidelines you cannot do and will not do. You certainly listen to what they want you to do. If you feel that it's something that you cannot do, you lay out the lines very carefully, and a lot of defendants will accept your advice; others will dictate exactly what they want to happen, and you do it and say, ``Well, at your own risk.''
RIKKI KLIEMAN: OK. Thank you so much, Paul. We are going into the courtroom. Mr. Darden will resume his portion of the closing argument.
Judge LANCE ITO: And, Mr. Darden, are you prepared to continue on with your argument, sir?
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN, Deputy District Attorney: Yes, I am, Your Honor. Thank you. Good morning, sir.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
JURY: [in unison] Good morning.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: I hope everybody
Judge LANCE ITO: Mr. Feretlow [sp], would you just briefly show that to counsel?
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: If you can.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, thank you.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: I hope everybody had a good sleep last night. It was a long day yesterday, and I thank you. Let me thank you, in advance, for hearing me again this morning. I don't expect to take up the entire morning. In fact, with any luck, I won't take up more than half of it. But, we'll have to see.
Well, you'll recall where we left off yesterday. I was telling you about this defendant's relationship, this man's relationship with Nicole Brown and I'll and I told you that it was simmering relationship, you know. It was it was a slow burn. It was a slow burn, and I described for you and discussed with you some of the testimony that you heard in this case testimony you heard from witnesses about their relationship and we talked about the 1985 incident with involving the baseball bat and the Mercedes Benz. We talked about the the 1989 incident and the fact that the police had been there eight times before. Both the defendant, here, and Nicole Brown both both admitted that, so it I guess it's true, right? We talked about the incident at the Red Onion when the defendant grabbed Nicole by the crotch and in front of a bar full of strangers and humiliated her. We talked about that.
We talked about his admission to Shipp about his jealousy after the 1989 incident. We never talked about the testimony we heard from Denise Brown. Do you remember the testimony from Denise Brown when she talked about some of the the really, really nasty things he would say to to Nicole? As you may recall, Denise Denise Brown, Nicole's sister testified that during the time that she was pregnant, the defendant would call her names. You Do you recall that testimony? He'd call her a fat pig, and he would call her a fat pig in front of other people. I don't know what what you should you should extract from that. I mean, have you ever heard of such a thing? I don't know. I would suggest, however, that that is some indication of how he really felt about her.
You know, sometimes you get in a relationship, people get in a relationship and you and you have one one-half of the relationship who's dominant, and you have another half who's somewhat passive. And the dominant half dominates the the other half, and what what effect do you suppose this would have on Nicole? That is, being called a fat pig by her husband while she's pregnant? You know, what effect would that have on your self-esteem?
Because you're probably wondering, ``Well, hey, if he did all of these things to her, if he said all of these things to her, why did she stay?'' Well, there's this old song and the words used to go, that that I don't know, I think it was the Dramatics [sp], I I can't really recall, but there was a couple of lines in a song where they said, ``the strong give up and move on, and the weak give up and stay.'' You know, if you badger a person long enough, if you beat 'em down long enough, if you wear 'em down long enough, pretty soon you strip 'em of their dignity, their self-esteem and they are weak, and they are submissive, and they can't go, they can't stay. And you know how that is. Everybody knows how that is. We've all been in bad relationships before. You have friends, you see them in these bad relationships. Why? Why do they stay? Why do they stay? Usually, they feel they don't have a choice. They don't know that they have a choice. They forgot that they had a choice. In their minds, they they have no choice. She's a fat pig.
But, we talked about that yesterday and we talked about justice, and we talked about what the real issue in this case was about, and I pointed the defendant out to you and I told you he killed her, and you've heard the evidence in this case. He killed Ron Goldman. O.J. Simpson's a murderer. That's what the evidence indicates. That is what the evidence indicates. That is what the evidence shows. It shows that he's not just a murderer, but he's a double-murderer. And that's unfortunate. It's unfortunate that I have to stand here and tell you this, because I'd rather be somewhere else. I'm sure you'd rather be somewhere else. Who wants to really have to confront and deal with these issues? But, we have to because we have a duty. Marcia and I have a duty and you have a duty, as well.
Your duty is to look at all the evidence, to be fair, be conscientious, be objective. And your duty is to look at all the evidence, the totality of circumstances everything. We don't want you to just look at one piece. Don't just look at the prosecution's case. Look at the entire case. Look at everything, because when you do, when you do, what can you say, except he did it? And we've proven it. And we've proven it beyond a reasonable doubt.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 2
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN, Deputy District Attorney: What can you say? Except he did it and we've proven it. And we've proven it beyond a reasonable doubt. And we talked about the safe deposit box yesterday and we talked about the fact that Nicole knew that she was going to die and we know that she knew that because she told the police that in 1989. And we know that she knew that because of what she saved for us the road map she left for you in that safe deposit box. The letters, the photographs, the will. You recall that testimony. And as we went through the progression here through the history of his abuse of Nicole, and by the way, not every incident here on this chart is an incident necessarilly of abuse, but we wanted to lay out the history of their relationship as well and so that's why you see things like divorce and et cetera. So we're not trying to mislead you. But we thought it was important that you know how the relationship developed over the years. And this is an unusual relationship, you have to agree. There's something wrong here. Henry Lee said there was something wrong. There's something very wrong here. This is a slow-burning, simmering relationship and it's just like I told you yesterday, the fuse is burning, the fuse is burning, folks, and it's getting shorter and it's getting shorter and it's just getting shorter.
But this morning, you know, I want to take things a step further if I may, if you will allow me to. Let's just cut right to the chase. Imagine the defendant in his Bronco. He is full of anger and he is full of rage and it's night time and he's driving that Bronco and he's full of jealousy. And the fuse continues to burn and the focus of his anger is Nicole. For some reason, in his mind she has done something that he can't ignore, something that has set him off. He's jealous; he's raging; he's raging; he's out of control and he's in that Bronco and he is driving as fast as he can toward Nicole's house and it's about 10:00. He is out of control, folks. He is completely out of control and when he gets to Nicole's place, he quickly parks the Bronco and he gets out. It's 10:00. He's in his Bronco. He's at Nicole's house. It's night time. But we're not even talking about June 12th. We're not talking about June 12th, 1994. We're talking about October 25, 1993.
All along, I've asked you to be open minded to be open minded about this man and who he is. And we have suggested to you and I think we've proven to you that he is not the person that you see on those TV commercials and at half time in those football games. That is his public persona. We all have one. We all have one. We behave a certain way when we're in public and we behave another way when we're at home. You know what you know what they say nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors. And and the fact that we may see you and you may see us doesn't really mean that you know us or that you know me or that you know Ms. Clark or Mr. Cochran. You see us here in public. But what are we? What are we really? What are we really inside? What are we really at home? Well, we have a very very very nice example. Well, nice is a bad choice of words. We have a very very poor example of who this man is of who he is at home. Of who he is in his private life. It's the it's the private side, the other side of him. And I want you to listen to a tape a tape of an emergency call. And you recall that I played that tape for you a long time ago, months ago, and you probably forgot about it up until yesterday, I hope. But I'm going to ask you to listen to that tape in just a moment.
Now, you know, some people say ``Well, how could how could O.J. Simpson actually kill this woman and Ronald Goldman when her kids are in the house?'' You know? You know what I mean? They say ``Well, who would do something like that?'' Well, he would. Keep this in mind, if you will if you think it's important. In 1989, when he beat her, you'll recall that when the police came and wanted to take her to Parker Center to have photographs of her injuries taken, you'll remember that she said ``I don't want to go. I just want my kids. I just Just take me back home. Take me back home to my kids. My kids are at home. I want to be with my kids.'' The night he beat her, his kids were in the house. And when you listen to this tape from October 25, 1993, after the first couple of minutes, you hear the defendant in the background yelling and screaming and raging. You'll hear that rage. And you'll hear Nicole on the telephone say ``The kids are upstairs.'' The fact that the kids are in the house means nothing to this man. Mr. Feretlow [sp], Mr. Wooden [sp].
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Which exhibit is this, Mr. Darden?
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Which exhibit is this, Mr. Feretlow?
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Twenty?
Judge LANCE ITO: Thank you.
[excerpt of 9-1-1 call made by Nicole Brown Simpson October 25, 1993]
911 OPERATOR: 911 emergency [unintelligible]
NICOLE SIMPSON: Can you get someone over here now to 365 Gretna Green. He's back. Please.
911 OPERATOR: Ok. What does he look like?
NICOLE SIMPSON: He's O.J. Simpson. I think you know his record. Can you just send somebody over here.
911 OPERATOR: Ok, what is he doing there?
NICOLE SIMPSON: He just drove up here [unintelligible]
911 OPERATOR: Wait a minute. What kind of car is he in?
NICOLE SIMPSON: He's in a white Bronco. First of all, he broke the back door down to get in.
911 OPERATOR: Wait a minute. What's your name?
NICOLE SIMPSON: Nicole Simpson
911 OPERATOR: Okay. He's the sportscaster or whatever?
NICOLE SIMPSON: Yeah.
911 OPERATOR: Okay, wait a minute. We're sending the police. What is he doing. Is he threatening you?
NICOLE SIMPSON: He's fucking going nuts.
911 OPERATOR: Has he threatened you in any way, or is he just harrassing you?
NICOLE SIMPSON: [unintelligible]
911 OPERATOR: Okay, just stay on the line.
NICOLE SIMPSON: I don't want to stay on the line.
911 OPERATOR: Just stay on the line so that we can know what's going on until the police get there, okay? Okay, Nicole?
NICOLE SIMPSON: Uh-huh.
911 OPERATOR: Just a moment. [unintelligible]
NICOLE SIMPSON: He went home [unintelligible] The kids are upstairs sleeping. Can you please come?
911 OPERATOR: Okay, just a moment. Is he on drugs or anything?
NICOLE SIMPSON: No.
911 OPERATOR: Okay. Just stay on the line. Just take it easy. Calm down. I need to hear what is going on, all right? Is he yelling?
NICOLE SIMPSON: Yes.
911 OPERATOR: Okay. Has he been drinking?
NICOLE SIMPSON: No.
911 OPERATOR: Okay. [unintelligible] all units, [unintelligible] domestic violence, 345 South Gretna Green Way. Ths suspect has returned in a white Bronco [unintelligible] forty two twenty-one. Okay, Nicole? Is he still outdoors, or
NICOLE SIMPSON: He's in the back yard.
911 OPERATOR: He's in the back yard?
NICOLE SIMPSON: [unintelligible] my roommate [unintelligible].
911 OPERATOR: Okay. What is he saying?
NICOLE SIMPSON: Oh, something about some guy I know [unintelligible] and it's all my fault, now what am I going to do [unintelligible] it's all my fault [unintelligible] he's hit the [unintelligible]
911 OPERATOR: Has he hit you today?
NICOLE SIMPSON: No.
911 OPERATOR: Okay [unintelligible]
NICOLE SIMPSON: He broke the door [unintelligible]
911 OPERATOR: And then he left and he came back?
NICOLE SIMPSON: [unintelligible] but he pounded it and he screamed and hollered and I tried to get him out of the bedroom because the kids are sleeping in there.
911 OPERATOR: Okay.
NICOLE SIMPSON: And then he wanted the phone number and I gave him my [unintelligible] I didn't write down the phone number that he wanted and then he took my phone book with all my stuff in it.
911 OPERATOR: Okay, so basically you [unintelligible]
[sound of O.J. Simpson yelling in the background]
911 OPERATOR: Is he inside right now? Okay [unintelligible]
[sound of O.J. Simpson yelling in the background]
911 OPERATOR: He's talking to you?
NICOLE SIMPSON: Yes.
911 OPERATOR: Are you locked in a room or something?
NICOLE SIMPSON: No. He can come right in. I'm not going with you [unintelligible] Do you think you've got it easier?
911 OPERATOR: Stay on the line. Don't hang up, okay?
NICOLE SIMPSON: [unintelligible] and then he wants to leave and [unintelligible] not going to cook for [unintelligible]
[sound of O.J. Simpson yelling in the background]
911 OPERATOR: What is he saying?
[crosstalk]
911 OPERATOR: Is he still yelling at you? Just stay on the line, okay? [unintelligible] 345 South Gretna Green Way [unintelligible]
NICOLE SIMPSON: [unintelligible]
911 OPERATOR: Is your roommate talking to him?
NICOLE SIMPSON: No. [unintelligible]
911 OPERATOR: Does he have any weapons or anything like that?
NICOLE SIMPSON: [unintelligible]
911 OPERATOR: Okay. Where is he standing?
NICOLE SIMPSON: He's in the back doorway in the house [unintelligible]
911 OPERATOR: Does he know you're on the phone to the police?
NICOLE SIMPSON: No.
911 OPERATOR: Where does he sit right now?
NICOLE SIMPSON: [unintelligible]
911 OPERATOR: [unintelligible] Is there someone up there with the kids?
NICOLE SIMPSON: No.
[sound of O.J. Simpson yelling in the background]
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Turn it off. I think we've heard enough of that. You'll have this tape in the jury room. I'm just a messenger, and I think you get the message. And you get message straight out of his mouth. I mean, you hear this man in the background raging. He is raging about a picture, a picture of a man he saw at Nicole's house. A picture of a man she had apparently dated how many months before? How many months did Nicole say? About 18 months or something like that. It's on the tape. And Nicole said on that tape as well that it always comes up. This man, that issue, always comes up. Apparently this man and that issue is of great concern to the defendant. Of so much concern that he apparently just can't get it out of his system. He can't put it behind him. He can't forget it. He can't forget it. And you hear him back there yelling and screaming at Nicole. When you hear the language and you hear the things that he's saying about her and you hear him in the background say ``I don't give a shit anymore.'' That's what he said. An old relationship, a past boyfriend, a boyfriend she apparently had at a time after she moved away from his home and after she filed for divorce.
A year and a half and he still hadn't gotten over it. And it's October 25 of 1993 and Nicole doesn't know it at the time she knows he's going to kill her at some point but she doesn't know at the time that she only has eight months to live. Now, we offer this tape to you, as I said before, so that you would know who you're dealing with and because you have a right to see him the private side of him. When you listen to the 9-1-1 call, as you take it back into the jury room, listen to the part where she tries to calm him, where she's on the phone and it sounds as if he's getting closer to her because you can hear his voice more clearly and his voice is raised even higher than before. And she tries to calm him. And she's trying to calm him. She tries to calm calm him and a by using a calm voice of her own. You get what I'm saying? I mean, she says ``O.J. O.J.'' Now, three minutes before, she was in tears on the phone, calling the 9-1-1 operator, but when he comes near, he's enraged, she is trying to calm him down with a calm voice.
What does that mean? I mean, is that helpful to you at all? Let me suggest to you that what that means is that she's been there before. She apparently feels as if she has a way, some tactic or some approach, that might help calm him down. It's Nicole's approach to her problem when the defendant becomes enraged a calm voice. And she is scared, and you know she's scared. You can hear the fear, you can hear the terror in her voice when she calls the 9-1-1 operator. But when he gets close and when she get to the point where she has to calm him down, she's the calm one. She's the one who's who is in jeopardy but she is the one with the calm voice.
1993 was the same year that the defendant talked to Kato Kaelin. And remember, Kato Kaelin was living at Gretna Green with Nicole? He was living in the back in the guest house? And he talked to Kato just before Nicole moved to Bundy. Remember that conversation? Do you recall that testimony? This is an example of this man's control, of the control he had over Nicole. The control he exercised over her. Kato was living with her. Kato was going to be paying rent to her, to Nicole this is money. This is income, OK? She's divorcing this man. She is not his wife. She is not his wife.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 4
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN, Prosecutor: [in progress] I don't know, but let me tell you something about this letter, just to go back. And this whole interior decorator situation. The fuse is burning and it is getting short. OK? It's getting short. He is trying to erase her presence from his home. This is how short the fuse is getting. He's trying to erase her presence from his home. He has hired an interior decorator to redecorate the bedroom, the master bedroom was it? And the bathroom, they're going to rip out the plumbing. The places she had been, they are going to change. They are going to erase her presence from the house. He is going to erase her presence from the house, or at least he's going to try.
He is angry and he is upset. He's been rejected and he doesn't like that rejection and he's trying to get over her, he's trying to get beyond this, and so what does he do?
[long pause - fumbling around in background]
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: And what does he do? And what does he do? [as an aside] they do work awfully hard so I can't get upset at them. Page 19.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Mr. Faretlow [sp], what evidence exhibit is this? Let me know. Mr. Darden.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Oh, thank you, thank you gentlemen. So, what does he do, he gets rid of her wedding photo, their wedding picture. Puts it underneath the bed. He is trying to get beyond this but he can't get beyond this, because the fuse is burning. Because he is upset and angry that the relationship was terminated by her. I mean, you look at that picture, you look at them. After your divorce, and after you break up with someone, you don't usually keep the pictures out, right? I mean, you don't. But do you thrown them underneath the bed? You put them in a box or you get rid of them altogether, that's what you do. But in this case, in his case, he is trying to get over her but he can't. He can't get over her, he can't get beyond this. On the one hand he throws his picture underneath the bed and on the one hand, she is out of sight and he hopes out of mind. But on the other hand, she's just beneath the bed, where he has access to her, where he can grab it, where he can look at it. He is beginning to obsess with her. He is becoming obsessive with her and he is trying to replace her at the same time with Paula. His relationship with Paula supposedly blooms again, all of a sudden, at about this time. Right after she breaks up with him. If she broke up with him on May 22nd and by June the 6th or whatever, he and Paula are back together and now they're ripping the plumbing out of the house. You know, people need space, you need time when you end a relationship, especially one that lasted 17 years. He is trying to replace Nicole with Paula and he is trying to find some sense of control. But the fuse is burning and I just wish Dr. Walker had been here to help explain this to you. I'm sure she could have done a better job of it than me, than I have so far.
And so we move on. The days pass and that photo is People's 536? The wedding photo. And the days pass and we begin to approach June 12, the day of the recital. You recall that the defendant had conversations with Kato Kaelin that day and he talked about Nicole and he talked about he dress, and he talked about how short it was, and he talked about the relationship being over. You know it didn't appear, you tell me, maybe you disagree, that he and Kato Kaelin had that kind of relationship, the kind of relationship where he would vent his frustration, his frustration regarding Nicole to Kato. I don't know, you saw Kato, I don't know why anybody would want to go through personal problems with Kato Kaelin, but he did. And he talked about Nicole a couple of times that day to Kato Kaelin and Marcia cross-examined Kato Kaelin and directly examined Kato Kaelin, and they talked about those conversations, and as Marcia mentioned yesterday you know, Kato had a bias, and he was biased in favor of the defendant. He minimized things. That's not to say that he just outright lied about things, but he minimized things. I think he minimized the tone of the defendant's voice when he talked about Nicole. I think he minimized just how upset the defendant was when he talked about Nicole. But hey, whatever the defendant's supposedly seeing Paula, it's the day of the recital, and what happened that day? The fuse got shorter, I'll tell you why. Paula, his new girlfriend, wanted to go to the recital. The recital where Sydney was going to be performing, over at the school. And they had an argument about that, for lack of a better term. They had a disagreement about that. She wanted to go. He didn't want her to go, he wanted to go alone. He told Kato that, that they had a disagreement about that and she was upset. Well, why is that important? It's important because she left. It's important because Paula left. She left Rockingham, she left Los Angeles. But apparently he didn't know that. Apparently they had their disagreement about the recital. Paula got mad, Paula left town. It's pretty apparent that he didn't know that. I can't tell you how bad that disagreement was, or if there were raised voices or whatever, we don't have any of that in the testimony, or in the evidence in this case, but we do know that Paula left, and that he didn't know where Paula had gone. And the fuse is getting shorter because what happened that day is this Paula, as a woman, I guess she's asserting her womanhood, she's supposed to be his woman now, she wants to go to the recital, why not? He won't let her. Why won't he let her? Because he still has hope for Nicole, he still has some hope. He doesn't want Paula to go to the recital, he won't let Paula go to the recital and Paula realizes why, and she packs up and she leaves. That afternoon, the defendant called Nicole we'll get the right photo board that afternoon he called Nicole's house. See, he's still got hope, he's got hope I mean, she's always come back right? Each and every time that they they've gone back and forth many, many times, they've always gotten back together, she's always come back. But she isn't coming back this time. But he still has hope. He's put in a catch-22 situation of sorts that day, when he and Paula talk about her going to the recital. He has to make a choice that day he's either going to go to the recital where Nicole is, alone, you know, hoping hand. Or he's going to chose Paula. It's either Nicole or Paula. If he takes Paula to the recital, take her out in public, take her around Nicole, take her around the Brown family, he's made a choice now, OK. It's public, everybody knows, you've made a choice, you're now with Paula. But he couldn't make that choice because he still had hope and he still had hope for Nicole and so he called Nicole, on June 12th, he called her and talked to her at 2:18 in the afternoon, with a four-minute phone call. And something happened during that phone call. But let me tell you what else. After he finished that four-minute phone call to Nicole, he tried to call Paula. As soon as he hung up from Nicole, he tried to call Paula in the 305 area code, Florida [?], right here. The phone call lasted four it began at 2:18, it lasted four minutes, at 2:22 he was calling Florida [?]. Something happened. I don't know what happened. Something happened, whatever happened during that phone call, he had a need to talk to Paula thereafter or immediately thereafter. But he was calling Florida looking for Paula, but we know from the testimony and the evidence in this case already, that Paula's in Las Vegas in her hotel room, being paid for by Michael Bolton. He doesn't know where she is. Sounds like she got upset and stormed off and went about her business. But he can't find Paula, he's having a problem with Nicole. He's about to lose all the women, both the women in his life and the fuse is getting shorter folks, it's getting shorter. And the frustration is building, and the anger is building and something has triggered his anger, because in all of this, this is a tension this entire relationship over a ten-year period is filled with tension because the doors are being kicked in and the punches and the slaps and the intimidation and the control and all of that. I mean, this is a very, very tense relationship and things are about to explode because he has that conversation with her. He tries to call Paula, he can't find Paula, and by the time he gets to that recital that afternoon around five o'clock, he is fit to be tied. He is angry. You heard the testimony of Candace Garvey, Steve Garvey's wife. She was also at the recital. She knows the defendant, she's known him for a long time. He came into the recital, she and Steve spoke to him. They said, `Hello, how are you, how you doing?' And what was her testimony, what was his response? There
was no response immediately. You recall the testimony. He had a blank stare on his face. He was distracted. She told you that it was as if he looked right through her, as if he didn't recognize that she was there. She told you that his demeanor that afternoon in the recital frightened her. And she told you that he was angry and Denise Brown testified as well about that recital and they told you that he was angry and he didn't look to be, or act, like the O.J. Simpson they had come to know. Candace Garvey said that he was distant, that his anger was simmering, that he had this look of simmering anger. He was in a slow burn and the fuse was getting shorter. Something set him off and perhaps what set him off was his four-minute phone call at two in the afternoon. Perhaps his inability to find Paula that afternoon set him off. Now the fuse is really burning, now the fuse is getting shorter and it's going to be an explosion folks, there's going to be an explosion. He arrives at the recital, he sees Candace Garvey, literally ignores her, he's angry. He takes a seat in the auditorium. He sees the Brown family seated in the auditorium Juditha Brown, Lou Brown, Nicole's parents, and her sisters. Nicole is seated with them or near them. He goes over to the Brown family and he greets everybody in the family, everyone of them. He greets everybody but Nicole. He doesn't address Nicole. This is a family event, right? His daughter, Nicole's daughter, at the recital dancing. But he doesn't address her because he is angry, he is consumed with anger and the fuse is getting shorter. He doesn't appear like the O.J. that they knew. The man that they knew. Candace Garvey is frightened by his demeanor. What does he do, he takes a seat behind the Brown family, there are no seats behind the Brown family, so nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with the fact that he takes a seat behind the Brown family. But as Denise Brown told you on the witness stand, after a few minutes he just abruptly got up and moved. He got up, took a chair, and in the dark in this dark auditorium, because the program was going on. He takes that chair and he moves into the corner and he sits in the corner of the auditorium. Denise Brown told you that she could not understand, she did not understand why he did that. She told you on the witness stand that she didn't say anything to offend him, nobody said anything to offend him. Why is he so angry? Who is he angry at? Well, common sense would tell us that he's angry at Nicole. Why? Because he didn't address her. But for another reason as well. As he sits there in the corner in the dark, he isn't watching the program on the stage. He's watching Nicole. Candace Garvey told you this, Denise Brown told you this as well. That whenever they looked over at the defendant, that he was not looking at the stage or the program on the stage, or the kids dancing up on the stage, they told you that every time they looked over in that dark corner at the defendant, he was staring at Nicole. He was staring at Nicole and that simmering anger that he had, folks, he as about to lose control. The fuse is getting shorter, the fuse is getting shorter and there's about to be an explosion. He is about to lose control. And about to lose control like he did on those earlier occasions. And sure, he didn't kill her on those earlier occasions in October of '93, or in 1989, but that was then and back then the fuse was a lot longer. But now, the fuse is way short, it's awfully short. And when the program was over, when the program was over, clearly he knew that their relationship was over. In the past he had done things to Nicole and she had come back. But not only that, the Brown family, he still had the Brown family. And when you consider the evidence in this case, you see that after the recital, Nicole and the kids and the Brown family went to the Mezzaluna for dinner. They didn't invite him to go. He has been rejected, completely rejected. He has been rejected in public and this is how these things work. This is how these things work. You may sit here and think, oh, well, this isn't such a big deal. Why sure. Perhaps in your lives and your relationships
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 5
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN, Prosecutor: [in progress] you may sit here and think, ``Oh, well, you know, this isn't such a big deal.'' Why, sure. Perhaps in your lives and and in your relationship, this wouldn't be such a big deal, but you have to put it into context with the relationship that they've had. This is a big deal. It is a big deal to him. And he is rejected in public, they go off to dinner. He's left to go off to dinner with Kato Kaelin. You know, he isn't used to rejection, by the way, he's a celebrity. We talked about that earlier. You know, celebrities get you know, you get the best tables, you you you know, you always get everything you want. You get what you want. There are no rules for celebrities. But, on June 12th, he isn't gettin' what he wants. And so he goes home. And the fuse is getting shorter, and it's getting shorter, and he talks to Kato Kaelin and he complains about the dress she wore, and the fuse is getting shorter.
Christian Reichardt was called by the defense and he testified that he spoke to the defendant at nine o'clock that night and that when he spoke to the defendant that the defendant was jovial happier than he'd been in weeks. He went from simmering anger, at the recital, to jovial at 9:00 p.m. that night. Well, what happened? Why is that? It's because the defendant has developed a plan. He has come up with a plan to rid himelf of the problem that has plagued him for 17 years. And he talks to Reichardt He called Reichardt, as a matter of fact, if you believe that testimony.
I mean, so many wierd things going on that evening he wants $5 for the skycap, Kato gives him a twenty, he's driving the Bentley to MacDonald's, he's calling Christian Reichardt at nine o'clock and he tells Reichardt that he's op that he's packing, that he's packing, right then, nine o'clock, he's packing to go to the airport. That was the testimony from Reichardt, but then you have these other witnesses come in Miss Arnelle Simpson and Gigi, the the the maid they come in and they tell you that he always packs at the very, very last minute and rushes around the house and how everybody knows that that he does that. What what is going on here? Why is packing now? Why is doing these things with Kato Kaelin? Why is he jovial, all of a sudden, if you believe Christian Reichardt? It's because he has a plan and he knows what he is going to do. He has had enough. The public rejection that day is enough.
Folks, let me tell you, the fuse is so short at this point that he is about to explode. The next thing we know he's in that Bronco. He is in the Bronco at ten o'clock, or earlier. We don't know when, exactly, he got into that Bronco, but we know that at ten o'clock he's into that Bronco and he is driving in that Bronco. Now, why wouldn't he be? How do we know that? We know that, as Ms. Clark said, because he keeps the phone in the Bronco, and he is panicked and he is out of control, and he needs some-one or some-thing to help calm him. And, so, what does he do? He calls Paula, but he calls Paula in two places. He calls Paula at the at a 310 area code in L.A., and she isn't there. Then he turns around and he calls Paula at the at a 305 area code, and she ain't there, either.
Paula Barbieri probably could have stopped this whole thing that night, if she had been there to receive his phone call. But, now, Paula's gone, Nicole is gone, and who's fault is all of this? It isn't his fault. It isn't the defendant's fault, it's Nicole's fault. It's Nicole's fault and that's Even in 1989 when he beat her, when he came out of the house he blamed her. Remember when he spoke to Edwards, he didn't want her in the house anymore, he had two other women? Then we come to find out that she found out that he had been with two women, and she was upset about that and wouldn't sleep with him. But, he took it out on her.
When you listen to the October 25, 1993, 911 tape, he's blaming her because she had a relationship with a man a year-and-a-half before, after they after she had moved out, after she had filed for divorce, when she was literally a single woman out there on her own. He always blamed her. Everything was her fault, and his break-up, his problems with Paula, the fact that he lost Paula was her fault. It was her fault because she went back and forth in terms of their relationship, and the fuse was short, and the fuse is about to explode.
You going to take a 10:30 break, Your Honor?
Judge LANCE ITO: Yes.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: And the bomb will explode when we come back.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to take our mid-morning break at this time. Remember all my admonitions to you. We'll stand in recess for 15 minutes.
1st DEPUTY: Please clear the courtroom.
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor: Christopher Darden continuing the powers of his persuasion, not only with his words, but also with his rhythm. His theory of this case the slow burn. The slow burn with a fuse, which at one time, was longer, is getting shorter and shorter, until there is an explosion. Some very, very good advocacy on the part of Christopher Darden.
We're going to take a commercial break. When we come back, we'll talk about this closing argument. Stay with us.
[commercial break]
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 6
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor: Judge Ito is on the bench, but we are going away. We had a little miscommunication here. Judge Ito, as he always does, comes to the bench first. If there is nothing to take up then what he does is he calls for the jury. While the jury is coming, Paul Greenwood, let me ask you this. The whole question about Dr. Lenore Walker and the way Christopher Darden handled it is this an issue for Johnnie Cochran?
PAUL GREENWOOD, Deputy District Attorney, San Diego, CA: Certainly it is, because Johnnie Cochran has now been presented with something which he did not deliver on, and as a prosecutor, you can always do that with a jury remind them that the defense lawyer made promises which he did not keep, and this is one of several that I feel the prosecution will hammer home before they sit down on rebuttal. But certainly, he may well have to now explain, or try to explain, why he didn't call Dr. Walker, because having read from the transcript of his opening statement, those were his words, that Christopher Darden read from this morning, and he did say very clearly, ``You will hear from Dr. Walker,'' and only the defense has got the answers as to why she was not called.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: And is it permissible argument, then, for Johnnie Cochran to say, ``Well, the defense didn't call an expert in the defense case because the prosecution didn't call an expert in their case?''
PAUL GREENWOOD: Well, he can certainly try to gently give that suggestion to the jury, but obviously he's within the rules, and he must not, in any way, try to testify himself as to what had happened outside the presence of the jury. That would certainly be something to which the prosecution would object to. He's going to probably just gently explain, in the course of a paragraph or two, why she was not called.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: It was a wonderful moment, or two, of Christopher Darden's, when he spoke about Dr. Lenore Walker, even going back to it a little later on, when he said, ``I'd love to hear what Dr. Walker would say about this,'' giving the intimation that Dr. Walker would have certainly testified positively for the prosecution. Now he didn't say that, but that was the inference. But yet there's certainly no evidence in any record of that, is there?
PAUL GREENWOOD: No, there isn't, but as you say, it's giving the flavor to the jury. The reason why they didn't call her, Dr. Walker, is because they were scared, because she would come over to our side and agree with us about the trend that Christopher Darden has pointed out to the jury of domestic violence on a slow, burning fuse.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: But what about the fact if Christopher Darden really has no basis for that? If a prosecutor doesn't have a basis, because one assumes that when Johnnie Cochran was speaking with Dr. Lenore Walker and made representations about her doing tests and about what she was going to say, that she would have, in fact, said that, and they made a tactical decision because there was no expert to rebut, that he wasn't going to call her?
PAUL GREENWOOD: Well, of course, Christopher Darden isn't going to be aware of some of the favorable evidence that she might be presenting, and so there is an assumption that you can hint to the jury on.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: OK, it looks like Judge Ito is on the bench. Let's go back into the courtroom.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN, Prosecutor: We're getting there. I've talked much longer than I've ever expected, and I don't apologize for that, because I think it's necessary that we have this discussion.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Mr. Darden, if you could keep your voice up just a little, so I can hear, because you're turned away. Thank you.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: So I apologize in a sense, I guess, but I have a duty and you have a duty, and I'm not going to have much of an opportunity later, I think, to talk to you, so I wanted to share these things with you, because I think they're important and because I think they may help guide you in your deliberations, but when we left off, we were talking about the fuse, how short the fuse was getting, and how the defendant was on his way to Bundy in that white Bronco, same Bronco he drove that night in October of 1993, and so he's on his way, and he is panicked and he is out of control and he's calling Paula, and he can't find Paula. He calls her in LA, he calls her in Florida. She is nowhere to be found. He can't find her. He has lost her, and he has lost Nicole. And whose fault is this? It's Nicole's fault. He made a choice that day. He chose Nicole over Paula, and he lost them both. And so he arrives at Bundy, and Ms. Clark discussed with you yesterday the details of the murder, of both murders, and I don't want to, you know, repeat all that she said, but one of the things that she said that I just want to elaborate on a little bit is his choice, his weapon choice, his use of a knife.
This is a rage killing, and it is upfront and it is personal, and that is why you see all the brutality that you see.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 7
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN, Prosecutor: [in progress] all the brutality that you see. Common sense tells us that. I mean, we know that just from life experience and from living in L.A., we know what kind of killing this is. This is a rage killing. And he's using a knife because he is there to settle a personal score, a personal vendetta that he has.
He stabs this woman in the neck, and he's right there. It's one on one. And the rage that he has, the anger, the hate that he has for her that night, at that time, it's like it it flows out of him and into into the knife, and from the knife into her. Into her. And he kills Goldman, and he kills her in this rage. And and and let me let me make it clear to you, he's in a rage but he has made a conscious decision, pre-meditated decision, a deliberate decision to go there and do what he is about to do to this woman. Otherwise, why would he take a big knife with him, right?
He killed her that way because he wanted to make a statement. He wanted to teach her a lesson. He wanted to let her know. He wanted her to be there, face to face, to know just who it was who was doing this to her.
With each thrust of that knife, into her body and into Ron's body, there is a release, you know, a small release. It's like a tiny time capsule -- you know, like Contact. There is a release, a gradual release of that anger and that rage. And he stabs and he cuts and he slices until that rage is gone and until these people are dead. And after that rage is gone, he's better.
One of the most remarkable things about this case is that after this man him after he did this to these two people, he didn't run away. He didn't jog away. Apparently, he didn't limp away. You heard Agent Bodziak's testimony ``He just walked away.'' He had released all of that rage and that anger during this homicidal fit he was having, as he as he killed these two people.
Now, I'm just a messenger. And I hate to be the one to stand here and tell you about these things, but, you know, this is a murder case. I mean, this is what he did. All these things we talked about, these are the things that he did. This is how he lived, this is his life, OK?
And so I think we've come full circle at this point. We've shown you that he had the opportunity to kill. We've shown you that he had the motive, that he had a motive to kill. We've shown you in this trial that he was physically capable of killing. We've shown you that he had a reason to kill. We've shown you that he would have killed, could have killed and did kill these two people. He's a murderer. He was also one hell of a great football player. But he's still a murderer.
And so we've come full circle. There was Ron and there was Nicole. And, you know, Ron, he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Nicole, she was in the wrong place for a long time. And there was this common factor, this common element between the two of them, and one thing they had in common was this man, this defendant. And so we began with them two very much alive, vibrant human beings. We went through 1989 and 1985, through the beating he inflicted on her. And we went from that in '85 into 1989, and we came to this point on June 12 at Bundy. [unintelligible]
And so we've come full circle. And the only common element in all of this and the only direction in which all of the evidence points is to O.J. Simpson. And I told you when this began that I had the hardest job. Nobody wants to do anything to this man. We don't. There's nothing personal about this. But the law's the law, and it applies to us, it applies to you. It has to apply to him.
He made a promise a long time ago. He promised to love and to cherish and to keep her. He married her, and he made those promises to her. He promised to be her husband and he was. And let me say to you that every wife killer, or ex-wife killer, starts off as a loving husband. And in every household where there's a marriage between a man and a woman, there's a picture just like that picture right there. There's a picture just like that on every mantel in every home where the husband killed the wife.
What he did that night on June 12, the night of June 12, to these two people, this brutality, is a violation of every law, high and low, that we can possibly think of. And I suppose there's some people that say ``Hey, we should cut him some slack.'' And, you know, if this were a case of, you know, theft or embezzlement or something like that, you know, you can always make restitution. But this is a very, very serious charge. Two people are dead.
Now, let me say that what you do on this case is entirely up to you. I mean, you are the jury. When I sit down, I sit down. I'm done. I've I've completed my duty. I've done what the law requires me to do. I have lived up to the oath, my oath, as a member of the district attorney's office, and I presented we hope we presented the best evidence we could. And if we didn't present the best evidence we could, well, don't hold that against us. I just want you to, you know, when the when the time comes to go into the jury room, I just want you to somebody, somebody just say ``Let's calm down. Let's elect a floor person. Let's read the law. Let's take a minute, and let's just look at the evidence.''
And I'd just like you to use your common sense when you do. And when you do that, when you use your common sense, when you try to be objective, when you remove all the emotion out of this case, when you move all of the sympathy and passion, and when you just look at the facts, the evidence as best you can, you'll come up with the right decision. The world's watching. Everybody wants to know what you're going to do. Marcia Clark and I know you're going to do the right thing under the law. And whatever you do, the decision is yours. And I'm glad that it's not mine.
Let me turn my attention, and hopefully yours, to the defense case, if I can talk about that a little while. They put on a defense. They called 58 witnesses. And they called 58 witnesses in this case to presumably to help raise a reasonable doubt in your mind as to the guilt of this man. And you heard from some real, real muckety-mucks, some real big shots in the field of science and forensic science and DNA and and you heard from Henry Lee. A real impressive group of experts, I suppose. But when you consider our case, you have to consider their case as well. And you have to assess the credibility of their witnesses just like you have to assess the credibility of our witnesses. And when it comes to assessing the credibility of witnesses, you apply the same standard, regardless of whether it's a defense witness or a prosecution witness. You have to decide whether or not that expert testimony is worth anything or what it's worth. I hope that when you do that, I hope you keep in mind that, you know, you know, people made a lot of money testifying in this case. And you should consider that on the issue or question of whether or not those witnesses are biased.
But study the defense case carefully. I insist that you do, as painful as some of it might be for you. But consider this the defense that they put on in this case, it wasn't really an affirmative defense. It wasn't the kind the kind of defense where they show you that he wasn't there, OK, at the time of the murder. They never they never did that. They never showed you that. What they did was they attacked all of our evidence. Well, not all of it. They didn't attack the domestic violence. There are lots of things that they attacked initially, only to find out, of course, only for you to find out that they didn't have a chance with it.
But what you really wanted to know in that defense case, and I can't talk to you directly, but I'm going to assume you're reasonable people, you have common sense, good common sense, you're all successful at life. What you really wanted to know, correct? Maybe I'm wrong. But what you really wanted to know was, where was he at the time of the murders, right? Where was that Bronco? Had they proven to you that that Bronco was not at Bundy or could not have been at Bundy, that would have been very helpful to you. Wouldn't that would would that not have been impressive to you? Isn't that the kind of evidence you want to hear, that you want to see credible, reliable evidence on that issue. That's the kind of evidence that raises a reasonable doubt. They didn't do that. They didn't put on that kind of evidence because they couldn't put on that kind of evidence. They don't have that kind of evidence. We all know where the the Bronco was at 10:15. It was at Bundy.
You would have liked to have known that some other person was with Nicole Brown or Ron Goldman, right? I mean, wouldn't you like to have wouldn't you not have liked to have seen some evidence from some witness that the person that
DEFENSE COUNSEL: [inaudible objection]
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Overruled.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: That killed these two people was someone other than the defendant? When Mr. Cochran spoke to you during his opening statement he talked to you about witnesses, witnesses that he intended to call. And he gave you the names of those witnesses and he told you what they were going to say. You know, we did the same thing, I did the same thing. You know, on domestic violence, I told you I was going to call a few other people. I didn't. I think you got the point, you know, and I can't keep you here forever. Apparently, this sequestration thing is a [laughs] real drag, right? And you'd like to end this experience, and I can understand that. But he promised to present to you the testimony of some witnesses, who who had they testified could've could've per perhaps raised a reasonable doubt in this case.
So where are those people and who are those people? Well, one of those people he mentioned was a woman named Rosa Lopez. Do you remember this in his opening statement? He said that Rosa Lopez was a maid that lived next door to 360 North Rockingham and that she would come in here and testify that the Bronco was parked at 8:00 p.m. that night, the night of June 11th, that it was parked in the exact same place the police found it the next day. And that it was parked in the exact same manner tail sticking out. Remember that?
He said he was going to present that testimony to you. He was going to call this witness. Well, where is she? Where was she? You would have liked to heard that testimony, wouldn't you? He didn't call her.
He told you about a woman named Mary Anne Gerchas, and he told you that she would testify that she was out on Bundy Avenue and that she saw four men running, two Hispanic men, two white men and that a couple of the men wore knit caps. We have a knit cap at the scene, at the death scene. And that this happened at about 10:45. That's what the defense told you they would do. They told you they would call Mary Anne Gerchas to give you that information. And you probably you may not remember all the names but I'm sure you remember that when you heard this that ``Wow, the defense is going these people? Whoa! This is going to be some dogfight.'' I mean, these people are going to come in here and they're going to lay an alibi, Rosa Lopez is going to give an alibi for him by showing that the Bronco had been there, all night. Mary Anne Gerchas was going to come in and testify that, hey, there was other persons, other men apparently running from the area near 875 South Bundy, a few of them wearing ski caps, consistent with, perhaps, the real killer, a killer other than this man here. Did they call Mary Anne Gerchas? What happened to her? Where's that testimony? You'd want to hear that, wouldn't you?
And right after they talked about Gerchas, they talked about a man named Tom Lange [sp], who was supposedly down the street on Bundy, who also saw somebody. They told you that Tom Lange saw Nicole Brown standing at on the street at Bundy embracing embracing someone, and that Tom Lange, as he stood there on the street, also saw a man standing some distance behind them, a man who appeared angry, a man standing there with his hands clenched, looking at
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 8
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN, Deputy District Attorney: [in progress] appeared angry. A man standing there with his hands clenched, looking at Nicole and this other person and this other person the person she was embracing. It's right there in the transcript, at page 12,255. Where is that person? We already talked about Dr. Lenore Walker. Where's Dr. Walker? He told Al Cowlings would testify. Where's A.C.? He told you that the defendant was out chipping golf balls. He told you Paula Barbieri was going to come in and testify about her relationship with the defendant. We didn't get Paula Barbieri. What did we get in terms of her relationship with the defendant? We got other people; people on the peripheral.
The stuff you needed to hear, the rays of reasonable doubt and you're reasonable people never got presented in this case. It never got presented. What you got was a lot of smoke. You got people like Gerdes telling you that the crime lab is in, you know, can't be relied on. But then the substrate controls are all clean. You got guys like Professor MacDonell out doing glove experiments where he's taking his own blood, and then he's putting it on a new pair of Aris gloves. And he's rubbing it around like this to see if they shrink.
When you look at the defense in this case, you'll see that it really isn't helpful at all. It's all smoke. It really is all smoke. And, you know, you're going to have to be careful when you deal with that defense evidence. Now, some of it was pretty good, though, I mean that stuff they did to Fuhrman was textbook stuff from a legal perspective. But even that you have to look and say, well, what does it do for us? It upsets us. But then you have to look at all the evidence and see how it's helpful, if it's helpful at all.
They called demeanor witnesses witnesses to testify to the defendant's demeanor after the murders. Marcia Clark talked to you about that, you know. Murderers don't walk around with neon signs saying, I just killed somebody. When people do things, commit crimes like this one, especially a rage killing like this one, he will calm down. They will calm down. And they want to get away with it. He wanted to get away with it. So, he certainly isn't going to do anything that's going to draw attention to himself.
But they showed you these photographs. They showed you photographs of the defendant and some women at an event the night before the murders. Remember that? Because they had Carol O'Conner [sp], the woman with the keyboard vest come in and testify about the event the night before. Remember she told you that she witnessed an exquisite, romantic moment between the defendant and Paula Barbieri? Well, what does that do for you? How does that help you resolve this case? It doesn't help at all, especially when you consider that he and Paula had a disagreement, for the lack of a better term, over his refusal to let her go to the recital the next day. But beyond that, it's a picture. He is at this big, fancy event, and somebody says will you please pose with us for a picture. Well, when somebody takes your picture, what's the first thing they say? Cheese. But the point is, what good is it? What value is a picture like that when somebody is posing for you? And even in that video after the recital, he sees the video camera, he looks like right toward it. Posed-for pictures are worthless.
And they called that guy McKay. Remember Mr. McKay who worked for the AARP? Was it the AARP or the American Association of Psychologists or something like that, in Chicago. And there was a golfing event, and the defendant came to the event as the spokesperson for Hertz. And Mr. McKay and the defendant and two other gentlemen took a picture together. They're posing for a picture. Not only are they posing for a picture, the defendant is basically at work. He's a spokesperson for Hertz. It's his job to go out and play golf with these people. So, how does that help you?
There is nothing in the records that establishes for you, and I guess Dr. Walker could have done this, whether or not, you know, murderers have neon signs over their heads that indicate they're a murderer. How do you know? How do you know? Well, whenever you watch TV, you know, you watch the news and some brutal killing happens. And, you know, it's the neighbor. The neighbor did it. And they always interview the neighbors of the neighbor who did the murders and the reporters always say, ``How was he? How did he act? What kind of guy was he?'' ``Oh, he was a nice guy.'' They always say that. You don't know. You can't tell. The testimony you heard about demeanor on the airplane and at the airport was a waste of your time, really. But if you want to attach some significance to it, you go ahead. It's up to you, I mean, you're the jury. And the only demeanor that's important is his demeanor that night. You know, after he got into that Bronco and headed toward 875 South Bundy.
But this defense they've put on in this case it's what we in the profession call a shotgun defense. And it's a defense as old as the law. Way back in the day way, way back in the day, even back when I was in law school old lawyers and old law professors shared with us the old school approach to a criminal defense case and every lawyer knows this case. You're a criminal defense attorney and you have a tough case, this is what you do. You argue the law. And if the law is against you, you argue the facts. And if the facts are against you, you raise hell and blame somebody else. When the facts and the law are against you, blame the police. Blame the prosecution. Point the finger elsewhere. Create a smokescreen. And that's what they've done in this case, ladies and gentlemen. Smoke and mirrors. That's it. That's what you've got.
They put on those timeline witnesses. Remember? Ellen Aaronson and Danny Mandel? Judy Telander. Pilnak. Remember Pilnak? Was she the woman that had two watches? If you haven't learned anything else about this case, I'm sure that you've learned that there are people who were banging at the at the door to get in on this case. Those people and the testimony they had to offer really wasn't helpful at all.
I mean, Danny Mandel and Ellen Aaronson were on a date, right? A blind date? They went to the Mezzaluna. They say that they walked past Bundy. In fact, Ellen Aaronson gave an interview to the police the day after the killings. Now, she told the police that she passed Bundy at at eleven o'clock, but once she heard about the prosecution's theory of the case, well, what does she do? She went back to the Mezzaluna. She talked to Mandel. They got together, and they attempted to reconstruct what they did that evening. She told the police she passed at eleven o'clock. Mandel told the police they passed between 10:28 and 10:32, and he knew that because he checked his watch. But, even Mandel, even Mandel, himself, didn't know whether he had passed 875 South Bundy that night, or not. He didn't he didn't know. He didn't know until if it ever happened he didn't know until he and Aaronson got together and started putting their notes together, trying to do, as they say, to reconstruct what happened. His time and passage at 875 South Bundy contradicts her time. They got together on their story because they got together and attempted, as they say, to reconstruct what happened.
What good is this testimony to you? And if they want to say they passed at 10:28 and there were no dead bodies out there, well, fine. I don't know how they can say that. I mean, they were on a date. They're looking at each other. That pathway is pitch dark, and we know that. We know that. Because when the bodies were discovered, the police were called and Riske said he couldn't even see any bodies up that pathway when he first arrived and got out of his car. He had to walk all the way up the pathway and use a flashlight. The only reason anybody found the bodies was because of Kato. And not Kato, the human Kato, the dog. So, how much attention were they paying to that particular pathway? There are lots of pathways leading to to lots of condominiums on Bundy Drive. That testimony isn't helpful to you at all. But, hey, do with it whatever you like.
Then, they called up Francesa Harman. Remember her? She testified that at 10:20 she was driving west on Dorothy. OK? She was driving west on Dorothy, which is just south of Bundy. She got to Bundy and she made a right-hand turn. She didn't see any bodies. Then I asked her some questions. I said, ``Well, when you made that right-hand turn at at at Bundy, did your headlights hit 875 South Bundy?'' I mean, did they sweep across, you know, the front of the condominium? What was her answer? ``No.'' I asked her, ``Did your lights hit the gate at 875 South Bundy?'' She said, ``No.'' And so I asked her this ``Well, did you tell the defense that your lights didn't hit the gate at 875 South Bundy?'' And what was her response? ``I didn't have to. They were in the car with me.'' They took her out on a test drive to show to have her show them the route she took that night. It was clearly apparent that she could not have seen what was in front of 875 South Bundy because her lights never hit the front of the location. And they called her to testify anyway.
What does that say about the defense case that you heard? Well, it says they're desperate. That's what it says. We are not wedded to a 10:15 time frame, OK? I'm The killings very well could have happened at 10:15, but they could have happened at 10:17, also. They could have happened at 10:21. We called the witnesses to the stand to testify to the point in time that they first heard the the the wail of that dog, of Kato, because we know that the wail was a plaintiff wail, and we know that the dog was in distress, and so we know that something was happening, something very bad was happening to the dog's master. And if the dog is first heard around 10:15, I don't know, that may mean that the defendant is hiding outside and the dog hear is aware of it. It may not mean, necessarily, that the killing happened at that specific time. It happened sometime around 10:15.
We can't give you the exact time. We can't give you the exact time, to the minute. If they want to push the time to 10:30, push it to 10:30, because anyway you look at it, he's still got time to get to Bundy because we know he's in the Bronco at 10:03. He's got time to get to Bundy, to do these killings and to get back to Rockingham by 10:50, 54, or 10:45.
Their witness, Robert Heidstra, told you that on a Sunday night you could easily drive from 875 South Bundy to the defendant's house and he knows that because Heidstra, he worked next door at the Salingers. OK. He worked at the defendant's neighbor's house. He told you that you could drive there, from 875 South Bundy with under four minutes on a Sunday night, easy. So, it doesn't make You know, makes us no difference, makes us no difference at all as far as the all of the timing is concerned.
But, they also called Denise Pilnak, the woman that wore two watches. And she came in here and showed you her two watches, so that you would find her credible and believe her because she wanted to get in on this case. Weird stuff. Weird stuff, but you I don't know. She testified that she drove Where did she drive? No, she came home with Judy Telander and she made some phone calls, and she kicked Telander out of her house at a certain time and all of this. And and how does she and all of that. How does she know that? Well, because six months after the murders, she put together this time line. Six months later.
So, how was that helpful? And then there's Telander, and she's describing her drive up Bundy or around or near Bundy. You know what's weird? It's when you look at Telander's testimony and you look at Harman's testimony,and you look at Heidstra's testimony, and you looked at Pilnak's testimony; you look at Aaronson's testimony; you look at Mandel's testimony all of these defense witnesses and what you see, what you come away with is this these people were all at Bundy at the same time, basically. If you believe them. They are all basically on Bundy, at the intersection, or within view of 875 South Bundy. They're all there in this small area, basically at the same time. But when you talk to them, when they testify, they all tell you they didn't see any cars. They didn't see any people walking. They didn't see each other. Mutually exclusive. They mutually exclude each other. All of that testimony, it's they contradict themselves. They contradict themselves. And I'm not here to say these people are lying or whatever. They may just be mistaken. I don't know. But you have to evaluate their testimony. And I just think it's important that you that you take note of that.
And I hope as well that you would take a look back at the time line witnesses, if that's what we can call them. The ones that we called Mark Storfer, who was concerned that the dog barking might wake his awake his little boy, and so he told you what time it was. He looked directly at the clock. And he was interviewed the next day the day after the murders. He knew what time it was when he heard the dog barking. Look back at Eva Stein. She lived in a condo directly above the walkway where the bodies were found. She lived right next door at 873 South Bundy. I believe her time was 10:20. Was it? Eva. Was it 10:20? It was 10:20. Those are the people you can rely on in terms of time. They're right there. They live there. They live right there near 875 South Bundy.
So, you've heard the defense, and you've heard the prosecution case. And as I've said before, you've you're going to have to make the decision in this case. And, you know, whatever decision you make, we'll live with. But after I finish talking to you today, the defense is going to talk to you. And I don't know who's going to talk to you or who's going to talk to you first. I would ask that you listen and listen as attentively as you have listened to me apparently. But I'm going to ask you as well that you keep in mind that as you listen to them, consider this. Hope, at least, that they can some how extrapolate from all the evidence that we've heard in this case, where the defendant was at the time of the murders. If he ain't the murderer, where was he? And maybe they can tell you that based on the evidence in this case.
And they put on a defense and bear in mind, and insist, I think, if they can explain to you what happened to O.J. Simpson's Aris Light 70263 gloves the gloves found at the murder scene? The same style of gloves purchased by Nicole. The same style of gloves you see him wearing in that January 6, 1992 game photo. Where are his gloves? They called 58 witnesses. They called the maid Gigi Guarin. They called Ms. Arnelle Simpson. If he never owned a pair of those gloves I don't recall the defense asking him if he owned a pair of those gloves. I don't recall the defense asking the maid the woman who kept the closet, who put things up, who did the laundry. I don't recall them asking her if he owned a pair of gloves like that, like the ones we found at Bundy, like the one we found behind his house. And I don't recall them asking the maid whether or not he owned a pair of Bruno Maglis.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 9
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN, Deputy District Attorney: This is stuff you'd want to know. Insist that the defense explain to you just who kills two people wearing $200 leisure shoes if it ain't this man, if it isn't this defendant? And ask them to explain to you why the bloody shoe prints, leading away from the bodies, are size 12, his size? And where did all that blood come from? And why is it that when he spoke to Tom Lange, he told the Tom Lange that the shoes he wore the night before were white Reeboks? They put on a defense, and you would expect that if the man that Allan Park saw entering the defendant's house that night was not the defendant, you would have expected them to have called that man, to tell you that, ``Hey, it was me. It wasn't the defendant.'' Right?
And if O.J. Simpson didn't create or cause those thumps on the wall, behind Kato Kaelin's house, then who did? This is the defendant's property, and when Kaelin comes out with that flashlight and when he finally sees the defendant, the defendant sure doesn't seem too concerned about those thumps on the wall. I mean, Kato is frightened enough to grab a flashlight. He's frightened enough to tell the woman he's talking to on the phone that, ``Hey, if I'm not back in ten minutes, call the police. Worry about me.'' Worried, to that effect. But when he tells the defendant about these thumps on the wall, he isn't too concerned about it. He has West Tech Security. We know that, because the police talked to West Tech before they entered his house. Did the defendant call the police to say, ``Hey, I may have a prowler on my property?'' Did he tell Kato to? Did he call West Tech, his prime security, to come check this out? Did they? No. Why not? `Cause he knew the defendant knew who caused the thumps on the wall it was him. And why did he lie to Allan Park about being asleep? He wasn't asleep, and a variety of questions a variety of questions that you ought to be insist be answered, that should be answered for you by the defense before you even consider acquitting this man of these very, very brutal crimes. The whole thing, with the cut on his hand what a fluke that is. Are you going to fall for that? They talk about cover-ups? That's a cover-up. That is a cover-up.
Ask them to explain to you how how it is, if there were two killers, how the other one got out of that bloody crime scene without leaving any evidence of his presence? A major, major question in all of this is what happened to that little black bag? Remember the bag on the driveway, at the driveway? The one that Kato offered to go get that night, just before the defendant left for the airport? The defendant said, ``I'll get it, I'll get it.'' What happened to that bag? Hasn't been seen since. The defense well, we know that some of the luggage, apparently taken to Chicago by the defendant, was seized by retired judge Delbert Wong [sp]. Remember the Louis Vuitton bag? The one the defendant came back to Chicago with, the one he gave to Robert Kardashian? You saw it on tape. What happened to the little black bag? What happened to the contents of that Luis Vuitton bag? Remember? When you look at the tape, you see Kardashian standing there, in front of the defendant's house, and you can tell that that bag is full. But when that bag comes to Delbert Wong, to Judge Wong, when it's pointed out to him, when it's seized by him months and months later, there's nothing in the bag the bag is empty. What was in that bag?
Ask them to explain to you why it is that if he didn't do it, why then, is there a ton of evidence pointing to him and only to him, and ask him to explain to you, ``Hey, if this is a rush to judgment, why, then, did the police go out to that house eight times prior to 1989?'' Why didn't they ever arrest him? And if this is a rush to judgment, why did the police stand out in front of the house, in front of 875 South Bundy that night, for a couple of hours, doing nothing, as the defense has asserted, doing nothing but waiting for Vannatter and Lange? That's a rush to judgment? This is no rush to judgment. Unfortunately, this is just how things go. Those cops got out there to conduct a murder investigation and that investigation led them to Rockingham. They followed the blood trail. Using your common sense, and when you evaluate all the evidence, you should do the same thing take a look at the crime scene and follow that blood trail, because when you do, you're going to follow it right into his house, into his yard, into his bathroom, into his bedroom, right into his lap, and that blood trail went nowhere else. It didn't go anywhere else and it didn't go to any other person.
When I began this discussion with you last night, I talked to you about justice and what justice really means in this case, and it just means doing the right thing under the law. I mean, basically, that's all it means. Following his instructions just do what he tells you to do, the way he tells you to do it, and you'll be fine, and I spent hours talking to you, and I've talked to you about the explosion, about that fuse, how the fuse gets shorter. We've explained to you that he had the opportunity and the means and the motive to do it and that he did it. And we discussed a little bit about the smoke. We talked about the smoke the defense has put up. You got to find you have to find your way through the smoke. One of the first things they're going to tell you, ``The prosecution's case lasted six months and our's lasted two months.'' They're going to tell you that. If you just keep in mind who was cross-examining those witnesses for days and days and days about minutiae, about minutiae there was a lot of minutiae in this case, and you know it was because you didn't write it down. The defense got lost in minutiae in their attempt to confuse you and to raise a reasonable doubt.
Well let me explain justice to you this way, and then I'll sit down and I'll be quiet. The People put on their case, the defense put on their case, and I assert that the defense case is a bunch of smoke and mirrors. It's all about distracting you from the real evidence in this case. So imagine the smoke, and imagine a burning house, right? Imagine that you're standing in front of a burning house, and from inside that burning house you can hear the wail of a baby, a baby's cry, a baby in fear, a baby about to lose its life. And you can hear that baby screaming, you can hear that wail. Now that baby that baby is justice. This is baby justice. Now usually justice is a strong woman, but in this case, justice is just a baby, and you hear that baby and you hear that wail, and you see the smoke, you see the defense. There's all this smoke in front of you, and you feel a sense you have a sense of justice, and you have a sense of what the law requires, and you have a strong commitment to justice and to the law, and you want to do the right thing for justice is about to perish. Justice is about to be lost. Baby justice is about to be lost, and so you start to wade through that smoke, trying to get to that baby. You've got to save that baby. You have to save baby justice, and if you happen to run into some smoke, find your way through the smoke, and if you happen to run into a couple of defense attorneys along the way, just ask them to politely step aside and let you find your way through the smoke, because the smoke isn't over, OK? The smoke is about to get heavier, because they're about to talk to you. Just use your common sense. Wade through the evidence, get down to the bottom line, and please, do the right thing. It has been an honor to appear before you, and we will wait for your verdict.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Thank you, Mr. Darden. All right, let me see counsel without the court reporter, please.
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor: Judge Ito asking counsel to approach the bench. My guest, Paul Greenwood is here. Inquiring, number one, if counsel have had objections to certain things that Mr. Darden has said. You can certainly see Barry Scheck talking to the court. No doubt in my mind what Barry Scheck is upset with at the moment was the latter comments of Mr. Darden, concerning the fact that they're going to hear from the two defense attorneys and they're going to have more smoke, that that is pejorative expression about the defense lawyers, and that that is under canons of ethics, not permissible comment. What are your thoughts?
PAUL GREENWOOD, Deputy District Attorney: Well, I'm not sure, really, about whether the judge will make any comment on the latter remarks by Christopher Darden. That's an analogy which probably Christopher Darden has used before and possibly even Judge Ito has heard himself. But I think probably also they're asking about scheduling, as to whether, in fact, Mr. Cochran wants 15 minutes, at this stage, before lunch to get up or whether he wants to save his impact for after 1:30.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: And that is really a call for Johnnie Cochran about tactics. I would say if it were me or if it were I
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the prosecution's opening argument to you. What is next is the defense argument, and what I'm going to do at this time is take an early break as far as you're concerned. As with when the prosecution started, you noticed that they used some demonstrative boards for you that were not actually in evidence. And what I need to do now is to preview the ones that the defense is going to use to see if they're appropriate and acceptable for use during the course of the argument, so that's what we'll be doing here in the courtroom for the next, probably, take us about a half hour or so to do that, so I'm going to let you go early for lunch. However, while you are up there at lunch, I'm going to ask that the bailiffs pass out to you a one-page questionnaire, and I have some questions that I wanted to ask of you about the deliberations, and you'll notice that we have a new table in the jury room today, because we're getting down to the point where we're actually going to start the deliberations shortly in this case. My guess is the way that we're going with the arguments, that they're going a little faster than I had anticipated, and my hope is that you'll actually have the case in your hands and starting deliberations on Monday. That's my hope and expectation. In any event, I'm going to ask you about what your desires are as far as the hours and days of deliberation do you want to work a normal nine to five day? Do you want to work an evening session? Do you want to work on, say, put in a half day or a full day on Saturday? If so all the deliberations, by the way, have to be done here in the courthouse and in the jury room. But those are questions that I need to ask of you, to see what your feelings are, because obviously, you're the ones who are doing the work in this case. Also, I needed to tell you some things about limitations on visitation while deliberations are in progress, and I wanted your thoughts on that as well. So it's a one-page questionnaire, give it some thought. Keep these answers private, to yourself, and when I get your responses, then I'll make determinations as to the length of the deliberations and the nature of visitation during deliberation. All right, so you all remember admonitions to you don't discuss the case amongst yourselves, don't form any opinions about the case, don't conduct any deliberations until the matter has been submitted to you, and don't allow anybody to communicate with you with regard to the case. Fill out the questionnaire, have a nice lunch, and we'll see you back here at 1:30, and we'll start the defense argument at 1:30. All right? Have a nice lunch.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: Judge Ito, going to take some time to look at boards that the defense wants to use during their closing argument. Also, one can certainly expect that Johnnie Cochran did not want to start with only ten or 15 minutes before lunch. That's a very difficult place to be when you have to have this major task of a final argument, to just suddenly begin and then have to stop again, so it would be the prudent thing to wait until after the lunch hour, and I'm here with Paul Greenwood, and Paul, Christopher Darden, after the morning recess, took a very different tack than we had seen. He had been dealing, of course, with his theory of the case of the slow burn and the long fuse becoming the short fuse, going to explosion, and then, in this last hour and a half, we went somewhere else, and what are some of the things he did, and were they effective?
PAUL GREENWOOD: Yes. I was a little surprised he certainly, after the break, dealt with the explosion, but he didn't in the way that I thought he might have done, which was to be explosive himself, and then he moved on to deal with issues which he may have thought were issues to be left for rebuttal, but he dealt with some good points in the sense that he reminded that jury that Johnnie Cochran again had made some promises in opening statements about some of these other witnesses, like Rosa Lopez, who was not called, and these are questions which the jury may be interested to hear Johnnie Cochran deal with. He then went through a period of actually commenting on some of the other witnesses and dealing with time lines, which, up to that point, Marcia Clark had been responsible for, and there was a period there where I feel that possibly he may have lost the jurors' attention for, say, half an hour or so, before coming back again to deal with his closing comments. He made on effective point, probably from the prosecution's point of view, which was again, asking that rhetorical question, which they printed up on the blue board yesterday, ``Where was the defendant?'' And it's as close as the prosecution can get without commenting on the fact, as they must not, that the defendant is the only one who can answer that and he did not provide that answer.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: I want to ask you about that he Christopher Darden talked about the defense not showing the jury where Mr. Simpson was, literally asking, ``Where was he?'' And the particular paragraph or so, where he was dealing with the defense about demanding of them to have come up with evidence showing where O.J. Simpson was, runs perilously close, in certain jurisdictions, to reversible error, because it is very close to commenting on the defendant's right not to testify. I know you feel that he was very close, did not go over the line.
PAUL GREENWOOD: I think so. I think because he phrased it in the sense that they did not bring any witnesses in to explain where Mr. Simpson was at that time, but it's getting close. But Johnnie Cochran did not object, and so you feel that well, if he didn't object, then obviously he didn't feel that Christopher Darden had crossed the line. And this presents the classic dilemma for both prosecution and defense. Obviously, the prosecution want this question to be in the minds of the jurors where was he, because only O.J. himself can give you that answer. But the defense will come back this afternoon, I'm sure, and say, ``Look, we don't have to give you any explanations. In fact, we didn't even have to put on a defense. It's up to the prosecution.'' Again, trying to shift the focus of the responsibility back to the prosecution. It's up to them to show beyond a reasonable doubt, and they have failed to do so.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: As I was listening to Christopher Darden, I really was almost breathless. It was like watching someone on the tightrope and wondering if they were going to fall off. Very, very dangerous position for a prosecutor to be in, when you come close to talking about the defendant not coming forward with evidence. But as Paul Greenwood points out, Mr. Cochran did not object. There are a lot of other lawyers that would have been at the sidebar in heartbeat. We are going to take a commercial break.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 10
FRED GRAHAM, Anchor: I'm told they're in the courtroom, so let's go live.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: [in progress] Back on the record in the Simpson matter. All parties are again present. The jury is not present. The record should reflect that over the noon hour, we had an informal showing of the argument boards produced by the defense. Counsel, any comment before we resume with the jury?
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: Yes, Your Honor. The People have a couple of objections to [unintelligible]
Judge LANCE ITO: Ms. Clark?
MARCIA CLARK: We've filed with the Court a couple of motions. One dealt with the potential for Mr. Cochran to mention either Detective Fuhrman's invocation, the other, and with the potential for referral to matters contained on the tapes that were deemed inadmissible by this court, and we have proposed a we have proposed a remedy should such violation occur. And the defense response [pause] doesn't appear to be very responsive to the People's motion.
So the People would urge the Court to instruct counsel that if he does violate the Court's order by mentioning Detective Fuhrman's invocation or if he does violate the Court's ruling with respect to the content of the tapes that was deemed inadmissible by referring to them in some manner in closing argument, that the appropriate sanction, and one that would prevent that would make his violation not worthwhile, not worth doing, is to say, ``If you do mention such a thing, this is the remedy. I will instruct the jury that Detective Fuhrman did not plant the glove.''
The remedy has to be something that makes it un-worthwhile for the defense to violate the Court's order. Otherwise, if all it is is a monetary sanction or an admonition that it's improper in front of the jury, that would not be that would not give the defense incentive to abide by the Court's ruling. And so the People urge the Court to make sure that the defense does not violate rulings by giving making a sanction onerous enough so that it would not be worth their while to do so.
With respect to the burden of proof chart, does the Court want to hear that now?
Judge LANCE ITO: Yes.
MARCIA CLARK: We filed the motion. Did the Court have an opportunity to read our motion on it?
Judge LANCE ITO: No, I have not seen it.
MARCIA CLARK: I think
Judge LANCE ITO: Do you have that chart handy?
MARCIA CLARK: Yes. Do you have an extra copy? Did Mrs. Robertson give it to you?
MARCIA CLARK: OK. The problem with this board is that it's extremely misleading, and it's going to confuse and mislead the jury on a matter of law. And, it's one thing to draw reasonable inferences from the record and from testimony, to say, ``We've heard this, we've heard this therefore, that.'' But there is no misinterpretation of the law that is permitted, and counsel, although can ask although counsel can ask the jury to draw unreasonable inferences from the record, and that is what he will do, I do not think there's any authority permitting counsel to ask the jury to misinterpret the law, which is what this invites them to do, by creating the impression that the burden of proof is so overwhelming, it would be unbelievable that we could get a conviction in any case if it were as stated on this chart.
It's misleading in five ways. First of all, it contains phrases, several of them, that supposedly describe thresholds of evidence that don't exist and have never been a part of the definition of reasonable doubt. It contains the phrases ``highly unlikely, less than likely, probably not, unlikely,'' and a variety of others, as the Court has seen. All of these are used to describe thresholds of evidence that fall into the category of not guilty according to the chart, but none of them find their way into the Penal Code section 1096 definition of reasonable doubt. So it's misleading in that respect.
Secondly, it's misleading because it contains terms in the not guilty range that are consistent with guilty. For example, the phrase ``may not be'' is used to describe a threshold of evidence in the category ``not guilty,'' when, in fact, under 290, the jury is entitled to convict the defendant if all they have is some possible doubt. Excuse me. And, as the Court knows, I did go over with the jury, at some lengths, the fact that a mere possible or imaginary doubt is not sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt. What this chart conveys to the jury is that mere possible doubt is sufficient. It contravenes the burden of proof by saying that certain terms, by certain of its terminologies in several of those levels, what they say is a not guilty is actually a guilty. Do you see what I mean?
So, third, it's also misleading because it implies that proof beyond a reasonable doubt is absolute doubt I mean, absolute certainty. In other words, no doubt at all. It does that by implication by having the bottom of it ``not guilty'' or ``absolutely not guilty,'' creating the impression that the top of that, which is the burden of proof we have to carry is absolute certainty. There's nothing in this world that could be proven with absolute certainty. That's why we have proof beyond a reasonable doubt as a standard. Yet, by implication, that is what the chart seems to infer to the jury and that's a direct misinterpretation of the law.
Fourth, it's misleading because it uses terms that are synonymous, treating them like treating them like they're distinct categories. For example, the terms ``probably not, less than likely, unlikely.'' They're synonymous, but they're, in this chart, broken down as though they're separate gradations, when, in fact, they're all the same. The same thing with ``perhaps'' and ``suspected.'' So, they create gradations that really don't exist. It's a figmentary kind of depiction of all of the levels that a person might have of belief, and so it amplifies the burden of proof unfairly.
Fifth, and last, the chart is misleading because the visual nature of the representation of the degrees of proof suggest incorrect and unsubstantiated numerical levels of certainty. It would imply that there is some kind of numerical level that could be attached to what constitutes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And the inference drawn here by the number of levels that they have, if you work it out mathematically, is that 93 percent equals guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That's improper, and we don't categorize our burden of proof by mathematical probabilities or by quantities that can be mathematically defined. That would be impossible to do. It's misleading to the jury, and it's improper.
So, we would ask the Court, urge the Court strenuously, not to permit this chart, as the jury will be misled as to what the People's burden of proof really is and as to what is meant by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
And then yeah and Mr. Mavis [sp] points out, correctly, as we cited at the end of the motion, Your Honor, the Freeman case makes it very, very clear, that to vary from the standard reasonable doubt instruction is a perilous exercise, and this chart varies substantially from the definition given to the jury in their jury instruction, and from the definition given in penal code section 1096. And, for all of these reasons, because it is misleading and because it is a very dangerous practice, and because it may very well give the jury a misimpression of what the burden of proof really is, it should not be allowed.
Counsel's also previewed for us the the laser shows they intend to play. What counsel has attempted to do is subvert the Court's ruling concerning the video clips by using stills from videotape. And I thought the Court said we couldn't do that, and yet, that's what they've done. And so, instead of playing the moving picture, they took the video clip and just used a still from that. I don't
Judge LANCE ITO: My recollection, though, is that the prosecution array that was displayed to us also included static photos of persons while testifying.
MARCIA CLARK: Well, I thought that we were precluded from using them.
Judge LANCE ITO: Not the static photos, no.
MARCIA CLARK: Oh, I didn't know that.
Judge LANCE ITO: Yeah. The actual use of the videotapes, but if you want to say ``this is so-and-so, this is what the person this is who it is, this is what they testified to,'' that's permissible.
MARCIA CLARK: Oh. OK.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right?
MARCIA CLARK: Never mind.
Judge LANCE ITO: OK. All right.
MARCIA CLARK: With respect to the there's one other thing, Your Honor. They showed stills of the glove demonstration with Mr. Simpson, a number of them with him trying on the gloves in front of the jury. But there's a number of them, which is, in effect, using a video clip. Now, if they want to use that, and if the Court wants to permit them to use that, then we would ask the Court, in fairness, to allow us to play the whole tape rather than just those segments being shown by the defense.
Judge LANCE ITO: OK. All right. Mr. Blasier, are you handling this matter?
ROBERT BLASIER, Simpson Attorney: I am, Your Honor. Let me
Judge LANCE ITO: All right. Good afternoon.
ROBERT BLASIER: Good afternoon. With respect to the I guess it's a prophylactic instruction that they want in case we do something wrong, then this is what our punishment's going to be. I've never heard of anything like that. We know what the rules are. We know what we can say and what we can't say, and I'm sure that if we say something we're not supposed to say, they'll jump up and you'll holler at us, and whatever will happen will happen. I think it's actually ludicrous for us to sit here and debate whether we might do something wrong and if we do, what should happen about it. So I think that's just a foolish motion, quite frankly.
As to the charts, the burden of proof chart, I've probably used that chart in every trial I've done in the last five years. It's never been excluded. I've never been told by a court that I can't tell the jury what I think reasonable doubt is. They were allowed to tell the jury what they think reasonable doubt is. That's part of argument. That's what argument is for. The Court reads the instruction, those are the words in the instruction. We're entitled to say, ``This is how we think you should interpret that.''
There's nothing on there about percentages. I guess they went to so far as to count up the little boxes and add them all together, and divide up, and say that we were going to make some argument that 93 percent, or 7 percent, I guess, is reasonable doubt. I that's foolish.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 11
ROBERT BLASIER, Simpson Attorney: [in progress] Chart in every trial I've done in the last five years. It's never been excluded. I've never been told by a court that I can't tell the jury what I think reasonable doubt is. They were allowed to tell the jury what they think reasonable doubt is. That's part of argument. That's what argument is for. The court reads the instruction, and those are the words of the instruction. We're entitled to say, this is how we think you should interpret that. There's nothing on there about percentages. I guess they went so far as to count up the little boxes and add them all up together and divide up and say that we were going to make some argument that 93 percent, or seven percent, I guess, is reasonable doubt. That's foolish. We're not going to offer any kind of a statement like that.
The Freeman case talks about the court's instruction. The last five years I've also asked the court to give my own instructions on reasonable doubt and you never get those. You always give 2.90, but I've never been precluded from saying, this is what we think reasonable doubt is. They're going to have another shot at the jury. They can up and say, that's a lot of hooey and you shouldn't look at it that way, you should look at it this way. So I would I think there's nothing wrong with that chart.
As to the video clips, if they want us to show the whole thing, we'll be happy to, have a glove demo.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: All right. When we're talking about the glove demo, would both sides wants to use that?
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: Well, no, Your Honor. It's not a matter that we want to use it, it's a matter that I don't think it should be allowed for either side. And what I'm saying is that, you know, they have some stills that they want to show which are, of course, you know, just the parts that are most favorable to them, but I think that it would be inappropriate during this argument. We could have used it in our opening argument. That was going to be that was the plan that we had until it was ruled that we couldn't. But the problem with the glove demonstration was that it's an active, mobile thing and to take still shots from that it's very misleading to the jury and it has penalized the People because we couldn't we thought we couldn't use it.
Judge LANCE ITO: Well, my recollection is that the prosecution argued against the use of videotape because it's not the official record.
MARCIA CLARK: That's right. That's right. And our position hasn't changed, Your Honor. I think the Court's ruling was also that we could only at the point that the Court was saying we could use videotape, the Court was saying that it can only be a tape of the witness in the witness in the blue chair, and this doesn't qualify.
ROBERT BLASIER: Well, this isn't I'm sorry, this is not a tape of testimony, this is a picture of the demonstrative demonstration that was done and we only had two stills, by the way.
Judge LANCE ITO: When do you anticipate getting to that?
ROBERT BLASIER: May I have a minute? Hour and a half.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right. Let me see it. Let me see the excerpt that you propose to use. Or, the stills I'm sorry that you purpose to use.
ROBERT BLASIER: The stills?
Judge LANCE ITO: Yes.
ROBERT BLASIER: That's it.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right.
ROBERT BLASIER: Submitted.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, submitted.
MARCIA CLARK: These are pictures of both gloves? The only point I wanted to add, Your Honor, other than the fact that we would have used this ourselves in opening argument is that if these photographs are misleading because they only show a portion of it, but in order to show all I mean, even the clip should be shown or none of it should be shown, and I think that none of it should be shown. Counsel can argue it as we argued it, but I don't think this is appropriate, and certainly not the stills that they're using.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right. Thank you, Counsel.
All right. As far as the prosecution motion for pre-emptive instruction, admonition, or warning to the defense regarding Detective Fuhrman and regarding the McKinny tapes, the Court finds that to be premature. I trust that Counsel know what the law is regarding appropriate argument by counsel. The Evidence Code is clear that counsel may not argue or mention the invocation, and I'm sure defense counsel know that the sanction will be swift and severe, and I don't think it's necessary for the Court to take any action at this time.
As far as the chart regarding burden of proof, reasonable doubt, that is a very familiar chart to the Court. I've seen it before. I'm sure I'll see it again. The objection to that is overruled. The objection to the clips of the glove demo is sustained. It is not part of the official record.
All right. Anything else? Are we ready? All right, deputy Turner, let's have the jurors, please.
FRED GRAHAM, Anchor: And the defense never say die. They had lost their effort to put on the actual videotape of O.J. Simpson saying that the gloves don't fit and attempting to try them on in the courtroom, and they come back with two freeze frames from that. Are you surprised at the outcome, Jill Lansing?
JILL LANSING, Criminal Defense Attorney: I'm not surprised. I think that when Marcia Clark said that it's unfair to have just the two frames and having all of the film clip would be a more fair way but the film clips have already been ruled out, it's sort of really closed the issue. I think that the judge is not going to let the defense enjoy reliving that moment.
FRED GRAHAM: Kristin Jeannette-Meyers did not get an opportunity to finish giving us some information. She's standing across the street and we'll go to her now.
KRISTIN JEANNETTEMEYERS, Reporter: Just a little look behind the scenes at what goes on at those sidebars that we see not as often as we used to. But yesterday when Judge Lance Ito noticed something in the camera that he didn't like, the picture of the notes taken by O.J. Simpson, he was worried that they could be read by people watching, well, when he called lawyers up to a sidebar, it's interesting that Johnnie Cochran keeps saying, let me talk to my client, I've got to talk to my client, and was not willing to take a position except that he felt that probably he would want his closing to be heard by people too on television, but he really wanted to talk to his client.
After there is a discussion held with O.J. Simpson, Judge Ito says, ``What's your guy got to say?'' And Johnnie Cochran says, ``First of all, he's going to cover it up and he's says, he agreed with us that he thinks you should make note of it and fine them, fine them for it, but he's OK. He's just writing notes to himself and he's going to cover it up.'' And Judge Ito says, ``Well, I'm worried about counsel's notes if I can see them,'' and Johnnie Cochran says, ``Well, we're watching our notes too and tell them to stay off our notes. You may have done that already, but fine them or threaten them, whatever.'' Clear, though, that both O.J. Simpson and Johnnie Cochran wanted cameras to remain. And I'm told they're in the court, so let's go live.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right. And the record should reflect that we've be rejoined by all the members of our jury panel. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
JURORS: Good afternoon.
Judge LANCE ITO: And as I mentioned to you, we had some preliminary matters we had to take up out of your presence. We're now ready to proceed with the defense argument. Mr. Cochran, you may proceed.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: Thank you very kindly, Your Honor. Judge Ito, my colleagues on the defense, my colleagues on the prosecution, the Goldman family, the Brown family, and to the Simpson family, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
JURORS: Good afternoon.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: The defendant, Mr. Orenthal James Simpson, is now afforded an opportunity to argue the case, if you will, but I'm not going to argue with you, ladies and gentlemen. What I'm going to do is to try and discuss the reasonable inferences which I feel can be drawn from this evidence. At the outset, let me join with the others in thanking you for the service that you have rendered. You are truly a marvelous jury, the longest-serving jury in Los Angeles County and perhaps the most patient and healthy jury we've ever seen. I hope that your health and your good health continues.
We met approximately one year and one day ago, September 26th, 1994. I guess we've been together longer than some relationships, as it were. But we've had a unique relationship in this matter, in that you've been the judges of the facts. We have been advocates on both sides. The judge has been the judge of the law. We all understand our various roles in this endeavor that I'm going to call a journey toward justice. That's what we're going to be talking about this afternoon as I seek to address you.
The final test of your service as jurors will not lie in the fact that you've stayed here more than a year. It will lie in the quality of the verdict that you render and whether or not that verdict bespeaks justice as a move towards justice. Now you recall, during a process called voir dire examination, each of you were thoroughly questioned by the lawyers. You probably thought, gee, I wish they'd leave me alone. But you understood, I'm sure, that this is very serious business.
Our client, Mr. Orenthal James Simpson, is on trial for his life. And so we had to be very, very careful, both sides, in trying to get people who could be fair to both sides. You will recall those questions that you keep an open mind, which I hope you still have even to this day, that you wouldn't be swayed by sympathy for or passion against either side in this case, that you would give both sides of this lawsuit the benefit of your individual opinion. No one, no one, can tell you what the facts are. That's going to be your job to determine. It's not a question of age or experience. And we talked about that. This is one of those jobs where you kind of learn on the job.
And so it's important that you fully understand that, and that's why voir dire was so very important as we asked you all of those questions before you were sequestered and before you were actually picked. Now, each of you filled out the questionnaire and you answered the questions honestly, I'm sure. You know, Cicero said a long ago, that he who violates his oath profanes the divinity of faith itself. And, of course, both sides in this lawsuit have faith that you will live up to your promises, and I'm sure you'll do that.
You know, Abraham Lincoln said that jury service is the highest act of citizenship. So if it's any consolation to you, you've been involved in that very highest act of citizenship. And so, again, we applaud you and we thank you. Let's move toward justice. One other entity or group of ladies, there are two ladies that I should thank, are our marvelous court reporters. They have been patient with us, they've been here from the very beginning, we very much appreciate them in their services, and I especially appreciate them because sometimes I speak rather rapidly and they have tough time keeping up with me. So I trust that today, if I started to speak too fast in my zeal, Ms. Markson [sp] and Chris will bring that to my attention, I'm sure they will.
Now, in the course of this process, what we are discussing the reasonable inferences of the evidence, I ask you to remember that we're all advocates, we're all officers of this court. I will recall the evidence and speak about the evidence. Should I misstate that evidence, please don't hold that against Mr. Simpson. I will never intentionally do that. In fact, I think you'll find that during my presentation, unlike my learned colleagues on the other side, I'm going to read you testimony, what the witnesses actually said, so there'll be no misunderstanding about what was said about certain key things.
But remember that we're all advocates, and I think it was Ms. Clark who said, saying it's so doesn't make it so. I think that applies very much to their arguments. Ultimately, it's what you determine to be the fact. That's what's going to be important, and all of us will live with that. You are empowered to do justice. You are empowered to insure that this great system of ours works. Listen for a moment, will you please, one of my favorite people in history is the great Frederick Douglass. He said shortly after the slaves were free, quote, ``In a composite nation like ours, as before the law there should be no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no white, no black, but common country, common citizenship, equal rights, and a common destiny.'' This marvelous statement was made more than 100 years ago. It's an ideal worth striving for and one that we still strive for. We haven't reached this goal yet, but certainly in this great country of ours we're trying. With a jury such as this, we hope we can do that in this particular case.
Now, in this case, you are aware that we represent Mr. Orenthal James Simpson. The prosecution never calls him Mr. Orenthal James Simpson, they call him defendant. I want to tell you right at the outset that Orenthal James Simpson, like all defendants, is presumed to be innocent. He's entitled to the same dignity and respect as all the rest of us. As he sits over there now, he's cloaked in a presumption of innocence. You will determine the facts of whether or not he's set free to walk out those doors or whether he spends the rest of his life in prison. But he's Orenthal James Simpson, he's not just the defendant. And we on the defense are proud, consider it a privilege to have been part of representing him in this exercise and this journey toward justice. Make no mistake about it.
Finally, I apologize to you for the length that this journey has taken. But you know when you're seeking justice there are no shortcuts. If you were to trade places with either side you'd want someone who'd fight hard for you and vigorously, especially if it was a person who had maintained their innocence from the very beginning of the proceedings. Some of you in voir dire talked about that, that you'd been involved in other cases where you felt the lawyers didn't stand. Well, I certainly hope that in this case on both sides you felt that lawyers did their best to represent their respective position, and we will continue, I'm sure, to do that so that, although I apologize for the length of the trial, I hope and I trust that you will understand that in a journey toward justice there is no shortcut.
Finally, with regard to your responsibilities, we asked you at the very beginning to don't compromise. This is not a case for the timid or the weak of heart. This is not a case for the naive. This is a case for courageous citizens who believe in the Constitution. And while I'm talking about the Constitution, think with me for a moment how many times you heard my learned adversaries say, the defense didn't prove, the defense didn't do this, the defense didn't that. Remember, back in voir dire? What did the judge tell us? Judge Ito said the defense could sit here and do absolutely nothing. One of you is from Missouri and he reminded you who's from Missouri here? Say to the prosecution, you show us. Now, we didn't do that. But we don't have an obligation, as you'll see.
You've heard from the jury instructions and at the end I will show you some others. We don't have to do anything. We don't have to prove anything. This is the prosecution's burden, and we can't let them turn the Constitution on its head. We can't let them get away from their burden. It's my job, one of my jobs, is to remind you of that and to remind them of that, that that's their burden. They must prove Mr. Simpson guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty, and we will talk about what a reasonable doubt means.
And so now as we have this opportunity to analyze the facts of the case, I agree with one thing that Mr. Darden said, to this task I ask you to bring your common sense. Collectively, the 14 of you have more than 500 years of experience. I know you're all young but you multiply that 14, you won't hold that against me, I don't think. Five hundred years of experience. You didn't leave your common sense out in that hallway when you came in here, and we're going to ask you to apply it to the facts of this case.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 12
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: [in progress] get away from their burden. My job, one of my jobs is to remind you of that and to remind them of that. But that's their burden. They must prove Mr. Simpson guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. And we will talk about what a reasonable doubt means. And so now, as we have this opportunity to analyze the facts of the case, I agree with one thing that Mr. Darden said. To this task, I ask you to bring your common sense. Collectively, the 14 of you have more than 500 years of experience. I know you're all young but you multiply by 14, you won't hold that against me I don't think. Five hundred years of experience. You didn't leave your common sense out in that hallway when you came in here. And we're going to ask you to apply it, the facts of this case.
I'd like to comment and to compliment Ms. Clark and Mr. Darden on what I thought were fine arguments yesterday. I don't agree with much of what they said. But I listened intently, as I hope you'll do with me. And together, hopefully, these discussions are going to be helpful to you in trying to arrive at a decision in this case, where you don't compromise, where you don't do violence to your conscience, but you do the right thing. And you are the ones who are empowered to determine what is the right thing.
Let me ask each of you a question. Have you ever in your life been falsely accused of something? Have you ever been falsely accused? Ever had to sit there and take it and watch the proceedings and wait and wait and wait, all the while knowing you didn't do it? All you could do during such a process is to really maintain your dignity. Isn't that correct? Knowing that you were innocent, but maintaining you dignity and remembering always that all you're left with after a crisis is your conduct during it. So that's another reason why we're proud to represent this man, who's maintained his innocence and has conducted himself with dignity throughout these proceedings.
Now, last night as I thought about the arguments of my colleagues, two words came to mind. And I want to I asked my wife this morning to get the dictionary out and look up two words. The two words were ``speculative'' and ``cynical.'' Let me see if I can get those words that she got for me. Excuse me one second. [pause]
I asked her, because I was thinking about this case, to go to Webster's, and I want you to tell me what it what does it mean to to speculate? What does it mean to be cynical? Because I thought about my colleagues' arguments and their approach to this case and their view of this case. ``Cynical'' is described as ``contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives; gloomy, distrustful view of life.'' And to speculate, ``to speculate to engage in conjecture and to surmise or to is to take to be the truth on the basis of insufficient evidence.''
I mention those two definitions to you because I felt that much of what we heard yesterday and again this morning was mere speculation. Understand this, ladies and gentlemen, that none of us in this courtroom were out at 875 Bundy on June 12th, 1994 after 10:30 or 10:45 in the evening, so that everything we say to you is our best effort to piece together what took place in this case. When people theorize about things that may have been and talk to you about short fuses, you're going to see that's just that, speculation. People see things that are totally cynical. Maybe that's their view of the world. Not everybody shares that view.
Now, in this case, and this is a homicide case and a very, very, very serious case And, of course, it's important for us to understand that. It is a sad fact that in American society a large number of people are murdered each year. Violence, unfortunately, has become a way of life in America. And so when this sort of tragedy does in fact happen, it becomes the business of the police to step up and to step in and to take charge of the matter. A good, efficient, competent, non-corrupt police department will carefully set about the business of investigating homicides. They won't rush to judgment. They won't be bound by an obsession to win at all costs. They will set about trying to apprehend the killer or killers and trying to protect the innocent from suspicion.
In this case, the victims' families had an absolute right to demand exactly just that in this case. But it was clear, unfortunately, that in this case there was another agenda. From the very first orders issued by the LAPD's so-called brass, they were more concerned with their own images and the publicity that might be generated from this case than they were in doing professional police work. That's why this case has become such a hallmark. And that's why Mr. Simpson is the one on trial. But your verdict in this case will go far beyond the walls of Department 103, because your verdict talks about justice in America and it talks about the police and whether they're above the law, and it looks at the police perhaps as though they haven't been looked at very recently. Remember I told you, this is not for the naive, the faint heart or the timid.
So it seems to us that the evidence shows that professional police work took a back seat right at the beginning. Untrained officers trampled remember, I used the words in opening statement they traipsed through the witness through the through the evidence. And it was interesting because the prosecution didn't agree with that at the beginning, but later on in this trial we heard Mr. Goldberg, in talking to witnesses, use my words ``traipsing'' through the witness scene, that scene there at Bundy. He used our words because they understood we knew what we were talking about, we were able to demonstrate it through the videos. They delayed unconscionably routine procedures in notifying the coroners. They didn't call the criminalists out on time. And, yes, they allowed this investigation to be infected by a dishonest and corrupt detective. They did that in this case. And they may try to back away from it all they want, but that's very important as you're going to see to this case and the resolution of my client's innocence.
Because of their bumbling, they ignored the obvious clues. They didn't pick up paper at the scene with prints on it. Because of their vanity, they very soon pretended to solve this crime and, we think, implicated an innocent man. And they never they never, ever looked for anyone else. We think if they'd done their job as we have done Mr. Simpson would have been eliminated early on.
And so this case is not let me say at the outset is not about attacking the Los Angeles Police Department. We're not anti-police in making these statements. You're not anti-police. We all need the police. I just said we have so much crime in this country, we need the police. But what we need, what we must demand, what all of us should have are honest, effective, non-biased police officers. Who could demand less? Can any of you say that's not what we should have?
And so, let me tell you about how we're going to proceed here this afternoon. The defense has one opportunity basically to address you. It's as if the prosecutors are finished. I will address you first. And after I'm concluded, and I will talk generally about the lay witnesses and an overview of the evidence and what you've heard. I'll strive not to bore you. I'll strive to be honest in my discussions, to be relevant, to be concise at what we talk about here. When I'm finished, Mr. Barry Scheck will come before you and address some of the forensic issues. And then finally after Mr. Scheck finishes, I'll come back and conclude with some concluding remarks regarding what you've heard over the course of the last two days, at any rate.
Now you understand that because the prosecution bears the burden in this case and in all cases, Ms. Clark will argue last to seek to rebut that which we bring up and presumably she won't be back up here talking about all kind of new things seek to rebut that which we bring up. And let me tell you in front if she brings up anything, we may be precluded from standing up and saying ``Wait a minute, Your Honor, here's the answer to that.'' But you can then substitute your common sense and your judgment in that place. And that's required in this journey towards justice.
Now, at the outset, let's talk about this timeline for the defense. I said earlier that Mr. Darden did a good job in his argument, but one thing he tended to trip over and stumble over was when he started to try to talk about our case. He doesn't know our case like we know our case. It was interesting, wasn't it, because first he stood up and started talking about the timeline being at 10:15 and then he said, ``Well, they didn't prove anything, but, golly, well, it may have been as late as 10:30.'' That's interesting, isn't it? Never heard that before. You look back and see what Ms. Clark promised you a year ago 10:15, 10:15 was all they talked about. They were going use, because of the incompetence of this investigation, the wail of a dog. That's what we've been relegated to in this case because of this very, very poor investigation.
But, having said the defense doesn't have to prove anything in this case, we did in fact. So Mr. Darden can talk all he wanted to about his theories about motive. They're just that his speculative theories about motive. But when it came down to the end, he wasn't talking about motive, was he? He was trying to talk about our timeline. Why would he do that?
Let's talk about why he would. Because the defense in this case called many witnesses who corroborate each other and who shatter the prosecution's timeline. Now, these are witnesses to a person who were known by the prosecution but discarded by the prosecution. Why? Because they didn't fit their tortured, narrow window of opportunity. So when you You would visualize for me that jigsaw puzzle, where they want to reduce this case down to a jigsaw puzzle the part that deals with opportunity is the timeline. We're going to start out with that because, in a search for truth, let's look for the truth, not some contorted, twisted truth, but the real truth, the facts that you've heard during the course of this particular case. We think after you look at this timeline for the defense, you will agree with our earlier analysis. This is a case about a rush to judgment, a case where there's been an obsession to win at all costs, and in the words of Dr. Henry Lee, ``something is wrong with the prosecution's case.''
Let's start off with Francesca Harman. Francesca Harman is the lady who left the dinner party on Dorothy at about 10:20 p.m. She drove west on Dorothy and Bundy and turned north on Bundy. So she'd be heading north toward 875. She saw nothing, heard nothing, no barking dogs. It's a lady, known, of course, to both sides. So you see this graphic regarding Francesca Harman, I think, to familiarize you with that. I think at 10:20, because I understand that's the approximate time that she would pass by or near Nicole Brown Simpson's home there. You see it with the X-mark there in this graphic. That's Ms. Harman.
We followed Francesca Harman with Ellen Aaronson and Dan Mandel. Remember the two people who'd been on their first date? They'd gone to Mezzaluna, and they were interesting young people. I think you would find them credible, and, by the way, you hold all witnesses up to the same standard. No side has a priority on the truth. These are witnesses known to both sides. We're the ones, however, who elected to call them and bring them here for you. You know how they walked home from this first date at Mezzaluna, walking directly by the walkway at 875 South Bundy. And they said they passed by there remember they were clear. They passed by there at 10:25, and you'll see the kind of little, purple lines, shows you the route they took. So they passed right in front of Ms. Nicole Brown Simpson's home at 10:25, and you remember they continued on. So they were over on Darlington Street by 10:29. She said that it took them about four minutes from the time they passed 875 South Bundy to get home that evening. This was their first date, and I guess, as I recall, this was also their last date.
They saw no blood. They saw no barking dogs. I submit to you, if the bodies had been there, they could have been seen. Now, why do I say that? I say that because we have a contact print in evidence. I'm going to ask Mr. Harris, if he can, to show us this contact print. This is an item you'll be able to take back in the jury room. This is a photograph taken by Mr. Rokahr at night, and it will let you see when Mr. Harris gets it focused that scene that particular night, what you could see with regard to this body. And Your Honor, you may want to cut the feed on part this 33, Your Honor. [pause as photograph is displayed]
Now And this exhibit is what number, Mr. I believe it may be 86? I'll get it for you as soon as he takes it off, Your Honor. Now, this exhibit, and we'll try to give them to Your Honor, just when we first get them up there.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Thank you.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: This exhibit, number 86, was a photograph that we got late in the trial from Mr. Rokahr, the photographer who was called by us. You see that document over there? That's a contact sheet. Remember he talked about all of these photographs in sequence in this first role were taken at night. This is going to be a very, very important role for you as this case progresses. This is a photograph at night of what you could see from across the street, and there were lights in and around there. And so when Mr. Darden stands up here as an advocate and tells you it was pitch black and you couldn't see anything this is the photograph that was taken before the sun came up. This photograph was taken at night. It's not pitch black.
We know also that, according to the evidence, blood had flown down that walkway. There were bloody pawprints that went southbound on Bundy there. So you see that photograph? You see that photograph? And you can be an advocate. We're all sworn to do the right thing. Talked about his oath. Well, the oath is also to tell the truth. It's not pitch black. We have the evidence! And I'm going to try to do that throughout. Where they have misled you or not said things that were correct, I'm going to try to straighten it out for you.
Mr. Harris, why don't you tell the Court now what that number is. [repeating Mr. Harris's unintelligible answer] Number 1369, and that's Mr. Rokahr. We're going to come back to some other photographs on that, but you'll recall his testimony, and the reason why 1369 is so important is because it is undisputed that at 10:25 Mandel and Aaronson walked past there. If there was blood down to that sidewalk, if there'd been a killing had taken place, if there were dogs barking or wailing, don't you think, given that you've been out there you'd see it?
So the time has come now to stop all this folly and fantasy. Let's deal in reality and in the facts of what took place and what you can see with your own eyes. I don't want you to speculate or theorize. When I sit down, I want you understand what the facts are of this case.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 13
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: Don't you think given that? You've been out there. You'd see it. So the time has come now to stop all this folly and fantasy. Let's deal in reality and in the facts of what took place and what you can see with your own eyes. You know, I don't want you to speculate or theorize. When I sit down, I want you to understand what the facts are of this case. Mr. Hertz [sp], you can take that down. After that, we had Denise Pilnak and Judy Telander. You know, and I think again, as advocates we have a responsibility to treat all of these witnesses with respect. These people didn't ask to come down here. These people don't ask to be maligned. I don't think anybody wants that, with the exception of one or two, and most of them were called by the prosecution. So when Denise Pilnak, the lady who wore two watches, comes in here and tells you I ask you to judge her credibility like you do all the witnesses. The Court has instructed to hold all witnesses up to the same standard. You look at the reasonableness of what they had to say. You look at their bias or interest. You look at their demeanor on the stand. You use their common sense. You use your visceral reaction, if I can use that work, to make a determination of whether or not you think this person is telling you the truth. None of these people know or knew O.J. Simpson. With the exception of the people who were together, they don't know each other. They're witnesses, available to both sides. But in the search the truth, we're the ones who subpoenaed them and brought them in. Let's look at Denise Pilnak. She tells you that she was at home with her friend, Judy Telander. She's across the street from 875 South Bundy. She's south and across the street. You recall that. She spoke of how eerily quiet, eerily quiet, remember those words, at about 10:24 p.m. when Telander left her house. And she remembered that because she wanted to get Telander out of there. She had been there all day. She wanted to use her computer or something to type some letters. Remember that? So she went outside on the porch with Telander, as I recall. And Pilnak just didn't come to you to tell you that. Pilnak did something else. She and I believe, Your Honor, that's exhibit 1237. She showed us
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: All right, phone records.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: The phone record, Your Honor. She showed us that she got on the phone as soon as Pilnak left and called her mother, remember she said in Gardena. And you look there on June 12th. At 10:25 p.m. she made a call to Gardena. She was able to fix the exact time that her friend left. And she said something to us very interesting, that it was quiet when her friend left, and the quiet continued for at least another 10 minutes. So that would be 10:25 to 10:35, at the earliest. She says that at 10:35, it was the first time she heard dogs barking loudly that particular night. And so that she, as you will see, along with Robert Heidstra, confirm each other. They don't necessarily know each other, but they confirm each other as to when this barking really, really began. Now, they weren't laying in bed and had been asleep, like Eva Stein. They weren't like Ms. Elsie Tistaert, who's across the street, who didn't really know what was happening. These are people who were outside or in that area who can come in here and tell you why they remember these particular times. They were wide awake, up and about, outside around the time when this barking took place.
Then we called this man Robert Heidstra. You know him because it came out that Robert Heidstra had been talking to the prosecution. We know what he said. Now, this is the man who's an interest man who details cars. He's the man who is well known to the prosecution. Remember, he talked to Detective Paine [sp] almost right away during the investigation, Mr. Paine. And he told Paine the same thing he told you during the course of this trial. Here's what he said. He said that he lives nearby and he has these two elderly dogs, one of whom, I recall, was 14 years of age. So these dogs walk kind of slow. Remember that? He walks and he takes this route. And that graphic up there shows you the route he takes. And he told you he left home a little bit late that particular Sunday evening. At 10:15, he leaves home, and he proceeds on this route. And you know he's in that alleyway that runs parallel with Bundy, and he knows this neighborhood. He's been doing this for more than 14 years. He knows not only the neighborhood. He knows the dogs. He knows their barks. He knows the gates. He knows when they clank. He knows all of that. And here's an interesting situation. We thought that of all the witnesses in this trial, in this journey toward justice, this is the only witness who ever heard any voices. But they didn't call him. You know why? Because he didn't fit in their time, as you're going to see. And so he tells you that and you recall, he's directly opposite Ms. Nicole Brown Simpson's condo in that alley when he hears what he believes is the akita start barking. And that's at about 10:35 p.m. He recognizes, he says, the akita's bark since he walks that way, that same way, each and every evening. So while in that alleyway east of 875 South Bundy he hears a voice yell, ``Hey, hey, hey.'' He says he then hears a gate slam. Now, he goes on says that at about 10:40, 10:45 he sees this white vehicle which he describes clearly as a van or a Jeep. I think we tried to tell you all these things about it being some Bronco, but he never said anything about any Bronco. He said a van or a Jeep. And the important part was is what he tells the detective, but he says it goes southbound on Bundy away from where Mr. Simpson would live. And could you imagine in this area in west Los Angeles, in Brentwood, the number of white vehicles? There are and must be in that particular area. But the reason why they didn't call him is because at 10:45 at 10:45, O.J. Simpson cannot be guilty of this crime, can he. Now, why do we know that? How do we know that, ladies and gentlemen? Well, yesterday, in her zeal and advocacy, Ms. Clark tried to push the time back from 10:40 or 10:45 heard those thumps. She tried on her chart there to push it back, remember, to 10:53. Some of you probably were surprised. There's been no testimony about that. So let me tell you, let me quote for you. Counsel, this is page 19873. This is Ms. Clark talking to one of her favorite witnesses, Mr. Kato Kaelin. By Ms. Clark, ``And what happened with that picture when the thumps occurred?'' ``The picture tilted from that would be right to left.'' ``The picture moved.'' Answer, ``Yes, it did.'' ``At that point that you heard the thumps on the wall, sir, approximately how long had you been on the phone with Rachel Ferrara?'' Remember, he started calling his friend, called his girlfriend. About a half-hour after he went back in the house he called his girlfriend. ``And so approximately what time was it when you heard the thumps on the wall?'' Answer by Mr. Kaelin, ``At about 10:40.'' At about 10:40. Now, this is the time when the dogs first start to bark over there, at about 10:40. ``Is that exact 10:40?'' Ms. Clark says. ``Well, what I remember. I didn't look at the clock, but around 10:40.'' Question, ``Do you recall previously testifying that it was 10:40 to 10:45?'' Answer, ``Yes.'' Question, ``OK. And is that correct?'' Answer, ``Yes.'' Now, that's their witness. That's their witness. That's what he has to say. There's no question he's there. They know he's there. You know he's there. They don't call him. What about this search for truth? Can they handle the truth? You will be making that kind of decision. And so we didn't know, according to this, that by the time Heidstra sees this vehicle turn south on Bundy, Kato Kaelin has already heard the three thumps on the Rockingham wall outside of his room. And, you know, that's so interesting because yesterday Ms. Clark tried to change how those thumps sounded. Now, remember, this is something that you would never forget probably. I won't come all the way over there, but let me just see if I can duplicate. Kato Kaelin said here's how he said those thumps sounded. One, two, three, except he used big place up there. He said they were thumps, almost like a signal. ``One, two, three,'' is what he had to say. And of course you recall that. Your notes are much better than ours, I'm sure. Apparently, the prosecution, in their zeal and their obsession to win, would have you believe that Mr. Orenthal James Simpson is so amazing that he can be in two places at the same time, even though they're miles apart. When Darden was talking to you today, he used Heidstra to say, ``Well, on a Sunday evening he could make it over there in about four minutes.'' He said. Well, in their own in their own drive-thru that Vannatter did took five between five and six minutes. You saw it. It took close to six minutes. He didn't tell you that again today. And if you want to get a flavor for how we heard the word desperate a couple of times, but how witnesses were treated. These are ordinary witnesses, regular citizens. Let me share with you a transcript regarding Heidstra. Counsel, I'm going to be look at 36368 through 36370. This is how Mr. Darden treated this witness who helped to shatter their timeline and establish O.J. Simpson's innocence. ``Didn't you tell us yesterday that the voice was a youthful voice?'' ``Yeah, it sounded like a young voice.'' ``OK. And when you heard that voice, you thought that that was the voice of a young white male, didn't you?'' And there was an objection, you may recall. ``The voice sounded like the voice of a white male,'' Mr. Darden said. Answer, ``How could I say that it is a white male? I don't know the voice. It could be anybody there.'' Question, ``Did you ever tell Mr. Stevens, my investigator, that it sounded like a white male?'' Answer, ``No.'' You never saw Mr. Stevens come in here and say that. ``Never said that?'' Answer, ``I don't recall that at all. I said it was a clear voice, but never what kind of, white or brown or yellow.'' ``And then there was that second voice, correct?'' ``Right.'' ``And that second voice, that voice sounded deeper than the first voice, didn't it?'' Answer, ``A little bit, but I couldn't hardly hear it with the dogs, with the commotion, with two dogs there. It was very short.'' ``Did you ever tell anyone the second voice was a deep voice?'' Answer, ``It was deep. It was deeper than the other, than `hey, hey, hey.''' OK. And then we get to the question, at line 22, Counsel. ``The second voice that you heard sounded like the voice of a black man, is that correct?'' Objection. The witness, ``Of course not.'' Now, you know, they can be advocates. Those questions nobody ever came in to impeach that man. He told you he heard two voices. He told you when this took place. He told you why, because he walks his dogs. He knows that neighborhood. A search for truth? You see, their job is not to just try to convict. Their job, as prosecutors, is to make the innocent go free also, to make sure all the witnesses come to your attention, as we've had to do in this case. So you can see that these responsible citizen witnesses who came before you were oftentimes treated roughly and ridiculed and attacked by the prosecution in their obsession to win. You don't think Heidstra was attacked? I mean, he was asked the question, something to the effect, ``Are you a citizen here?'' because he was from France, apparently, and something about his job and his little apartment because he's a car dealer. Everybody is entitled to dignity. That's what we fought for in this country. You don't treat witnesses who just come in here, they don't get paid, and tell the truth like that, just purely and simply because they're not saying what you want them to say in your contorted version of what the truth ought to be. But you saw that yourself. I don't have to tell you about it. Incidentally enough, they chose not to mention even one of the defense witness in Ms. Clark's discussion of her timeline. The prosecutors noted that none of their timeline witnesses asked to be involved in this case. Well, none of the witnesses that we called asked to be involved in this case. They came forward. You saw how they were treated. But yet they told you what they observed. But perhaps the most important thing about them is these aren't any family members. These aren't people who know O.J. Simpson. These are just people who happen to be out there that particular night. And I think you can now see from that graphic. Have they all passed by then? We tried to make it as clear as we could. It's common sense. It's common sense, just like he said. It becomes very, very clear right at the outset. So if you accept the prosecution's scenario, there's not enough time for O.J. Simpson to commit these murders given the evidence that we understand.
Let me just succinctly at the beginning help you understand where I'm going on this. Remember Bodziak, that they like to talk about so much? F. Lee Bailey cross-examined Bodziak the first time he was here. Bailey got him to say this remarkable thing about whoever left out that back gate turned and went back the other way. It's pretty interesting because I didn't see all those prints, but that's what he says. They went back to the scene. Remember that? That's what Bodziak said. Darden said this morning the killer or killers that went that way, they weren't in any hurry. They went that way and then came back. You take that along with the fact that the credible evidence regarding this struggle is it took between five to 15 minutes. Now, that's what Dr. Henry Lee, Dr. Michael Baden said. They not only told you that. They showed you why that was true.
You know, while I'm about it, when I just to digress for just a moment, Mr. Darden talked this morning about calling witnesses and not calling witnesses. Isn't that interesting? Now, they're the prosecutors. They're the ones who have the burden. In this history of man runneth not the contrary, nobody around here can remember anytime that the coroner who did the autopsy, the actual autopsies on these bodies, wasn't called by these prosecutors. Why do you think was? They didn't call the coroner. They chose instead to call Dr. Lakshmanan, who came in here. Let me showed you what they thought about him. They talked about this man so badly. I mean, for eight days we heard Dr. Lakshmanan talk to you. They talk about length of time in this trial. Let me put that in perspective for you. For eight days, Lakshmanan sat on that stand and went through direct examination by Brian Kelberg. Check your notes if you think I'm wrong about that. Bob Shapiro got up and took 3-1/2 hours and demolished him because at the end of the day Lakshmanan told you this. ``Well, these were deaths that were caused by stab wounds, and the time of death was between 9:00 and 12:00.'' There were all those discussions about big ticket items and big ticket items. When you get back in the jury room, you'll have a lot of fun trying to figure out all those red and blue marks that they drew all over the coroner. They spent eight days trashing their own coroner, and they didn't call him. Now, why is that in this search for truth? To call somebody else who's not even there at the autopsies who has the benefit of our experts, Michael Baden and Barbara Wolfe, who point out to him the mistakes that Golden has made. He then runs in here and testifies about those mistakes that we had discovered. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, in this search for truth, our experts were in place right away. O.J. Simpson was paying for these experts to find the killer or killers. And you'll recall the evidence, that Dr. Lee, Michael Baden, Barbara Wolfe were offered them at the beginning. So the idea is that from the beginning there was this search for truth. So I mentioned that I'm parenthetically disappointed because I think it's important to talk about not calling witnesses in every murder case. It's basic that you got to call the coroner. But they did a number of things in this case, ladies and gentlemen, that had never been seen before. Off the top of our heads, four detectives going to the scene to notify somebody who's not even the next of kin. Detective carries blood 25 or 30 miles around in his pocket. They do things that you have never heard of before in this case. Is it because it's Orenthal James Simpson? And so as we look then at the timeline and the importance of this timeline, I want you to remember these words. Like the defining moment in this trial, the day Mr. Darden asked Mr. Simpson to try on those gloves and the gloves didn't fit, remember these words. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. And we're going to be talking throughout. So to summarize, if you take the witnesses who we presented, who stand unimpeached, unimpeached, and if you are left with dogs starting to bark at 10:35 or 10:40, 10:40 let's say, and we know from the most qualified individuals Henry Lee and Michael Baden this was a struggle that took from five to 15 minutes, it's already 10:55. And remember, the thumps were at 10:40 or 10:45. O.J. Simpson could not be guilty. He is then entitled to an acquittal. And we have talked to you and you've heard from the Court and my colleagues talked to you about this whole idea of circumstantial evidence. I want to talk to you a little more about that now. We have shown you the incredible evidence that it would be impossible O.J. could not, would not, did not commit these crimes. And where you have a circumstantial evidence case, this becomes very, very important. The prosecution then must disprove our timeline beyond a reasonable doubt, and if they don't you must acquit. He would then be entitled to an acquittal. So let's see if we can look quickly at this jury instruction, sufficiency of circumstantial evidence generally. Mr. Douglas is going to help me today. Can I just a second, Your Honor?
Judge LANCE ITO: Certainly.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 14
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: Mr. Douglas is going to help me today. Can I have just a second, Your Honor?
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Certainly.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Mr. Douglas Now, in both places, you can see this instruction. It's called sufficiency of circumstantial evidence, evidence generally. And to be as accurate as possible, let me allude to all of it, lest I favor one portion over the other, and together, we can consider it. This is the law, and his honor has already given you, as it relates to circumstantial evidence, which this is, in this case. About opportunity to commit these crimes. However, a finding of guilt as to any crime may not be based on circumstantial evidence unless the proved circumstances are not only, one, consistent with the theory that the defendant is guilty of the crime, but two, cannot be reconciled with any other rational conclusion. Further, each fact which is essential to complete a set of circumstances necessary to establish the defendant's guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words, before an inference essential to establish guilt may be found to have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, each fact or circumstance upon which such inference necessarily rests must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Also, if the circumstantial evidence as to any particular count, either one of these counts, is susceptible of two reasonable interpretations, on of which points to guilt, the other of which points to innocence, you, as jurors, must adopt that interpretation which points to the defendant's innocence and reject that interpretation which points to his guilt. If, on the other hand, one interpretation of such evidence appears to you to be reasonable and the other interpretation to be unreasonable, you must accept the reasonable interpretation and reject the unreasonable. I put that up at this very moment because you've just seen the time line, which is circumstantial evidence of O.J. Simpson's innocence, because he couldn't have done the crime, given this time. So under that scenario, even if the prosecution's time line was reasonable, if they're both reasonable, I think you must agree ours is reasonable, it becomes your duty to adopt that which points towards innocence. But even further, if theirs is unreasonable and ours is reasonable, he's still entitled to an acquittal. The only way they're entitled to conviction if ours is unreasonable and theirs is reasonable, and I think you can see and understand that's not true, that shouldn't happen, that's not the facts of this case. So before I look at their time line, let me just see if I can summarize what I believe the prosecution has tried to tell you about their theory in this case, and this is just kind of rough, but listening to them yesterday, they tried to tell you that an insanely jealous man stalks his ex-wife, stabs her, and a male visitor, in a murderous rage, leaves a trail of blood to his home, barely catches a plane to Chicago, in a rush to go there, leaves one glove at the murder scene and one glove behind his house. In the defense of this case, you have heard evidence about O.J. Simpson's great life. Not only did he have a great life, he had a great day that day. He was playing golf, comes back from being out of town all week long, comes back to go to his child's recital. Goes to that recital, prepares an evening, gets something to eat, a hamburger. By the way, I have to stop at this point. I'm glad Ms. Clark doesn't know this, but you know, if you've ever been to McDonald's, they don't like you to bring $100 bills in there. You know, you can't get a $100 bill changed there generally, so some of these things about common sense some people don't know.
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: Objection.
Judge LANCE ITO: Beyond the evidence here. Proceed.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Use your common sense about fast food places. He then takes a shower, barely catches his plane to Chicago, someone murders his wife and this male visitor for reasons unknown in this trial; others seek to implicate him as the most obvious suspect. The investigation becomes a tragic combination of sloppy errors and cover-ups, trying to achieve his conviction. Those are going to be pretty much the hypothesis that you've heard and will be hearing in this case.
Under whatever scenario, based upon what I've already told you, in this first hour of the argument, this man is entitled to acquittal. But let's now turn, briefly, to the prosecution's time line scenario, and you heard Ms. Clark yesterday talk about this time line and talk about these witnesses, and she relies very heavily on this Pablo Fendez. You remember him he's one of the early, early witnesses who started up, I think, by talking about a plaintive wail of a dog at 10:30 and he got pushed back to 10:15, because it's interesting because now Darden, not Marcia Clark, has now come back and conceded, ``Well, you know, maybe it really was later. They did a pretty good job.'' You know, so he's saying that, but Fendez that, you know, he's in that alleyway, down the alleyway and across from where Nicole Brown Simpson lives. Ten-fifteen, 10:30, whatever 10:20. Eva Stein, next door, was asleep, claims she was awakened. Did you ever wake up at night? You might see the time right, you might not. She says about 10:20 or so, she thinks she hears dogs barking. Well, I presume that dogs bark throughout that neighborhood all the time, and we don't know and that's the problem with trying to convict somebody or set the time of death by a dog barking. Louis Karpf, her boyfriend, comes home, some time after 10:20, and then of course, Ms. Elsie Tistaert, the lady from across the street, doesn't know when or precisely when she heard the barks. Then there's Mark Storfer, and Mark Storfer is an interesting man, because you remember he's the man who always set his watch five minutes fast, he says, presumably. He told us here in testimony, counsel, 17190, says, ``At 10:28, that's when I looked at the TV, which was a couple of minutes after I'd gotten in the room. Right. OK.'' And then he talks about, ``I looked out the window of our bedroom that faces North Bundy to see if I could see where that dog was or what was going on. It was pretty dark, and I couldn't see anything unusual, and I couldn't locate the dog. I also looked out the west-facing window of our bedroom to see if the dog was further over to the west. We face the alley on the west side, and I could not see anything at that time either.'' Now, this witness becomes kind of important, doesn't he? Because the prosecution is going to tell you that no matter what time it is, whether it's 10:40 or 10:45, or whether it's 10:15 or 10:20, or 10:25, or Mr. Darden makes this big, quantum leap the Bronco was there. Well, where is Mark Storfer, who looks down that alley and what exhibit is this, Mr. Harris? Do we know? Exhibit number 38, Your Honor. This is looking north-bound down that alleyway, and you recall this, because we've all been out there, and you'll recall where Ms. Nicole Brown Simpson's condo is located, and you'll recall that it's sitting out in the driveway there, right there. There's a black Jeep Cherokee, as I recall, and you see this man presumably look up this alleyway. He didn't see any white Bronco. Nobody ever tells you about any white Bronco parked back there, doesn't tell you about any car parked back there. So when you see people tell you about mountains of evidence and oceans of evidence, their oceans soon become little streams, their mountains become mole hills, when you look at the facts.
And so we go on. In addition to Mark Storfer and looking up that alley and seeing nothing or seeing no car, or didn't see a dog, we hear about the other witnesses, who become pretty much part of the time line. Ms. Clark does take some licenses regarding time. She says that, ``Mr. Goldman leaves Mezzaluna,'' she says about 9:50 p.m. Says he goes home and he changes clothes, that he talked to Stuart Tanner about getting together later that evening. Remember that? Talked about going to Baja Cantina, out at the marina. You know, wouldn't you think it would be logical to expect that if he worked all day, when he went home to change clothes, he might have showered, he might have got something to eat, especially later on, when you hear Mr. Scheck, you look at the amount of food, undigested food, that was still in the stomach of these two victims. But, in a rush to judgment, in a rush to contort these facts, Ms. Clark tells you yesterday, ``Let's give him five minutes.'' He's been working all day, he's got to change clothes, he's got to come home. Let's give him five minutes or ten minutes. Correction she says let's give him ten minutes. That seems to me to be really, really fast, and what it really is, ladies and gentlemen, is more of that speculation. She doesn't know how long Mr. Goldman was there. None of us know that. We know he changed clothes. She has absolutely no idea, so you understand that. When you look at when somebody says something like that to you.
And then, as part of their time line, she tells you yesterday that there's something sinister in Mr. Simpson seeking change to buy a Big Mac from McDonald's. I suppose that if you're in this jealous rage, if the fuse is running so short, it's interesting, isn't it, to stop and go get a hamburger at McDonald's. Does that make any sense to any of you? Does it make any sense to you to drive to McDonald's and there's no evidence that he tried to tell Kato Kaelin not to come. The evidence is that these two men got in the Bentley and went to McDonald's. The evidence is that while O.J. Simpson is in this murderous rage, he's worried about money to tip the sky caps at the airport, 'cause he has $100 bills. So he gets $20 from Kato Kaelin. What's unusual about that? Kato Kaelin is living there for free, so I suppose he could give him $20. Then Kato Kaelin wants to go get something to eat, and Ms. Clark says they could have gone to a restaurant. Well, you could do anything, I suppose, but the facts are, they went to McDonald's to get a hamburger. O.J. Simpson ate the hamburger. Presumably, he was hungry. Now what's sinister about that, unless you're cynical in your view, totally, of this case.
Kato Kaelin their witness. They called him. They turned on him. You observed him. I ask you to hold him up to the same standards you do all the other witnesses. But I ask you, don't misquote him; tell the truth about what he had to say, and so when he says, ``Ten-forty,'' or ``10:40 to 10:45,'' don't try to make it 10:52. So if you believe in this prosecution's theory, there's this blood leading down to this rear walkway, and Ms. Clark told us yesterday and unveiled her theory, this is what they ask you to believe. O.J. Simpson comes home from these brutal murders in a Bronco that he must be driving awfully fast to get back in this time frame, he parks his Bronco out there, at the Rockingham gate, and somehow gets in the gate, gets down the side of his house, and what did she tell you he bumps into the air conditioning. Now let's examine that for a minute. The evidence is that O.J. Simpson has lived at this house for 17 years. Who do you think knows this place better, or the best of all? This is his estate, this is where he lives. This is where he's raised his children. This is where he's been married. This is where he had two marriages. He knows this place. So, it's part of their fantasy, their theory, their speculation, they have O.J. Simpson walking down this walkway, running into the air conditioning. Well, if he ran into the air conditioning, where's all the bruises that he got from running into the air conditioning? Where's the sound that he made? That doesn't make any sense. You see, the reason why they come up with this running into the air conditioning is 'cause they can't say climbed over the fence, because there's too much shrubbery there and it's not broken. And they really don't know if he could climb over the fence with his arthritis. But they have him then walking down this walkway, bumping into the air conditioning, but ladies and gentlemen, you know, we're talking about common sense here. Bumping into the air conditioning, and then he just leaves? Is that what happens? Now let's look at this. Thank you, Mr. Douglas.
You all remember this what exhibit is this, Mr. Douglas? Excuse me. I'll stand over here so I won't be in your way.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 15
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: Thank you.
Under this scenario under their scenario while Allan Park is out here somewhere, looking over in this direction, they have O.J. Simpson rushing back, parking the Bronco out here, and some way or another, he gets all the way down here. Remember, Fuhrman told you how far that was. Gets all the way down here, where this air conditioning is, out here by Kato Kaelin's room. You'll see this, right here. They have him running into this air conditioning, so he doesn't know his own house. And he's all the way back here, and she says the reason he's back here is because he's going to go back here, and he's going to bury the knife in the clothes.
Now isn't that something? How does she know that? Did she just make that up out of old cloth? Do you believe that's reasonable? Is that reasonable to you? Does anybody on this jury believe that? That's what you were told yesterday. He runs into this air conditioning, and then just you know, he bumps in and he drops his glove. That's what she told you.
It doesn't make any sense at all, does it, ladies and gentlemen? Doesn't make any sense at all. No sound from Kato Kaelin. And then what kind of you know, the sound has always been very confusing. Maybe not to you, but to me. Kato Kaelin goes [knocks three times on podium] it's more like a signal than anything else. Come out here, or whatever. But those are the facts of Kato Kaelin, and what happened, and that's her theory. That's her reasonable, rational theory that you have to buy into, which I think that you will find to be totally ridiculous.
Now remember, down this same way, there is a door, into that side room there Mr. Simpson wanted to get in his house. What would stop him from going into that side door? Who knows his house better? If he wanted to be see not be seen, I'm suppose that he would know better than anybody else. It doesn't make any sense. Doesn't make any sense at all. What they are now trying to tell you.
And here's something else that's equally implausible. She tells you that the reason why Mr. Simpson couldn't stop and hide these clothes is because he's too famous and too well known remember that? She said O.J. Simpson is too famous and too well known to stop and try to hide clothes or whatever of that nature. Well, let's take that just a little bit further. Part of what makes their theory so ridiculous is that is O.J. Simpson going to get in a white Bronco that's well known in Brentwood, drive over to his ex-wife's house, park the Bronco in this well-lit alleyway that you've just seen, leave the car there everybody knows him, knows that car. That's equally preposterous. So she can't have it both ways he's too famous to stop and try to throw things in a dumpster, the way she put, isn't he equally too famous to be driving this car to go over there under these circumstances? That is preposterous.
So if you believe the prosecution's theory, and they told you all this about a bloody trail where's the blood back there, ladies and gentlemen? There's not one drop of blood. Where's the tra blood back there? Where's the trail that leads to that glove? And further, look at this look at this, ladies and gentlemen it's not something I'm making up. You've seen this with your own eyes. Look at the glove. Now where that glove is picked up remember the did you see any blood on the ground? Any blood on that shrubbery? Any blood on anything there? Where's the blood? Fuhrman and Vannatter, as we'll discuss them later, we'll say that when they get that glove after six o'clock in the morning, it's still moist and sticky. Remember their testimony? Where's the blood on the ground? Where's the blood on the leaves around there? Where's any of that? That glove looks as though it's been placed there. That glove looks as though it's been placed there.
If you look at A, you'll see how far it is out to the street. So their theory doesn't hold water. It doesn't make sense. And so they get mad at Kato Kaelin, and they tell you why he's biased, he's just indebted to O.J. Simpson, so we just can't trust him. But yet they want you to trust him, about the knocks on the wall. And he becomes part of their theory, but their theory doesn't make sense, and when you go back there, deliberating on this case, you're never going to be ever able to reconcile this timeline and the fact there's no blood back there, and that O.J. Simpson was running to an air conditioning on his own property.
And then, under her scenario, he still has the knife in the clothes. But what did she tell you yesterday? Well, he still has the knife and he's in these bloody clothes, and presumably in bloody shoes, and what does he do? He goes in the house. Now. Thank heaven Judge Ito took us on a jury view. You've seen this house. You've seen his carpet. If he went in that house with bloody shoes, with bloody clothes, with his bloody hands as they say where's the blood on the door knob? Where's the blood on the light switch? Where's the blood on the banister? Where's the blood on the carpet? It's like almost white carpet going up those stairs. Where's all that blood trail they've been bandying about in this mountain of evidence? You'll see it's little more than a river or a stream. Let me tell you, they don't have any mountain or ocean of evidence.
It's not so because they say so. That's just rhetoric. We, this afternoon, are talking about the facts. And so, it doesn't make any sense. It just doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.
And so, she has him then still with the knife, still with these bloody clothes, and then she does something very unusual again on the time. Remember she gave Mr. Goldman 10 minutes to get dressed and to go over to Nicole Brown Simpson's house with this envelope. Mr. Simpson, she says, who walks in this house, in the walkway and by the way, they were wrong she was wrong about something else again I'd like to read you. She was wrong in her description of Allan Park if I can locate it.
Allan Park says he saw this figure in the walkway on the and so that we're clear about that let me just read it to you. I don't have to just tell you what I think it is. I'm going to read it for you.
Two-oh-five-seven-one, Counsel. Line 17. ``Yes, I saw a figure come down well, not come down, but I saw a figure come into the entrance way of the house just about where the driveway starts.'' So a figure come into the entrance way of the house. Just about where the driveway starts there. Do you see that? Right there, where the driveway is? That's what he said. Yesterday, they were trying to put it all down here, and have them because that was convenient to their theory. But that's not what the witness said. You look at the facts of this case, and you'll see not what they tell you.
Continuing on. [shuffles paper] There is absolutely no evidence at all that Mr. Simpson ever tried to hide a knife or clothes or anything else on his property. You recall that Fuhrman and when I get to Fuhrman, we'll be spending some time on him, as you might imagine. But one of the things he said was that he encountered cobwebs further down that walkway. Indicating, if that part is true, and I don't vouch for him at all there'd been nobody down that pathway for quite some time.
And so she talks about O.J. being very, very recognizable. She talks about O.J. Simpson getting dressed up to go commit these murders. And just before we break for our break, I was thinking [break in audio] last night about this case, and their theory, and how it didn't make any sense, and how it didn't fit, and how something is wrong. It occurred to me how they were going to come here, and stand up here, and tell you how O.J. Simpson was going to disguise himself. Was going to put on a knit cap and some dark clothes, and he was going to get in his white Bronco, and this recognizable person, and go over and kill his wife. That's what they want you to believe. That's how silly their argument is. And I said to myself, ``Maybe I can demonstrate this graphically.''
I'm going to show you something. This is a knit cap. I'm going to put this knit cap on. And you've been seeing me for a year. If I put this knit cap on who am I? I'm still Johnnie Cochran with a knit cap. And have you looked at O.J. Simpson over there? And he has a rather large head. O.J. Simpson in a knit cap, from two blocks away, is still O.J. Simpson. It's no disguise. It's no disguise. It makes no sense. It doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.
Good time, Your Honor.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to take our mid-afternoon recess at this time. Remember all my admonitions to you. We'll stand in recess for 15.
FRED GRAHAM, Anchor: And Johnnie Cochran very much living up to his reputation for flamboyance, for eloquence. Very forceful. Off to a good start.
We'll take a break, and we'll analyze the first part of his summation after this.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 16
FRED GRAHAM, Anchor: Apparently, the judge is behind the bench, and we go live into the courtroom.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: [in progress] All right. We'll let the stragglers get in here. All right. Deputy Tryer [sp], let's have the jurors, please. [pause]
Judge LANCE ITO: [in progress] Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, again. And, Mr. Cochran, you may continue with your final argument.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: Thank you, Your Honor. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. [jury responds in kind] Thank you for patience thus far, and we'll start up again and see if we can make it to dinner.
When we left, just before we broke, I was sharing with you a knit hat or a knit cap that we've heard so much about in this case. And it reminded me that there was testimony early on, that Detective Lange had refused, basically, to pick up a knit cap inside the Brown residence, and it was shown to him, I think, by some of the lawyers and one of the investigators on that date, because these are fairly common. But they don't really disguise anybody who's noticeable, do they? And, although I was the guinea pig here this afternoon, if you were to put a knit cap on, how is that going to disguise you? We've been together. I'd know your face anywhere now, and you'd know mine. And the people in Brentwood, in West Los Angeles, would know O.J. Simpson. They know his car. They know him. That's where he lives. Even the prosecutors say he's so famous that he can't go anywhere that he wouldn't be recognized.
Now, one of the things about this People's timeline or whatever, is that you'll recall that O.J.'s some of O.J.'s bags were already packed outside of the house on that bench when Kato came outside to investigate the thumps which he'd heard. And this is interesting, because the prosecutors have kind of talked at cross purposes on this. Kato, at some point, comes out because he hears these thumps, allegedly, and he has a little tiny flashlight or I think the Court called it a pin light or a mag light or something like that, it was something small because it's dark back down that walkway. Apparently, he went part way down that walkway and then he came back. It's interesting, isn't it? He came back, and at some point, he lets Park in.
I remember, and all of these questions about opening the gate and everything. Remember, there's a dog there. Isn't there a dog there, named Chachi? There's a lot of talk about these dogs, and you've heard a little bit about these dogs. But one thing that I think is, as the prosecutors make these kind of wild speculations, you now know that the Akita dog was bought by O.J., as was Chachi. Remember, one of the dogs died, and like a good dad, he let the dog stay at the other house sometime with his son, Justin, and they named the dog after Kato. Because I think the understanding of what we you've heard from Arnelle. But, at any rate I point that out, because we know there was another dog over there named Chachi, a black dog, black Chow.
But, while he Kato is out looking for these thumps what happens with these thumps, Mr. Simpson talks to him. In fact, they go in the house together, because Mr. Simpson is going to help him look or help him find a larger flashlight. And then someone says, or he's reminded, that Mr. Simpson is running late for his trip. So then, he then takes off. My understanding of the facts is, Mr. Simpson said, ``I'll call you later and have you put the alarm on,'' because he was getting out of there. Parks was already there. But I think the interesting thing to remember is that some of the bags were already down, including that golf bag, were already down there. This was not any unexpected trip. He'd started putting things down there.
If you look at everything in a cynical fashion, you heard this morning, ``A-ha. There was a knapsack over,'' or a knap bag or some little bag they were talking about, ``over in the driveway.'' Well, if you're a golfer, isn't it reasonable to assume there's golf balls in there? And you put that in your golf bag. What's the big deal? Because they've got to try to theorize and try to explain anything explain everything, which they can't explain. They weren't there. They rushed to judgment, and it leads to this kind of wild speculation. You have to do that when you don't have a case, and that's all you've seen them do, time after time after time.
With regard to that walkway, lest I be totally clear to you, if O.J. Simpson had been the one, for whatever reason, to walk into that air conditioning, where is the hair and trace, where is the fiber, where is the blood? They want to tell you about his hands, his finger's bleeding one minute, then it stops bleeding. In Ms. Ms. Clark's scenario, he bleeds, it coagulates, stops bleeding, then it starts bleeding again, because that's convenient for her theory. You know, as I listened to both of them, I wanted to call them doctor. ``Dr. Clark,'' because Dr. Clark told you, ``Well, gee, look at that blood drop. That cut wasn't big enough for that blood drop.'' She's not any doctor. How does she know that? Dr. Darden for the love and the forlorn, he knows everything about relationships. He just speculates on and on and on. He's got this great, vivid imagination.
The only thing is, this is real life. This isn't anything from Murder She Wrote. If they tried to sell this story to Murder She Wrote, they'd sent it back and say, ``That's unbelievable.'' You're going to see that as we tie it together. It's nice to have vivid imaginations, but not in this courtroom, because here, you are searching for truth on this journey for justice.
So, we know that Kato had some concerns, he was looking around. We know that at some point, Mr. Simpson comes down the stairs carrying the Louis Vuitton bag or whatever, and then Mr. Simpson leaves about eleven, 11:02, for the airport. That's pretty clear, based upon the evidence. And, you'll recall, that Ms. Clark again gives Mr. Simpson five minutes to rush in. According to her theory, he rushes in, changes clothes, disposes of all these clothes, showers, packs, does everything, and comes downstairs and says, composes himself. Now, can you imagine that? I mean, who do they think they're talking to? In five minutes, he does all these things, and then they tell you that, you know, ``Under this post-homicidal way you act, you get yourself all composed and you just do this.'' This is preposterous. They're not experts. They can't testify. Those are just their wildest, rankest theories. You use your common sense when they tell you things like that.
O.J. Simpson was O.J. Simpson, the way he always appeared, by the people who knew him and talked to him. We'll talk more about that when we talk about demeanor. But the reason they can't explain his demeanor and the way he acted like he'd always act, they then talk about, ``Well, you can't tell who's a murderer.'' And those are all real convenient words, aren't they? But they fly in the face of reasonable activity by a reasonable man on that particular night.
So, there's Alan Park. O.J. Simpson comes down within five minutes of the time that they believe he goes upstairs. No time to dispose of bloody clothes. What about blood on the carpet? What about dirt on this white carpet? How does he shower? How does he get dressed? I mean, does it make any sense at all? Does it?
Park himself says the golf bag was already packed and ready to go when he pulled into the driveway, and Ms. Clark went to great trouble to tell you how credible she thought Mr. Park was and how he tried to lay everything out. And, I think, by and large, we agree with that. But I think if you're going to quote Mr. Park, you ought to quote him accurately and not attempt to mislead, or whatever. And so what I did was, I went back to the transcript again, when Ms. Clark told you and showed you that photograph yesterday about whether or not Mr. Park saw, or was looking at, the Bronco, or looking for the Bronco on the night of June 12th. You remember that?
She told you yesterday I spent a long time with it, and so I remembered, and I asked him questions, and his response. ``I asked him at some point, I'm asking you if you looked to made an effort to see if there was a car parked?'' Answer, ``No.'' ``Was that a correct answer at that time?'' Answer, ``Yes.''
All right. Question, ``There might have been a car parked there and you didn't see it?'' Answer, ``Correct.'' ``And the reason why you don't know one way or the other is because you weren't focusing on any cars or paying any attention, isn't that right?''
And I went on to ask still another part of this question. ``Basically, your goal was to get Mr. O.J. Simpson, try to get him to the airport on time, isn't it?'' Answer, ``That's correct.'' Question, ``That is what you ended up doing, isn't it, sir?'' Answer, ``Yes.''
And that's the testimony. So it's fine to come up here and tell you because they want to fit their theory, that, well, he never he didn't see that Bronco out there, and do all this drama. But isn't it better to read the record if you want to be accurate, which I've just done for you?
Now, isn't it reasonable to ask Mr. Park also, ``Well, Mr. Park, if you were around the premises there and you were up at Ashford and down at Rockingham, did you ever hear a Bronco come driving up? Did you ever hear a door slam? Did you ever hear an engine of a Bronco?'' And, fortunately, we asked him some of those questions. I'd asked him about hearing a seeing a Bronco in the past, and remember, he talked about seeing one back in '88 or something of that nature. And so, then, I asked him this question.
``And would I be correct in assuming that those engines can be loud on occasion, those cars?'' Meaning the Broncos. Answer, ``Could be.'' Question, ``You didn't hear the engines on any cars or anything that sounded like a Ford Bronco that night, did you?'' Answer, ``No.''
Now, again, I've read from the transcript for you. I previously read to you about where Mr. Park said he saw Mr. Simpson in the entranceway of the house, and we'll put that aside. So we know that Mr. O.J. Simpson was preparing to leave for this trip that had been long planned. And when we summarize, then, the two timelines, it seems to me that their timeline is not even reasonable. It doesn't make any sense. It's a much less credible version than the testimony you've heard from our witnesses. Their version does in no way disprove the defense timeline. We don't have to even put that forth, but we did. There, then, must be a reasonable doubt.
Consider everything that Mr. Simpson would have had to have done in a very short time by their timeline. He would have had to drive over to Bundy, as they've described, in this little, limited time frame, when there's not enough time, killed two athletic people in a struggle that takes five to 15 minutes. Walked slowly from the scene. Returned to the scene, supposedly looking for a missing hat and glove, and poking around. Go back to this alley a second time. Drive more than 5 minutes to Rockingham, where nobody hears him or sees him. Either stop along the way to hide these bloody clothes and knives, et cetera, or take them in the house with him, where they'll still hoisted by their own petard because there's no blood, there's no trace, there's no nothing.
So that's why the prosecution has had to try and push back their timeline. Even to today, they're still pushing it back, because it doesn't make any sense, it doesn't fit. That's why they abandoned Ellen Aaronson, why they abandoned Dan Mandel, why they didn't want to call Denise Pilnak, why they didn't want to call Robert Heidstra. That's why we're now hearing this preposterous add-on of time that the thumps may have occurred at 10:15. That's Ms. Clark's wish list, but that's not the evidence in this case.
Now, let's turn our attention for a moment, and let's look at some other things that don't fit in this case. So, I started to say before, perhaps the single most defining moment in this trial is the day they thought they would conduct this experiment on these gloves. They had this big build-up with Mr. Rubin [sp], who had been out of the business for five, six, seven, eight, years. He'd been in marketing even when he was there. But they were going to try to demonstrate to you that these were the killer's gloves and these gloves would fit Mr. Simpson.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 17
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: I started to say before, perhaps the single most trying moment in this trial was the day they thought they would conduct this experiment on these gloves. They had this big buildup with Mr. Rubin, who had been out of the business for five, six, seven, eight years. He had been in marketing even when he was there. They were going to try to demonstrate to you that these were the killer's gloves and these gloves would fit Mr. Simpson. You don't need any photographs to understand this. I suppose that vision is indelibly imprinted in each and every one of your minds of how Mr. Simpson walked over here and stood before you and you saw, four simple words, the gloves didn't fit. And all their strategy started changing after that. Rubin was called back here more than all their witnesses, four times all together. Rubin testified more than the investigating officers in this case, because their case from that day forward was slipping away from them. And they knew, and they could never, ever recapture it. We may all live to be 100-years-old, and I hope we do, but you'll always remember that those gloves when Darden asked him to try them on didn't fit. They know they didn't fit. And no matter what they do, they can't make them fit. They can talk about latex gloves. It doesn't make any difference. They could talk about shrinkage. But we did something even better, didn't we. We brought a man who won the Dundaro Award [sp], Dr. Herbert MacDonell, who did an experiment on these Aris Light gloves. They wanted to talk about liquid or blood shrinking them. And you'll see it up there. What did he say? They don't shrink. Put as much blood as you can on them, they don't shrink. It doesn't work. They have the power of the state. They could have done their own demonstration. They didn't because you know he's right. So we went about and proved to you these things. We just didn't stand up here and speculate as to what it might be. We called a leading witness who came in and passed that on for you. You could see the overlays on there. They cannot explain that. They could have called witnesses. They didn't. We called the witness to prove beyond any doubt those gloves don't shrink. The gloves didn't fit Mr. Simpson because he's not the killer.
Now, then they will say, and Ms. Clark said the other day, ``Well, gee, these gloves have been thawed and they've been frozen and they've been'' all those things. But remember Susan Brockbank? Those gloves were measured on June 21, 1994. Those gloves are basically the same size now as they were June 21st. So that won't work. They come they tell you all these things, but it won't work. And so if you looked at gloves, and here's the overlay and there's something else about these gloves that I want to take a minute and share with you before we talk about Mr. Rubin and his testimony. You saw these pictures of the gloves. We had a couple of pairs of Aris Light. And when you have gloves that don't fit, you can hardly do anything with them. It's makes it very, very tough. I'll put on a pair of Aris Light gloves that are real tight, and you can see how tough it is to try to get these things on my hands. But I'll put them on anyway here. It's the same kind of gloves that Dr. MacDonell did his experiment with so there would be no mistake about the leather and all those things they like to talk about. It's hard to get on, not as hard as Mr. Simpson, but they're hard to get on. The reason I wanted you to see these gloves because they want to tell you that when you take off gloves you take them off by this V-portion. Remember this? Somebody testified you don't take off gloves that way. One of the People's witnesses said that. You don't take them off that way. So we're asked to believe that in this tremendous struggle that night in which Ron Goldman fought so valiantly that somehow or other in that struggle somebody took these gloves the way you pull gloves off I don't have to tell you this. You pull them off like this. Even Rubin knew this. You pull them off like this. The gloves came off like this, not through any way like that. And so I think it's interesting, you look at these gloves and you look at what they're trying to have you believe. They talked about in their rebuttal case about the glove pictures and the glove photographs. Remember that each of the glove photographs were taken are pictures of Mr. Simpson were taken in the winter. You know the evidence. Mr. Simpson was living in New York, generally, from August through January when he's at football season or working for NBC Sports. Generally, in Southern California, you don't need or wear winter dress gloves in California. You don't go skiing in Aris Light gloves. And you remember that the police, in searching Mr. Simpson's house remember Detective Lange? They searched O.J. Simpson house for gloves, for shoes, for clothes. They found one brown glove that I want you to look at at some point, the brown glove. It looks very similar to the brown gloves that Mr. Simpson objection?
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: [unintelligible].
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Sustained.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: One brown what? One brown glove?
MARCIA CLARK: [unintelligible].
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: This glove was picked up on June 28th. But what I was saying was this glove came out of Simpson's house. And I ask you to look at his glove. You'll have this back in the jury room. Look at it, compare it to some of the gloves he wore that day that the on the photographs. There were no Aris Light gloves in O.J. Simpson's house. That's the point. They took this one glove on June 28th. That's the point. And the point is, quite simply, Richard Rubin, let's put him into perspective. Bob Blasier questioned him. On his fourth trip here, we discovered a letter that he sent to the prosecution. This man had become a soldier in the prosecution's army. He wrote them a letter saying he wanted to come to their victory party. The problem with that letter was he wrote the letter before we ever had a chance to put on our case. That's solidifies the rush to judgment, doesn't it, because in America you have a right to wait until you hear all the evidence. That's what makes this country great. People are not making up their minds in the beginning. You don't decide a baseball game or a football game at halftime. You wait until the end. That was this judge tells you everyday. Keep an open mind until you've heard everything. But Rubin wasn't going to do that. He was getting ready for the victory party in his own letter that he wrote to them. And he asked further, ``Send me your cards. I want Mr. Hodgman's card and Ms. Clark's card,'' to build a memorial to himself on his wall, the number of times he'd come out here. You talk about people who want to be involved in this case? You stack him up to those other people who didn't want to be here. Richard Rubin is one of those people, and it goes to his bias. It goes to his interest. I'm telling you the facts. We've told you about this letter. He got a deal with that, if you're going to be fair and impartial in this case. And then, as with all the prosecution evidence, they're going to tell you that something is not like what it seems. They take a Bloomingdale's receipt in which there's no size or color or anything else on this receipt. And I find this particularly interesting because it's part and parcel of the prosecution case, isn't it, the way they've done things in this case. Look at this receipt from Bloomingdale's, and this is in evidence. We have the number for the Court, 372-B, Your Honor. This is this famous purchase in December of 1990, wasn't it? The number the style number is 70268. That's what it says. It doesn't say anything about 70263. It's two items. It says $77. Seventy-seven dollars is what it says for those two items. It doesn't anything about $55. It says $77. And it doesn't say anything about color or size or anything of that nature. It doesn't say anything about any mufflers. And yet you've been treated and told, oh, these had to be Aris Light gloves. That looks like a computer generated receipt. I wonder how if it was incorrectly inputted it didn't spit it out. This transaction apparently went through, and whatever was purchased was purchased. The point is it's part of, again, the weakness of the prosecution's case in telling you one thing and the record shows something else. You don't have any receipt anywhere when you get back that says anything about any 70263. You don't have one witness who ever says that Nicole Brown Simpson bought any Aris Lights and gave them to O.J. Simpson. There is no such witness because it didn't happen, and the rest of it is speculation and theory on their part. Cynical speculation, I might add, to try to rush to judgment and win at any cost. Now, you heard during Mr. Darden's effective argument last night a lot of statements. And just before I get to that part, let me say a couple of other things about Mr. Rubin. It might be appropriate. Remember, Mr. Rubin is an interesting witness. When he was brought back out her this last time, he was asked, ``Well, look, how many glove manufacturers are there in the world?'' I mean, he acknowledged there are over 100. And then Bob Blasier asked him a question, ``Well, you know, how many did you check with?'' ``Two.'' He check with two, and then he stopped looking, because, remember, he found out that this Brosser [sp] stitching could be made on Singer sewing machines. Some of you may know about may know more about that than I do, but they stopped making them after a period of time. But he stopped looking after a period of time, never called anybody else. And that's interesting because that compares the way the prosecution witnesses have conducted themselves throughout. Compare the fact that he stopped looking after two with Agent Martz, who finds three of the four things you need to find EDTA on this sock and the back gate. Rather looking carefully for the characteristic the fourth one, he stopped searching. He used the far less discriminating test. Consider the EAPB found under Nicole Brown Simpson's fingernails where they try to come in and tell you it's a degraded BA. And on cross-examination, again, Blasier got Matheson to admit there was no specific support in any of the literature for a BA degrading to a B, and this was, by all accounts, a double bandit B. The reason they didn't want to pursue that because she may have scratched somebody with a B type. But they never pursued those things. The second hat at Bundy, the Bundy location inside when the defense investigator finds his hat, nobody wanted to collect it. They refused, in fact, to collect it. When we, in this trial, before you discovered that evidence had been moved at Bundy, that a key piece of evidence, the piece of paper, had disappeared, they didn't do anything to find out about it that we know of. I'm concerned about those kinds of things. But it's important. And when you look at Rubin, because you put him along with the other prosecution witnesses and the things that they've had to say. I've told you about that Bloomingdale's receipt. I told you about Brenda Vemich [sp], who came in. One other thing about Brenda Vemich that was interesting. She was the lady who that was the day I won't forget that day ever probably because that was the day that she's a pretty tough witness. I was just trying to talk about receipts and things. She's pretty tough. And I was asking some questions. Remember, we asked her the question, ``Well, who was the lady who was the person who was the salesperson for this?'' And that lady, whose name was Hollings or something like that, was in this building, and they never called her, on that receipt. They didn't have to call her, but we know she was here because Brenda Vemich told us about that. We also learned something else about these gloves, that even an extra-large there's probably three different sizes. There's the undersized, the standard, and the oversized. And it depends what lot you get. That's what it boils down to, ladies and gentlemen. We know that. That makes sense, doesn't it. And so when you look at everything regarding these gloves by the way, the lady's name was Holina Phipps, P-H-I-P-P-S. She was in the courthouse and of course was never called by the prosecution. She was the actual sales clerk. But I think that the important thing about these gloves that Mr. Rubin was helping us with, in a couple of the pictures of the photographs of the gloves, Mr. Simpson obviously had a heat pack on his hands inside the gloves. You could see the heat pack. If you've lived in cold weather, you know about that. And try though they will about shrinking and they're going to show you, ``Gee, it's raining out there,'' and they're doing all those things, isn't that preposterous about they will do anything to try to control and distort the facts, try to get away from that tactical mistake of showing you the gloves didn't fit. They spent all this time on that, and the gloves still don't fit. Rubin can't help you. Rubin is biased. They can't find those gloves because O.J. Simpson has never had those gloves. For them to say otherwise is rank speculation.
Now, as I said with Mr. Darden, we heard a lot of information about this so-called domestic discord that he talked about last night and today. And, you know, you've been told in this case over and over again that you are to do your job devoid of sympathy or passion or emotion. And I dare say you are very, very intelligent people, and it is very, very hard for any of us to sit here and have to look at photographs of dead bodies, people who did not deserve to die. This case is about who committed these crimes.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 18
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: [in progress] photographs of dead bodies, people who did not deserve to die. This case is about who committed these crimes. They're trying to make you and the audience cry about what happened back on June 12th. They can do it over and over again, but it's not going to work because you understand this case is not about trying to appeal to your emotions. This case is about the facts and whether these facts establish guilt or innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. You all understand that.
So, we heard last night and were treated to this morning some very, very interesting observations by my learned colleague, Mr. Darden. Let me start off by sharing with you, and I'll use his board, on evidence of other crimes. Now, this is interesting because Mr. Darden started off by saying, ``Well, you know, we're going to put together this other piece. It's not really one of the elements of the crime of murder, motive, but we're going to talk to you about motive now. We're going to tell you and convince you about the motive in this case.'' And then he spent a long time trying to do that. As I say, he did a fine job and to address the facts and to conjure up a lot of emotion. But you notice how at the end he kind of petered out steam there, and I'm sure he got tired, but petered out because this fuse he kept talking about kept going out. It never blew up; it never exploded. There was no triggering mechanism. There was nothing that would lead you to that. It was a nice analogy. It was almost like that baby analogy of baby justice and the house of fire.
You don't have to go through any house of fire. You just have to keep your eyes on the prize, and the prize is justice. It's a city called justice, and it's a journey that your leading toward. That's all you got to do.
And so this is what this is all about. It's evidence of other crimes. The court Mr. Darden kind of looked at this, ``Oh, jury, judge, well, whatever limited purpose.'' But let's talk about the limited purpose for which all of his argument was about. When you talk about this evidence of other crimes, such evidence was received excuse me, sir and may be considered by you only for the limited purpose of determining if it tends to show a characteristic method or plan or scheme about identity or motive, for the limited purpose for which you may consider such evidence, you must weigh it in the same manner as you do all other evidence in the case. You are not permitted to consider such evidence for any other purpose.
So, this isn't about character assassination of O.J. Simpson, which you might think at first blush. This is about Mr. Darden trying to conjure up a motive for you. And at the outset let me say that no, none, not one little bit of domestic violence is tolerable between a man and a woman. O.J. Simpson is not proud of that 1989 incident. He's not proud of it. But you know what? He paid his debt to that. He went to court. He went through those that program. And the one good thing, and no matter how long Darden talked, from 1989 to now, is never any physical violence between O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson. And those are the facts. He kept going back and forth to '85, '89, '93. But there's no physical violence.
In fact, let's look at the incidents that he talked about just quickly. And keep this in mind, this is supposedly for the limited purpose of determining if it tends to show a common scheme and plan, identity or motive only for that limited purpose. So, keep that in mind. He didn't bother reading all this to you. Let me read you something else again that goes along with this as we consider this evidence. The court has already instructed you about motive. And I listened very carefully as my friend read this, and he got to one part and he stopped, but I want to read you the rest of it. ``Motive is not an element of the crime charged and need not be shown. However, you may consider motive or lack of motive as a circumstance in this case. Presence of motive may tend to establish guilt'' And he stopped after that, last night. Let me read you the rest of it. ``Absence of motive may tend to establish innocence. You will therefore give its presence or absence, as the case may be, the weight to which you feel or find it is entitled.''
I wonder why he didn't you read you the part about absence of motive in this case? Because as long as he stood up here and tried to talk you, he couldn't show any physical violence after 1989. He could talk about 1985 the incident involving the Mercedes. Mr. Simpson wasn't arrested then. He could talk about 1993, and certainly you'd hate to think that two people could have an argument like that, but there was no physical violence. In fact, the police came out, if you recall, and did some further taping. These people were upset and they were arguing, but they never fought on this occasion. They never there were no blows in this occasion. And certainly no one wants you, if you think in your background, would not want your worst argument ever tape recorded. O.J. Simpson had, perhaps, is worst argument tape recorded.
And then he had the audacity to stand up here and say, ``Well, they didn't call Lenore Walker.'' We didn't call Lenore Walker because it wasn't necessary. They could have called her. Talked about me, her having some tests that showed that Mr. Simpson was not antisocial, had no antisocial personality. If that wasn't true, why didn't he call her? Because you don't have to call all witnesses. Just like he said, at some point, all of us, I think, got the message. There are certain horrors of sequestration. I dare say, we could still be trying this case left to our own devices. Somebody had to have some good sense in this court room. We had to bring this matter to a close. We did what we set out to do to demonstrate to you reasonable doubt. We think we've done that. We could call a lot more witnesses that I talked to you about in opening statement, but I don't think that's necessary.
Another word on opening statement. In opening statement I stood before you, and I told you this is what we expect to show. This is not evidence. That was in January. This is what I would hope the evidence would show because the witness that I didn't feel was credible or we didn't feel was credible, I wouldn't call that witness. If a witness was not available, we didn't call that witness. If we didn't feel a witness was necessary, we wouldn't call that witness. The defense doesn't have to prove anything. We've done that in this case proved things however, but we don't have to prove anything.
So, the witness wasn't called. Don't hold that against O.J. Simpson. You hold that against me. And I don't think you can hold that against me because the defendant doesn't have to prove anything. And remember, the judge has already instructed you as follows. Let me read it to you again, so we make this clear. Maybe Mr. Darden will remember this. ``This prosecution has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt each element of the crimes charged in the information and that the defendant was a perpetrator of any such crimes such charged crimes. The defendant is not required to prove himself innocent or to prove that another person committed the crimes charged.'' Well, that law is not just for O.J. Simpson. That's the law of the State of California for everyone, and they know it. I told you at the beginning in this search for truth, in your courage, we cannot let them turn the Constitution on its head. I am going to be your reminder of that.
So, continuing on. He talks about what might sound like character assassination over and over again about these incidents of controlling and jealous rage, and just because he says that, it supposedly makes it so. Isn't it interesting? Seventeen years these folks were married, had two beautiful kids, a beautiful life. Think they had any good time together? Think they'd ever want to talk about any of the good times? Think about even after '93. You remember they got a divorce, on their chart, in 1992. They tried to get back together. Dr. Christian Reichardt told you. It wasn't O.J. Simpson. It was Nicole Brown Simpson who asked to get back together in 1993. They tried to work it out for about a year. They didn't live together, but they tried to work it out. They talked about this. They tried to date exclusively. They tried to salvage a 17-year marriage. And you could understand that. It was her idea. It didn't work out. And they went their separate ways. The evidence is he'd been dating Paula Barbieri back in 1992 for almost a year, but when he got back with his wife in April or May of '93, he stopped dating her. When he broke up with his wife again, he started dating her again. He wanted to give it fair shot. Remember Arnelle Simpson they would wake up sometimes in the morning and Ms. Nicole Brown Simpson would be over there with the kids at the house? This was during this period of time. They were trying to get back and get along. They all went to Cabo San Lucas. They had a good life together.
It is interesting how the prosecution doesn't want to talk about that at all. In their cynical view of life, they took two or three incidents and say this just tells us the whole picture. Well, all of us, all of us, there's more to the entire picture. And I ask you rhetorically this question. Who would know O.J. Simpson better his mother Eunice, his sister Shirley, his sister Carmelita, his daughter Arnelle or Marcia Clark and Chris Darden? Who do you think knows him when they sit up here and talk about his public persona, and he's got this dark side? Those are all just words. He's a human being, and he's not perfect. He's not proud of some of the things he did, but they don't add up to murder. There's no escalation of force and violence after 1989. It's not there. We don't have to call Lenore Walker. Your common sense tells you this.
And then he goes into this kind of make believe fantasy world where he's going to try tell you on June 12th, he's going to conjure up this rage. June 12th very interesting day, isn't it? It's wonderful that we live in the age of video tape because he tells you about how O.J. Simpson was. Cindy Garvey was telling you about how O.J. Simpson he was a mean, dark brooding person at this concert, that he was going to kill his ex-wife because he didn't like his seats. I guess that that's what it was about, that he didn't like his seats or because he didn't get invited to dinner. Can you imagine that? That's how silly what they're talking about is in this case as the tries to play out this drama. But let me show you, rather than talk, a picture is worth a thousand words. So, let me show this video. You watch this video for a moment, and then we'll talk about it. This is for Chris Darden.
Now, you'll recognize some of the people in this photograph after a while. There's Mr. Simpson kissing Denise Brown, kissing Ms. Juditha Brown. There's Mr. Louis Brown. He's talking to a friend. That's his son Justin, whom he kisses. Smiling and happily waving. Mr. Brown is happy. Laughing, falling Laughing again, bending over laughing. Now, you see that. You see that with your own eyes. You'll have that back in that jury room.
Now, how does that comport with this tortured, twisted reasoning that he was angry and in some kind of jealous rage? [unintelligible] he in a jealous rage like that to you? Your eyes aren't lying to you when you see that. Thank heaven we have video tape. I didn't tell you about that in opening statement. Think that's pretty compelling? Thank heaven we have that. And we know in this city how important video tapes can be when people don't believe things, even when they see it on video tapes. And you saw that yourself. So, when you're back there, somebody tries to tell you there was some kind of jealous rage on June 12th, look at O.J. Simpson interacting with the Brown family and everyone else. It doesn't fit. It doesn't make any sense. He isn't brooding. He's not angry. He kisses these family members. He's laughing and joking. He's playing with his son Justin. Those are the facts, not what I made up. These are items that don't fit.
And if you want to go a little bit further, let's talk about what we know about him that evening. That video, it's what about six o'clock in the evening? Let's start at six o'clock on June 12th. We know he had a good day that day. He had a good week. We'll talk about part of the week during demeanor, but let's just talk about that part of the evening. At six o'clock he's at that recital. You know, you go to a recital because you're proud of your child. You know at these recital, and you all can think back and those of you don't have kids, you'll live for this day, you know these programs are [unintelligible]. Your child is like 33 or 34 on the program. You love everybody else's child, but sometimes you don't want to sit there during the whole thing, you know.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 19
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: [in progress] You know, and at these recitals and you all can think back, and those of you who don't have kids, they live for this day. You know, these programs are long, and your child is like 33 or 34th on the program. You love everybody else's child, but sometimes you don't want to sit there during the whole thing, you know? We're told some stuff about he moved the chair around. Is there an auditorium where you can move chairs around. Those auditorium seats are like those, you can't move those seats around. This is preposterous. Mr. Darden wasn't in that auditorium.
And even after that video, like any proud Papa, you know what O.J. Simpson did? Took a picture, a photograph, with his daughter. Let's look at this photograph for a minute. You want to see how he looks while he's in this murderous rage, while this fuse is going on that Darden talks about? Where's the fuse now, Mr. Darden? Where is the fuse? Look at that look on his face, like any proud papa. He's proud of that little girl, and who wouldn't be proud of her? This is post the dance recital. She has the flowers apparently he went out and bought for her. He's standing there with her. The photograph's taken. There's no way of he would have no way of knowing that would be important. He'd have no way of knowing that Chris Darden someday would stand before you and try to make you believe that that man was in a murderous rage at that same time and that we would bring forward that picture so you would see it with your own eyes, so you could understand.
What exhibit is that, Mr. Douglas, sir? Look on the back of it. It's a smaller one. OK. We'll get that for you, Your Honor.
So, thank heaven, again, for the visual. A photograph is worth 1,000 words. So he could speak 1,000 words, and I could show you one photograph. He could speak 1,000 more words, and I could show you that video. And what it does is it puts the lie to this theory about some kind of murderous rage. But we don't just stop there. We didn't just stop there, because this is serious business. A man's life is at stake.
So, what do we do? We talk to Gigi Guarin, his housekeeper. O.J. Simpson, by and large, has a great relationship with all the women in his life, and you've met a number of them. Gigi Guarin is the housekeeper. So she came in here and the great witness, said that she was at Knotts Berry Farm on June 12th. She was out with her family, and at eight o'clock, she wanted to stay over, because she was due to come home that evening. She said, ``Can I stay over?'' And Mr. Simpson says, ``Yes, you may.'' And so, I asked her, ``How did he sound to you?'' Sounded like Mr. O.J. Simpson always sounds, the employer that she knows, the relationship that she has with him. You saw her. You observed her. You saw her go through the cross-examination. Seem believable to you? Eight o'clock. I think so. I think you'll find so.
Then, we know that it's nine o'clock. He talked to Christian Reichardt, his friend, Dr. Christian Reichardt. And you saw Christian Reichardt come in here and talk to you. I thought he made a very, very good witness, from the standpoint of what he had to say. He told you that O.J. Simpson sounded even happier than usual. He was more jovial. He had his life back together and he was moving on. Now, isn't that interesting? Isn't that an interesting way of looking at circumstantial evidence?
Let me show you how we differ in this case. The doctor witness comes in and says O.J. Simpson is jovial at nine o'clock on June 12th. Pretty good evidence, wouldn't you say? I think you'd love to have that. Anybody would in a case where you're supposedly in a murderous rage. Instead of Chris Darden standing here and saying, ``Well, you know, that's pretty tough evidence for us to overcome,'' he says O.J. Simpson was happy because he was going to kill his wife. Now, if you believe that, I suppose I might as well sit down now and I'm probably wasting my time. I don't think any of you believe that. That is preposterous. It flies in the face of everything that is reasonable, if you have these two reasonable hypothesis. His isn't even reasonable. But, assuming reasonable, you'd have to doubt this, that he's jovial, he's happy.
They make a date for that next Wednesday when O.J. Simpson returns from back East. You remember that? That's the testimony. Now, Mr. Darden tries to make a big thing of the fact, ``Well, gee, you know, golly, was he depressed about the fact that they had broken up or they'd finally broken up?'' He said, ``Yeah, he'd been down,'' but he never said he was depressed, said he was down or upset, and who wouldn't be? Remember the last questions I asked? If you had just ended a 17-year relationship and it was over, you'd feel down for a short period of time you've got your life on. You wouldn't go kill your ex-wife, the mother of your children. O.J. Simpson didn't try to kill or didn't kill Nicole Brown Simpson when they got a divorce, when they went through whatever settlement they went through, when Faye Resnick moved in. When any of these things, none of these things happened.
But, because of their rush to judgment, they have to try to come up with some kind of a motive that doesn't make any sense. It doesn't stop with just Christian Reichardt and what he had to say, and of course, I have his testimony also, of what he said. He talked about the demeanor of the various people he talked about. But most importantly, he talked about O.J. Simpson's demeanor and how it was that night, and how he appeared to be.
Let me just read you this part here. This is 42537, counsel.
Question, ``Now, with regard to the statement about whether or not you talked about Ms. Nicole Brown Simpson,'' that was not the thrust of any of that conversation, was it?'' Answer, ``Not at all.'' ``This wasn't on his mind. This time, he's talking about getting ready to go to McDonald's. In fact, do you recall that Mr. Simpson had said that to you, that he was out of the loop, that he was glad to be out of the loop, that he'd gotten his life together with his new lady? Remember him telling you that?'' Answer, ``That's correct.'' ``And who was that new lady?'' ``Answer, Paula Barbieri.''
Let me just take a moment about Paula Barbieri. One of the most outrageous things that you heard yesterday was this wild speculation that O.J. Simpson had had some kind of falling out with Paula Barbieri on that Sunday. Where is the evidence of that? I mean, that's preposterous. The evidence is quite to the contrary. Do you remember, when O.J. Simpson came back into town on Friday, the first person who met him and they spent the evening together, is Paula Barbieri. And it was interesting because I I was having trouble hearing her. She said, ``I stayed at the house 'til one of you reminded me,'' she said, ``Then I went to the prayer meeting,'' is when she left. They'd been together that day.
And then, on the very next day, they went to this this dinner in support of Israel, and I guess Mr. Douglas can show us that. This is that dinner. I guess he's really working up that murderous rage that day with those little ladies that he's with. They seem to be really happy to be taking a picture with him, had no idea we'd ever have to use this to show counter-balance, this specious, cynical, speculative theory that he's had some kind of a time fuse. But that photograph again demonstrates that. And then we have the testimony of the lady who was there, Carol Connor, about what she called that ``exquisite moment.'' And I suppose that she's an artist. You can tell by the way she was dressed when she was here, and she's written this Academy Award-winning love tune and I guess she sees things, maybe, that we don't quite see. But she said it was an ``exquisite moment'' between O.J. Simpson and Paula Barbieri as they were in each other's arms at that particular dinner. Remember, she told you that? Was he thinking about Nicole at that point? Only in Chris Darden's mind. Not in yours, and not in anything else reasonable. And, so, you have, again, these photographs and these word pictures, which I think amply destroys this.
So, he continues on about Paula Barbieri. He says, ``You knew about Paula Barbieri. Isn't that correct?'' ``Yes, I did.'' ``Also, Mr. Simpson had told you that he began dating Paula Barbieri on a regular basis. Isn't that correct?'' Answer, ``Yeah.'' ``And that you had said and indicated to the police in an interview, Mr. Simpson seemed to like Paula a lot and seemed happy, or, at least, happier, than he had been before once he was with Paula? Isn't that correct?'' ``That's correct, yes.''
``That's what you told the police, isn't it, sir?'' ``That's correct.'' ``When you talked to the police, Dr. Reichardt, were you telling them the truth?'' Answer, ``Absolutely.'' ``And when you were coming here today to testify to this jury,a re you telling them the truth?'' Answer, ``Absolutely.''
And, so, once again, I haven't tried to speculate. I've read to you what the witness said. Now, now what about this thing that Darden keeps talking about, that he knows isn't so, that the police had been out there eight times on so-called domestic discord cases? And he told you that a whole bunch of times. This is why you have to look with some suspicion at what the prosecutors tell you in this case. You remember remember Officer Farrell, the officer who, was a sergeant, I believe, who, after the '89 incident, went back to the station to try and check and see whether or not there'd ever been any other incidents where any of the police officers in that division, in west Los Angeles, had been called? You check your notes. And so, what he did was, he had occasion to check for other domestic discord incidents.
This becomes rather important later, as you're going to see. So he talks to us. He says the question is, ``All right. So you talked to some officers. How many? Just tell me a number, how many officers did you talk to all together?'' Answer, ``I can't recall. Maybe 10.'' ``And did you take any reports from any of those officers?'' Answer, ``I requested if they had any information, to write out a report and give it to me.''
Question, ``And you got a report from one officer, did you not?'' Answer, ``That's correct.'' Question, ``And that officer's name is?'' ``Mark Fuhrman.'' Question, ``That's correct. And is that the only written report that you received?''
So, now, when Darden stands up here and talks to you about these eight incidents or whatever where there there's nothing happened, they checked with at least ten other police officers in that division. Nobody had any recollection of anything of going out there. Now, we know from Shipp, the police would stop by there. We know that. Shipp told us that. There's some photograph in evidence of O.J. Simpson with Shipp and maybe some other police officers. That was a place they would stop by on occasion. But this eight to tell you eight to ten times when we know that was their own witness, Farrell.
Then, he has the audacity to tell you about stalking. He tells you, in opening statement, he's going to tell you and show you O.J. Simpson was stalking Nicole Brown Simpson. Now, this is the prosecutor. Did he prove one incident of stalking? Absolutely not. In fact, yesterday, when he sat up here and told you about O.J. Simpson looking in the window of Nicole Brown Simpson's house, I was somewhat dismayed. So, I thought, ``Gee, I better get the transcript out again,'' since the record is the best evidence, not what they say. Because they say it's so isn't so. They said that themselves.
But, so, we talked about this, and you remember Mr. Colby? Colby and Coe, the two people who lived next door to Nicole on Gretna Green. Do you remember them? You remember those two? And Mr. Colby was testifying on this date. It's counsel, it's 13176. ``I saw him observe the residence next door and walk around the corner, which would be southerly, and westerly on Shetland, and go back around again and look again at the residents.''
``Well, let me just stop you there, all right, so that it is clear. When you first saw the man who was on the sidewalk five feet from Nicole Brown's driveway'' There's an objection. ``Yes.'' ``Then he walked in a southerly direction and then back around the corner. Our house is on the corner like this,'' indicating. ``He then went southerly and then westerly, and then back around again.''
``OK. Did he walk back to the same spot he was in when you saw him initially?'' ``Yes, he did.'' And he goes on to talk about him walking within five yards of Nicole Brown Simpson's driveway and then walks back. And, you remember, this was the incident where the Mr. Colby said he was embarrassed because he saw this black man in Brentwood and he called the police, and then he found out it was O.J. Simpson.
Now, nowhere are you going to find, in that testimony, that O.J. Simpson was up looking in a window or stalking anybody. He was on the sidewalk out there. He was only waiting for his wife or the kids to come home, and then he left. That's how the People have twisted and turned things in this case. That becomes his incident of stalking. And when you go back and you look at this evidence, and you I know you're going to fair and honorable. You look at this and you'll see, you'll make short work of this. You'll make short work of an emotional argument. It was very emotional, but it doesn't add up, it doesn't fit. It wasn't factual. It's for a limited purpose. And here may be the coup de gras.
All of these things are supposedly for a motive, to show how somebody might have acted on June 12th. Interesting, isn't it? Again, in the words of Shakespeare, they're hoisted by their own petard. They talk about these incidents involving Nicole and Mr. O.J. Simpson. Every time they would have an argument, everybody would know about it, whether it was in '89 or it was in '93. They would everybody would know about it, because it would be loud. They'd be arguing back and forth. There was drinking on the time in '89, January 1st. Remember what the evidence was they'd both been drinking? It certainly doesn't make it right, but they were loud arguments. Everybody knew about it.
What kind of characteristic is that in this case? This is a case about stealth. This is a case about somebody who, it seems to me, is a professional assassin who kills these two people. And the thing that is so outrageous, for them to stand here and tell you that this is this is all about Nicole Brown Simpson. Have any of you thought, during the last year, what if the perpetrators were after Ron Goldman and that envelope that he had in his hand that Dr. Lee found that smear on? Who in this courtroom would know? The rest is speculation.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 20
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: [in progress] an envelope that he had in his hand that Dr. Lee found that smear on. Who in this court room would know? The rest is speculation. This is their theory that they tried to come up with. We don't know. This is a case of reasonable doubt. This is a case of an innocent man wrongfully accused. They can't answer those questions. No one can know the circumstances.
And so we move and look at other things that don't fit. We know that there was this terrific struggle involving primarily Mr. Goldman Mr. Goldman as he fought for his life. Why no bruises on Mr. Simpson's body? Admittedly this was a violent struggle involving two very, very fit adults. And let's look briefly at the bruises on Mr. Goldman's hands.
I don't think we have to cut the feed on this, Your Honor. I don't believe
Remember we talked about this in opening statement. And that large bruise on the knuckle, according to Dr. Baden and others, is consistent with Mr. Goldman's fight that he put up for his life. And he struck something, probably a person at that point. But Ms. Clark and the others can't even admit that. In the face of doctors, a doctor who did the re-autopsy, re-examination of the death involving Dr. Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy, tells you one thing. The prosecutors say, ``Oh, no, no. It must have been, he must have been flailing back, must have hit his hand against a tree or something like that.'' Only the facts that they want to put into this little, contorted theory. But we proved to you otherwise. We proved to you what's reasonable under the circumstances. So, I think you saw that in my opening, and I think that is further evidence this was a very, very real fight. And of course in a real fight, in real life, fights are awkward and clumsy, oft times the combatants are rolling around on the ground. One of the very interesting things in this case is this dug out area near Mr. Goldman's body.
The feed should be cut.
This area, I thought, was very, very interesting. Remember I asked Detective Lange about this, and this is going to become very, very important later on. See this area, this dug out area? Remember, there's the pager over there? And there's this dug out area. That gives you some idea of the ferocity of this altercation that took place. Remember Dr. Henry Lee talked about blood all around in this area, the keys one place, the beeper some place else? This dug out area interesting, isn't it? Now, think with me for a moment. If you fought for five to fifteen minutes in an area like that, I suppose both parties would have a lot of bruises and marks on them, wouldn't they? Mr. Goldman did, and I bet you his perpetrator does.
But there's something else again. They want to tell you and you hear a lot about socks before we're finished that these socks, these socks that all of a sudden appear for that video at the foot of his bed were being worn by Mr. O.J. Simpson. Well, ladies and gentlemen when you see these socks, where do you think the dirt and dust was on these socks? Now, let's see if they ever can explain this. Where was the dirt that was thrown up and moved around on these socks? You're not going to see any. You're not going to see any dirt because those socks weren't there. You see that dirt. You see that dug out. You remember this photograph. What number is this, Mr. Douglas?
Mr. DOUGLAS: 783, Your Honor.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: You remember when you talk about this case and you wonder whether or not there's a reasonable doubt whether or not this is an innocent man wrongfully accused. And so you look at this. Wouldn't you expect common sense would tell you there'd be bruises and nicks, when they kicked there'd be marks on all the perpetrators. With the heavy foliage there, with the fence and the trees, you would expect scratches on everyone, whereas Mr. Goldman has more than 30 stab wounds, you would expect this struggle five to fifteen minutes to have left that. But there's nothing like that in this case. Nothing like that on Mr. Simpson's body and you've seen that before and you'll see it again.
Now, in this case
Mr. DOUGLAS: Exhibit 429, Your Honor.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Thank you.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: In this case, in the opening statement I showed you that Bob Shapiro's foresight and wisdom, he had these photographs taken, I think, on June 15th. Instead of praising this lawyer, who was interested in the truth, the prosecution says, well, they went to Dr. Huizenga, that wasn't really his doctor. Isn't that preposterous. Dr. Huizenga, by all accounts, is a qualified doctor. He was the Raiders team doctor. I suppose he's qualified. This is Mr. O.J. Simpson's body as it appeared on June 15th. Wouldn't you expect to see a lot of bruises and marks on that body?
See his back? So he's not very flattering but this is not about flattery, it's about his life. Now on his hands. There's some slight abrasions on his hands, but nothing consistent with a fight like this. You know it. I know it. We all know it and we'll talk more about this, this so-called fish hook cut and where he got that. It'll become very clear when we talk about demeanor, where that came from. Miss Clark wants to try to confuse that, but that's very, very clear. And so, with regard to Mr. Simpson's physical condition, I won't just tell you to take my word, to stand there and say, oh, he had he was in great shape on that day or he looked good or whatever. Fortunately we had photographs again. We had graphic evidence of this man's body. This man had not been in a life and death struggle from five to fifteen minutes. Miss Clark herself said it. She used a boxing analogy, saying that a boxer's fight for three minutes per round, sometimes there's a knockout in the first round, but in this instance we know, because of the way the injuries were and the blood, this lasted for this period of time. This was a violent struggle. That man that you saw up there was not involved in that violent struggle and so we did call Bob Shapiro called Dr. Robert Huizenga as a witness in this case and you recall that Dr. Huizenga was a very, very seemed to me a very credible, honest witness. What did he say? He said that O.J. Simpson looks like Tarzan but the moves more like Tarzan's grandfather. That's not to say that O.J. Simpson wouldn't be capable of committing a crime. That's never what we were trying to say. What we were trying to say was that see this man for who he is. See this man for the arthritis that he suffers. Look, everybody in his family suffers with arthritis. You saw his mother. You heard his sister and you heard that he has it worse than they have. But he can still play golf, he can still do that. And some of you, I hope, don't, but if you have it in the early stages, you know what it is, certainly on certain days. What I think it means is you don't go out looking for anybody to be in an altercation with. O.J. Simpson, by all accounts, has trouble with lateral movement, moving from side to side, because you saw, when had him come over here, those knee operations that basically spelled NFL, National Football League. Four or five times on the left knee, may be a couple of times on the right knee. That's the price that a running back pays plays. And while I'm talking about running backs, wasn't it interesting yesterday that Miss Clark in her argument says O.J. Simpson was a football player and he has to run through the line and he has the killer instinct. Now isn't that really stretching , ladies and gentlemen. O.J. Simpson hasn't played football for 15 years. The man is 46 years old now. He's not going to run with anything anymore. But she doesn't know much about sports does she, because a running back avoids trying to be hit. That's what he does. The problem with them they don't block. They always run. they try to get out of the way. So, he's not looking for contact. He gets tackled. But running backs don't try to run over anybody, only like may be Jim Brown or somebody like that. Most of them run out of bounds. So, I mean, they grab at everything. Killer instinct, played football 15 years ago and he was the best at what he did. He won the Heisman Trophy, according to his daughter, the day she was born, enigmatic of the best football player in America. And so, this was brought to you only to give you some further factors about who this man is, what limitations, if any, he has, to give you a complete picture of who he is.
Now we shift our attention to Mr. O.J. Simpson's demeanor and I want you to examine with me the conduct both before and after June 12th, 1994 and the manner in which this man reacted and handled himself. You remember, let's start off with the week before. We could have gone further back. You know from the evidence that he travels all the time. He hardly has any time to have any fuse for anything. He's never here. He's always travelling for Hertz. He's doing something with sports. He's not here. This particular week was typical of the kind of weeks he has it seems. he was here on Monday. On Tuesday, he and Paula Barbieri got together and met with this interior designer who'd done work on his house before. She brought out that he's done other work on that house. To change the bathroom around and do some other work. She had a budget and they gave her a check. Now, it's so interesting, isn't it. You change your house or get some work done and Mr. Darden says that's to get Nicole out of the house. Is that stupid? I mean, does that make any sense to you? That's preposterous. The man's moved on with his life. He's having some work done. Some interior decorating work done. We proved that. He can't see the positive side of that. O.J. Simpson, a check for Collins and Collins, it was Mary Collins, June 7th, $1,000. That was a down payment on the work she was gonna do. Again, you saw her. You saw her come in. This work was to be done. They wanted to do it and Paula Barbieri played a role and a great part in that work. After that, he was on the road. He went back East to play golf with Jack McKay and you saw Jack McKay and you know they were golf buddies, it was a Hertz thing or not a Hertz thing, this was this association of retired something or other play golf. But the most important thing I thought, was Mr. McKay indicated, that there was the foursome. Mr. McKay indicated that he observed Mr. Simpson walking and walking with a limp. You'll recall that. And then we cam to the Carol Connor dinner, where Carol Connor observed the magic moment on this Saturday. And then we called witnesses from the family and just before we take the dinner break, let's talk briefly about these witnesses from the family and what they had to say.
The first called, Arnelle Simpson. You saw Arnelle on the stand. Arnelle Simpson, the defendant's daughter, born the day he won the Heismann trophy. Now any daughter would be proud an want to testify for her father. But you saw her on the stand. You got a chance to judge her like you do the other witnesses, to observe her credibility and what she had to tell you. She told you that her father always rushed around. I'll tell you something about him too, and when she got out of college at Howard University and she wanted to come home, he had a place for her to come home to. You know, children go away and they come back a lot these days. So, Kato Kaelin, they make a big thing about Kato Kaelin living there. You know, I choose to think it says something about O.J. Simpson. He didn't owe Kato Kaelin anything. He wanted to say like, I don't want you living with my wife, we're trying to get back together.[unintelligible] trying to get back together. He didn't say that. He let him come and live there in the other guest house. They turned that around as something bad. That's something positive about this man who with such dignity has sat there for all these months. this human being, this Orenthal James Simpson. That tells you something about him. And so, his daughter tells you a lot about him. You can tell a lot about a person I suppose by their children. It tells you a lot about him and their living together and their life together and what he meant. About how her little brothers and sisters would come over there in the early morning hours after they were trying to get together in 1994 in May, they'd be out by the pool and she'd see them. But the kind of life they had together and the dogs that they purchased and the kind of thing they did. They were a little bit of the other side of what these incidents they want to talk about in the distant past, the way O.J. Simpson really is and really was. You saw her and you observed her and she told you how her father reacted when he got the news that his ex-wife had been killed. She told you she had never before heard her father sound like that, how upset he was, how he lost control of himself, how distraught he was. You heard her. You saw her on that stand. That's why we called her, so you'd have a better understanding, because we knew, I knew there would come a day that Marcia Clark would stand here and say well, you know, he didn't react like somebody does when they get this information, just like she did yesterday. But what Miss Clark forgot, because I examined Detective Phillips and you look through your notes. the first thing that O.J. Simpson said to Detective Phillips was ``What do you mean she's been killed.'' And then he kept repeating himself and repeating himself, and Phillips, to his credit, said he became very, very upset, kept repeating himself and Phillips gave the phone to Arnelle Simpson so they can make she can she can, again, theorize, fantasize all she wants. Well, he didn't ask if it was a car accident. Have you ever had some bad news given to you. There's no book that you go to. The only book you should go to is The Bible or your God, whomever you believe in to help get you through it. There's nothing that says how you would handle yourself in those times. The prosecutors don't understand that. They're gonna stand here and tell you that that's preposterous. This man was upset and you're gonna see that everything he did from that moment that he found out that his ex-wife had been killed was consistent only with innocence absolutely that day. And so, Arnelle Simpson helps us in that regard. She's followed to the stand by Carmelita Durio [sp], his sister, loves her brother. But you knew that. She was called to talk about Ron Shipp, one of the witnesses in this case that the prosecution called. It's interesting, isn't it that neither one of the prosecutors wanted to talk about this dream because I think they're embarrassed by this. They didn't talk about it. They should be embarrassed. A dream. You listened to evidence about some dream. Was it a day dream? Was it a night dream? Was it a nightmare? Was he looking out the window? What did he mean? Even the judge, in his instruction, you can totally disregard and you had to figure out I mean, who knows what that means. It probably doesn't mean anything because Shipp did not tell you the truth. If you listen to Carmelita, if you listen to Shirley, if you listen to Miss Eunice Simpson, Shipp was never alone with O.J. Simpson that night. He's an O.J. wanna be. Brining police officers over there, still wanting to be police officer off the force for whatever reason, drinking that night, drinking in the pass as he said he was. He's not credible and the evidence he brings is so unreliable and so irrelevant that I don't want to spend much of your time with it. But you saw it, you heard them. I ask you to consider Carmelita, Shirley and Eunice as against Ron Shipp and I ask you who are you gonna believe. I think there will be no contest. And so remember what Miss Eunice Simpson said when she said the he seemed a bit spacey, was the way she described. He was never alone, never talked about any dreams. When Shirley went upstairs with her husband, they spent the night with O.J. Simpson. This was a time for family. This was a time where people gathered around. This is a time for people being sad. They sat on the couch with O.J. Simpson holding his mother's hand. You remember that. My mother always told me that you could tell a lot about a person by how they treat their mother. You probably have heard that too and your mother is the one who always comes for you and to you in times of tragedy and stress. True to those words, there was Eunice Simpson as she is this very day, right there by her son's side, sitting on that couch. Who are you gonna believe? Eunice Simpson, or Ron Shipp, this want to be? I submit that you're gonna believe Eunice Simpson. She knows her boy. He knows his mother. Each of these witnesses who dealt with O.J. Simpson and let me just quickly come to get a logical breaking point so you can get to your dinner. Allan Park, who she places such great credence in, found O.J. Simpson to be his demeanor to be normal. He never met him before. He was a normal guy. He was carrying O.J. Simpson around. The only he said that was interesting, he said, you know, he's he said he was hot in the back. Now, O.J. Simpson himself said he was hot in the back of the car and I thought about this today and this morning when I was rushing around, trying to get dressed and come to court today and looked forward to seeing you all again for a year and a day. I took a shower and I was trying to get dressed and I kept sweating, I kept sweating and I thought about how that applies to this case, because you know, we talk about common sense. You ever rush around and take a shower and you're sweating. O.J. Simpson always rushes around, according to his daughter, according to Gigi. Those are the kind of common sense things we know.
And so, when we come back this afternoon, we're gonna talk about Kato Kaelin and how he found O.J. Simpson to be the same O.J. Simpson and we're gonna talk about a range of people who see this man from 11 o'clock on until the next morning til he comes back. We'll take them one at a time, but they all have one thing in common it's O.J. Simpson and he's acting normally he's himself. Not acting and the thing that I think that's probably best there are a number of good witnesses in that regard, but Howard Bingham is a well known person around here and let me end on this point. Howard Bingham gets on the plane and he it's funny because he was in coach and he wanted to try to explain that to you, why he was sitting back there in coach and O.J. was in first class and he sees O.J. and he runs up there to say hello to him before the plane takes off, remember and I ask him, well, how did O.J. Simpson seem to you this evening? He said, `` It was the same O.J. I've always seen and known.'' And so, rhetorically I ask you again Howard Bingham, in this area for years, known O.J. for years. Who do you think knows O.J. Simpson better, Howard Bingham or Marcia Clark and Chris Darden. When we come back, we'll answer that question. Thank you.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna take our recess for the afternoon. Please remember all my admonitions to you. We'll stand in recess until 6 o'clock. All right and have a pleasant evening meal.
BAILIFF: Please clear the courtroom.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 21
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: [in progress] All the members of our jury panel. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
JURORS: Good evening.
Judge LANCE ITO: It is strange to say that, but I appreciate you're hanging in there. Little chilly?
JUROR: Yes.
Judge LANCE ITO: OK. All right, Mr. Cochran, you may continue with your closing argument.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: Thank you, Your Honor. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
JURORS: Good evening.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: I'm glad you all came back. Appreciate that. [laughs] Oh, I guess so.
Now, where were we when left off. We were talking about demeanor, Mr. Simpson's demeanor. And I think I had posed a question with you just before we took our break about Howard Bingham, the photographer who testified here. And I asked you the question, a rhetorical question, about who would know O.J. Simpson the better and his mood and how he appeared on this night, the prosecutors or Mr. Bingham, who'd known him for such a long time. It was a serious question because the prosecutors, I presume, never met Mr. Simpson before we started this process. So I think it would be relevant for you to know about how somebody who knew him over a period of time say him on that particular day, especially when they go into their doctor mode and they use terms like post-homicidal conduct. There's been no testimony in this case at all about post-homicidal conduct and about demeanor and about anybody X in a post-homicidal conduct. That, again, is more speculation.
But what we did in this case is we tried to call for you a number of witnesses who I think bear on this issue of demeanor, which it seems to us is totally relevant. For one thing, it totally rebuts this specious theory about any kind of a fuse or any rage that you've seen. We've done that. We've share that with you already. And in the course of wrapping that up, keep in mind that both Kato Kaelin and Allan Park fall into the category of demeanor witnesses who place Mr. Simpson's demeanor as being entirely appropriate. And these are People's witnesses so it doesn't matter whether we call the witnesses or they do, if you're in a search for truth you look and see if there's a common thread of truth that run throughout these witnesses, and I think we found that.
Now, one of the things that I wanted to share with you. Yesterday, Ms. Clark in her argument tried to indicate something to the effect that Mr. Simpson didn't want Kato Kaelin, I believe, to spend time with him or something of that nature as though he wanted to get rid of Kato Kaelin, was part of her theory there. And I went back and I looked at the testimony at 19854, Ms. Clark herself when questioning Kato Kaelin ``When you got to that location what did you do? When I got to the door, yes, I turned. OK. What did you see? O.J. And where was he? At the driver's side door of the Rolls. Did you say anything to him? No. What did you do? I looked and said, I'll eat in my room.'' And then he went off and ate in his room.
But there was no further on it says, ``Did you have any conversation with Mr. Simpson?'' The answer was, ``No. And he said nothing to you? No.'' So I think that was important to understand and to put that record straight that there was no discussion about whether Kato would go in the house with Mr. Simpson or whatever. They didn't talk. Kato went back to his room. Simpson was still out at his Bentley, presumably trying to get ready to, you know, go on this trip, which was long planned.
There had been some mention earlier of an argument at a Christmas party, and I wanted to again try and set the record straight before we went on with demeanor because I pulled up Kato Kaelin's testimony again. And what he says was, that after question Did everybody go home together? Answer Yes. Everybody celebrate Christmas Eve back at home? Answer At Rockingham, yes. Question Nicole, O.J., and the kids? Answer Yes. Question And yourself? Answer And Arnelle and Jason. Question Whole family? Yes.
Now what they did is they tell you, well, there was an argument at the Generas [sp] and what they don't tell you was, you remember the testimony was, they the Generas to go back home because it was Christmas Eve and they all celebrated Christmas Eve together. See, you got to have the whole picture, don't you? And you don't you think that seems reasonable?
And there was some question about the flashlight, and here's what Kato Kaelin had to say about that, where he says, ``Then I said, O.J. do we have a better flashlight? When I told him about the noise, he was going to take one way, I was going to go another way, but that is when I said we have this lousy flashlight. We need another one. And so he was going to go inside and check.'' And then they went in the house, he followed behind, and then that's when Mr. Simpson had to then leave for the airport.
So I think that, again, I want to I promised you I would always try to read the actual testimony to make it as clear as I could about where we were, a few of the housekeeping things before we get directly into the demeanor aspect. Ms. Clark yesterday had made a number of points about phone calls and boards to Paula Barbieri. And you will recall, we saw a number, 305, which I think is in the Miami area code. And I think the evidence is that's a cell phone of some kind, and certainly if you call that phone number out here you can reach people on a cell phone, and I find nothing unusual about that in regard to the calls that were made.
We there also was some discussion about what Dr. Baden had had to say about these cuts, or cut, on Mr. Simpson's hand. You will recall that Brian Kelberg came back down here again and he asked some questions of Dr. Baden, and I tried to pull up this testimony so I'd have it clear about when Mr. Simpson had gone to the Bronco to get the portable phone, when he went back the Bronco apparently to get the paraphernalia in that phone and try to piece together as to when he got a small cut on his hand, not any large fishhook cut, which I think was clear from the evidence, at what point that he may have bled inside that Bronco and may or may not have known that.
And so we read Baden and this is at page 41182. Question by Mr. Kelberg, I believe What, if anything, did Mr. Simpson have to say as to the manner when he got the cuts? Answer That he recalls some blood after trying to retrieve his phone or some material from the Bronco, from a car, from a car that had his phone. I think it was the Bronco. That he'd gone to the Bronco to get something and may have somehow cut himself while getting stuff, stuff from the Bronco to bring with him to Chicago.
Well, I think that it's important to tie this in with the fact that, remember that Kato Kaelin and I think even Allan Park indicated that by the time they were there, when Mr. Simpson finally came down the stairs, when he left there were bags already down. Certainly, the golf bag and his other bag, there were bags already out there. So he'd been outside in that yard and apparently, according to Ms. Clark's testimony, had been at some point out to the Bronco, and at some point he gotten this phone, this portable phone, but we know he'd gotten it because he'd made a portable a phone call on that phone by 10 o'clock or by 10:03. The car wasn't moving. This is a portable phone.
And, remember, I asked Gigi Guarin where there any portable phones inside that house. The testimony, there were none. So there was no wireless telephone at Rockingham, so I think the testimony is and the reasonable inference is that Mr. Simpson made that cell phone from that location to her cell phone number 305 area code.
And, then, once we they left, as I told you, that he left with Park and we know that was around 11:02. So now Mr. Simpson's in he car and as you know how Park describes O.J. Simpson, nothing out of the ordinary. He says he says he's hot, but that's nothing unusual. And then Mr. Simpson gets to the airport. Do you remember those two young men who came in Michael Norris and Michael Gladden and these are the two airport couriers who were parked at the curb there, and one of them, Gladden, wanted to get Mr. Simpson's autograph. You will recall that.
And so even though Mr. Simpson was rushed in trying to get to the plane or whatever, he stopped and he gave his O.J. Simpson ``peace to you.'' That was a signature that he gave at about, I think the testimony was, 11:25 that particular night on June 12th. That was the testimony of Gladden and, remember, they described O.J. Simpson as being kind of like a model or a some kind of a poster boy for these jeans or whatever he had on. I think the way they described it, they felt that he was dressed very neatly, looked very clean, is the way they described him. And he was a very approachable. He put some luggage down and then turned around and forgot about the autograph and then gave the autograph. You recall that.
It was very interesting because Ms. Clark said yesterday something to the effect, well, Mr. Simpson didn't put on his socks because he left his socks at home. Now, that was one of the most interesting things she said. You've been in this man's closet. Do you think that O.J. Simpson has one pair of socks? I don't think so. I think you saw his closet, you saw the clothes, the way they were lined up, and the way they were. In fact, remember, I asked the witness the question, is it trendy, is it fashionable that a lot of people in that part of town don't wear socks when they get dressed up to go out. Somebody said, yes, that's fashionable and that's what happens.
O.J. Simpson has lots of socks. And the evidence in is, and it's so interesting, isn't it, because under the prosecution's theory, if you follow their theory, you're asked to believe that Mr. Simpson is in sweats and tennis shoes and, I presume, tennis socks. That he gets this urge to go and kill his wife and he takes off his tennis shoes and his tennis socks and puts on some dress socks and dress shoes. That doesn't make any sense, does it? But keeps on his sweat clothes, according to them. That's how preposterous their theory is to try to make things fit. And you're going to see and you're going to understand that even better when we talk about these socks.
So, as they O.J. Simpson then gets on the plane, and it was interesting because not only did he deal with Norris and Gladden, but he had an interesting man in the first class across from Steve Valerie. You saw Valerie. A young man who for pretty much most of that flight watched O.J. Simpson. Mr. Douglas, what's that number, sir?
CARL DOUGLAS, Defense Attorney: Twelve forty-five.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Now, 1245 just gives you some idea of this plane. We've talked earlier about Bingham and Valerie was right across from O.J. Simpson
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 22
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: And you're going to see, and you're going to understand that even better when we talk about these socks. So as they As O.J. Simpson gets on the plane. And it was interesting because, not only did he deal with Norris [sp] and Gladden, but he had an interesting man in the first class across from him, Steve Valerie. And you saw Valerie, a young man who, for pretty much most of that flight watched O.J. Simpson. Mr. Douglas, what's that number, sir? [responding to unintelligible response] 1245, which just gives you some idea of this plane.
We talked earlier about Bingham, and remember Valerie was right across from O.J. Simpson as he sat up there in the fourth seat or something like that. And he watched him and noticed him and described for you Mr. Simpson's demeanor. He looked at O.J. Simpson's hands. That was really one of the important things about him because, again, when Ms. Clark, who was Dr. Clark in this regard, talked to you about these this cut of whatever, she was describing how a little cut wouldn't make this amount of blood, but this larger cut By all of the witnesses who didn't know each other, O.J. Simpson did not have this fishhook cut on his hand when he went to Chicago. That's unanimous. All the witnesses. You heard them. You saw them. Further, you heard the testimony of Doctors Huizenga and Baden, who said this is not consistent with a knife cut, it's consistent with some kind of glass cut because it's raggedy. It's jagged. You remember that. You remember the testimony.
And we can prove it further by witnesses who saw him before he was in that room in Chicago and witnesses who saw him after. And we'll talk about that. So on the plane was Bingham, and then we had the pilot on the plane. And the pilot that was flying the plane came back and asked Mr. Simpson to autograph the log book, which he did, and I think we have a photograph of that. Again, you saw Pilot Stanfield, who described how Mr. Simpson was seated there reading a book, a light shining down on him, not trying to hide from anybody, not anything sitting there, reading his book, looked up, talked to the pilot, he gave his autograph, and they both continued on with their business.
Then he gets to Chicago, and he lands, and he deals with Jim Merrill, the Hertz driver. You'll recall him. The Hertz driver describes the number of bags that Mr. Simpson has and the luggage when he arrives. He describes the duffel bag, the black duffel bag, the garment back with O.J.S., the golf bag, the Louis Vuitton [sp] bag. All those bags are described by Merrill. Then, of course, you remember we talked about the knapsack bag, which we think, logically, had golf balls in it. It was inside the golf bag. So Merrill watched O.J. in the luggage area meet with some, I think, say 20 different fans while waiting for his luggage. Merrill says he was friendly, relaxed and he saw no noticeable cuts on his hands. That's what Jim Merrill told us. This was his testimony. That's why we brought him here from Chicago to testify in that regard.
Now, I want you to contrast Mr. Simpson's demeanor and behavior after he goes to his hotel room in Chicago. After he learns of his ex-wife's death, everybody is consistent, and again these witnesses don't know this person. He was emotional, concerned, with a cut finger. Dave Kilduff Now, Mr. Simpson gets the call, and here's why I want you to think with me for a moment. I want you to look at how he reacts to this information. We've already covered how his daughter describes him she's never heard him like this before. He immediately gets plane reservations to come back to Los Angeles. He's then trying to get back, frantically trying to leave this hotel. It's early in the morning. He's trying to get back to Los Angeles on the first thing flying. He's trying to get somebody to take him back to the airport. He's there to play in a golf tournament that day. Obviously, that's never going to happen.
So we know that Dave Kilduff, the Hertz manager, drove Mr. Simpson to the airport. Remember how he describes now and this is the first witness O.J. Simpson's finger's bleeding, and this fishhook cut, this cut that he got in that room when that broken glass was there. But the prosecutors, again with a cynical view, said, ``Oh, well, that couldn't have happened.'' Dr. Baden says that, in talking to Mr. Simpson, he got that cut when he brushed this glass into the sink. It's entirely consistent. Doctors deal with cuts. And they said this is consistent with a glass cut. Kilduff says that O.J. Simpson is crying, and he's upset.
He finally makes the plane, and I think it's important to note that, when he makes the plane, he sits next to I think in seat nine to a lawyer by the name of Mark Partridge, just fortuitous. And I thought it was very interesting about this man Partridge. Remember he's the man who's a patent lawyer, who'd gone to Harvard, and he observed O.J. Simpson on this flight back. He saw him make these phone calls. He saw his emotional state. He saw him trying to gather information. He saw his finger. He saw the Band-aid he'd had that came off. He saw that it was cut. You saw his testimony.
These were all citizen timeline witnesses, like you or I, who were brought here pursuant to subpoena. They didn't ask to be here. They didn't volunteer, but they had relevant information about what had taken place and what had happened. So it seems to me that we, in our search for justice, in our journey toward the city of justice, must take these witnesses seriously. But you understand the power of the State, the prosecution, had an equal access to all of these witnesses, but they didn't call them. They didn't call them because they didn't fit. They didn't fit, and they didn't want to hear. So the prosecutors decided to attack.
And you'll remember how these witnesses generally were treated. I thought Partridge was treated especially bad. Here's a man who was so concerned about no one stealing his notes he wrote notes about what took place not to publish them. He's a patent lawyer, so he understood. He put his name on the side in the margin. To write down notes because he knew it would be important, and he said he knew this would be important. And he sent those notes to the prosecution and to the defense and said, ``I'm just a witness here. This is what I saw. Can I be of some help?'' They chose not to call him. They chose to attack him as though he had, like, something to hide. In fact, remember Ms. Clark standing and saying something to the effect, ``Well, do you know how busy the LAPD was when they didn't have time to respond to you?''
Well, maybe not, but this was an important witness. That was the only person in the world who sat next to O.J. Simpson on a flight back from Chicago, when everything he was doing, continues to do, is consistent with innocence. They didn't want to hear it, but we brought this again for you to hear. And I ask you to judge this witness as you do all the others. You remember Mark Partridge, and I think you will. And you remember that it was unfair to attack a witness, a citizen witness, who seemed to be totally objective and careful.
Then there was Ken Barris [sp], the police officer in Chicago. Ms. Clark talked about him coming out here, but we brought him out here. We brought Ken Barris out here. He was the police officer who maybe three hours after O.J. Simpson left that room went into that room at the O'Hare Plaza, wasn't it, 11:00 or thereabouts, I believe. He said he went into the room. He found the glass. He found the doily. He found the towel. He found the bedding because the maids had not done anything with regard to that room. Found this broken glass, and the evidence is, contrary to what the prosecutor will try to tell you is that this glass was consistent with O.J. Simpson cutting his hand on it. And this is the cut. It's the fishhook cut.
Now, you characterize witnesses like Kato Kaelin and Partridge, Denise Pilnak and some others who felt the wrath of the prosecution, and you have to ask yourself why in a search for truth. Why did that happen?
Then Mr. Simpson returns back from Chicago. And this was very interesting, and you will recall because Officer Don Thompson I saw some of you looking at him. He was a very, very impressive, big fellow. He's about six foot, seven or eight. He's a big guy, and you remember he's the officer who is very interesting and very honest because he said that immediately upon Mr. Simpson coming back to Rockingham, at 12:00 noon now on June 13th what happens? Vannatter had told him to hook him up. Let's see that, if we can. We'll give you the number in a minute, Your Honor. [pause while videotape is started]
You'll recognize Officer Thompson and Mr. Simpson and as he grabbed hold to him at that moment. [pause while video continues] You'll recall that Officer Thompson had testified how he'd been told by Vannatter to hook him up or to handcuff him, grabbed him by the arm as he went in there, and you'll recall the photograph. [pause while video continues] I think that's Thompson there in the background in the foreground, rather. [pause while video continues]
I thought Mr. Harris had that, but at any rate you recall Mr. Simpson was standing over under a tree and he was handcuffed until the lawyer Howard Weitzman came. You recall that because we saw that during the trial. [pause while video continues] Howard Weitzman, lawyer. He's talking to Mr. Simpson. [pause while video continues] You can see that Mr. Simpson is taking Now Vannatter is going over to him and taking the handcuffs off, I believe, as the conversation goes on with Howard Weitzman. [pause while video continues] All right. He's un-handcuffed at this point. Thank you Mr. That was 1250, was it?
Mr. HARRIS: That's 527.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: 527 1250, Your Honor. The point of that was we have said, and I told you at the beginning and told you in opening statement and told you again today, this was a rush to judgment. At 12:00 on June 13th, Vannatter told Thompson to handcuff O.J. Simpson or to ``hook him up.'' Vannatter lied about that because he said in his testimony he never told him that. Thompson was very clear that he had told him. He didn't do that on his own. But it shows this rush to judgment. Vannatter did not want to admit that and never did.
We'll talk more about him when we discuss the officers together, but it seems to me the important thing for us to remember is that after this video Mr. Simpson, you'll recall, is on his way downtown in a vehicle with Vannatter and Lange. You remember he Howard Weitzman talks to Vannatter. Simpson gets in the car with the police in the back, goes downtown without either his business lawyer or Howard Weitzman, rides with the police. We know, according to the testimony in this case, he talks with Vannatter and Lange once they get down there. I think we asked both of them about this conversation. You've heard nothing else about this conversation. He has no lawyer in there with him, has no lawyer in the car when he goes downtown.
After he makes this statement to the police, which we haven't heard, he then gives a blood sample sometime around 2:00 or whatever that afternoon, on the 13th. He voluntarily gives his blood sample. He then has a photograph taken of the cut on his finger. There's no lawyer present during all that. The lawyers are someplace else at that point. Mr. Simpson is dealing with this himself. He wants to clear this up. He's innocent. He wants to get it over with.
Everything, everything this man does is consistent with innocence. He finds out. He gets the first thing smoking. He comes back here. He goes right to his residence. He talks to the police. He goes downtown with the police. He goes in a room with the police. He has his finger photographed. He gives blood. His lawyers are off someplace else. That's what this man did on June 13th. They weren't there then. That's what he did consistent with innocence.
They want to talk about luggage. The testimony again of this honest police officer Thompson is that they wouldn't let O.J. Simpson's luggage on the premises. They talk about Bob Kardashian. They smear Bob Kardashian, a good and successful, decent businessman and friend. He can't come on the premises. They have to take the luggage away. Now, these people have search warrants. They can do whatever they want to do at that point. They have the power of the state, and they have the audacity to stand here and tell you that, when retired Judge Delbert Wong brings in the Louis Vuitton bag months and months and months later, there's no clothes in it. Now, is that folly? They're not supposed to unpack it? That is silly. And I shouldn't waste my time on it, but that's what was said here. You heard it, and they are the ones who turned away the luggage.
So you remember that when they stand up here and try to talk about any luggage and they didn't have it, or what was in the luggage or what was He brought the luggage back, and if he didn't have, by the way, that portable phone in his luggage, you'd hear about that also. So understand we're going to talk about the facts, not any speculation. So what more then could an innocent man do?
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 23
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: We talked briefly about the cut or cuts on O.J. Simpson's hand. It's interesting, isn't it? Because the one cut and these officers are there with their photographer. They take a photograph of this cut. But you remember in those other pictures there was cut on the side of his finger here a nick or something like that, looked like a paper cut, I think they said. And it's interesting because, if that cut had been there June 13th at two o'clock or whatever time they took it, don't you think the police would have taken a photograph of that. They didn't, because it probably wasn't there at that point.
So, it's very interesting. This is the only cut they got. But we know that he nicked himself in several places, according to what he told Dr. Michael Baden.
Ms. Clark makes a big thing about some smear or some little tiny smear of blood in the bathroom upstairs. O.J. Simpson had been back home since Friday, shaved, whatever. I don't when that got there. He doesn't know when that got there. Doesn't it strike you as strange that, under her hypothesis, under her theory, he comes back home with these bloody shoes on, bloody clothes, with this white carpet, goes upstairs. There's no blood anywhere little tiny speck in the bathroom. Does that seem to you to be reasonable, or rational, or related to this case?
One thing about blood spots you can never date them. You can never tell, generally, how old they are.
Another thing that doesn't fit. The fingerprints. They didn't call them, but we called. Gilbert Aguilar. You remember that. He's the fingerprint expert. He examined and dusted and found seventeen latent prints that he was able to lift at Bundy the crime scene, the gate, the fence, the front door. He was able to identify eight of the prints after comparing the known exemplars of the known ones being the police officers, the people that you might expect around there. But there were nine identifiable prints that were never identified. Remember, I asked about these various systems that you can put the prints in? Doesn't work for palms, but it works for prints. What efforts did you take to try to find out who do these nine identifiable prints belong to? To this day we don't know. Are those the prints of the real killers? We will never know. They have not found those prints. We brought this witness in for you. We established this for you.
The fingernail scrapings Mr. Scheck will talk more about this, this EAPB. But remember there's no literature to justify how they'd want to contort and twist this this double-banded B is more like a B than anything they can ever justify. And it doesn't fit. It doesn't fit in their case. So they can't explain it. It's like the number four allele on the steering column. There's no number four's in this case. It doesn't fit, you must acquit. They don't, and they cannot explain that.
Dr. Irwin Golden, the missing coroner. This man was trashed by his own department. It was brutal. By his own boss. And, if he thinks he was gonna be treated any better, remember how Kelberg dismissed him at the end. He said, ``By the way, next time you come and testify, learn how to speak slower.'' That was his last remarks to a man you look at your notes his last remarks to a man he kept on this stand for eight days to tell us that the cause of death was stabbing, the time of death was between nine and twelve, that it could have been a single-edge or double-edge knife. That's how they treated their own witness they kept there, the coroner of Los Angeles County.
But they didn't call Dr. Golden. Why not? Why is that? Why we'll have to speculate about that? Did they like his testimony? He couldn't help them is the more logical and reasonable inference, isn't it? Whenever there's a witness that they couldn't fit within their little theory, they abandoned him. They talked bad about him. A rush to judgment. Detective Phillips, at the very, very beginning of this case, remember I had Phillips as a witness. He's a nice man. And I quote him when he said remember when he called the coroner, after all these hours, after all these hours out there now you remember he's off the case by then, too, because, you know L.A. the robbery-homicide division has taken over. They find that out at two-something in the morning, remember? And they wait for Lange and Vannatter to come until after four-something. Here's Phillips, still out there, now, they're over at Bundy and they call the coroner. It's like eight hours later, now, as I recall. [assuming a deeper voice]] What does he say? There's a little tape I think that we may have. He says, I think ``We're sorta breaking the rules here.'' They're worried about how they're gonna look. They're worried about the press more than they're worried about these bodies that are still out there, more than they're worried about people traipsing through that crime scene, more than they're worried about trying to protect the innocent and pursue the guilty, which they should be doing, which they're required to do under the law notify the coroner immediately.
[taped excerpt]
Det. RON PHILLIPS, Los Angeles Police: [wild feedback] not following procedures. And we're gonna ask you a favor is, you know, [unintelligible] kinda work a little bit on this one.
CORONER'S OFFICE: OK. You're at the scene now?
Det. PHILLIPS: Yeah.
CORONER'S OFFICE: OK. But what is your call-in number at the station? 310?
Det. PHILLIPS: Five-seven-five-84-401.
CORONER'S OFFICE: Do we have names on these people?
Det. PHILLIPS: No, I don't.
CORONER'S OFFICE: OK, both males?
Det. PHILLIPS: A male, female a female and a male.
CORONER'S OFFICE: All right, are they Caucasian?
Det. PHILLIPS: It appears that both
[end of taped excerpt]
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: We're sort of breaking the rules, not calling criminalists. This is this is the early morning hours, you remember that, look at your notes. It's like eight o' clock or so, isn't it. Six o'clock now it's eight o 'clock because they're back in Rockingham. It's eight o' clock in the morning now. These bodies were found by Riske at 12:13. The coroner didn't come until about 10:00 o'clock, remember that? Fung, when he does come, goes to Rockingham before he goes to Bundy, sort of not following the rules. That's what this case is all about not following the rules. They're more worried about vanity and things like that. Not about these victims. We can demand more and should demand more of our police and it does become very relevant. Tied in with this, and so, let me make it clear. We heard yesterday some snide comment about well, we have the best witnesses that money could buy or something like that in this case. Consider Dr. Henry Lee. By all accounts, the number one criminalist in America, probably in the world. He didn't take any money. The money for his time that O.J. Simpson had to pay went to the State of Connecticut to help the police and police fund. You heard that testimony. So it's a real, real unfortunate thing when lawyers stand here and demean people with national, wonderful reputations, who come in here and were compensated only for their time. The only one who's not being compensated for their time here are you and we apologize for that. But these other witnesses, the law allows them to paid for their time out of their offices. You heard that. They're not doing this to make money, to be subjected to this, to be on television everyday, to have people probing in to your private lives. Nobody wants that. It's not any fun for any of these people. But it's certainly not right to stand here and say things like that. Those aren't the facts at all, as you know them.
Earlier I said that that there had been an offer that Doctors Lee and Baden and Wolf would assist the prosecution. Not accepted, but they were out here at least to the extent that they were allowed to do things. You'll here more about the testimony of Henry Lee on that. You remember how they rushed in to this thing when he came back from Seattle and how he was treated. That was the only time he seemed to be a little bit upset. But he rushed back here from Seattle and how they treated him this Los Angeles Police Department. That's how they treated the number one criminalist in the world in their search for truth. And then Detective Lange. Lange's different that these other detectives and things. you saw Lange for about seven or eight days. Lange is different. He made mistakes. He has misstatements as you're gonna see. But he was different. Do you remember that one day and I'll tell you how you can characterize and understand he's different. It was very interesting. He'd been on the stand for seven or eight days. One day he came in and he was a little different, he was a little more testy it seemed and I ask, I said, Detective Lange, there was an article in the paper today
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: Objection, Your Honor.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Overruled, it's in the record.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: There's an article in the paper today where Mr. Darden says that you're being to nice and answering my questions. Are you going to be tougher now, you know about that, don't you. He said, no, Mr. Cochran, I'm just gonna tell you the way it is, regardless. No matter how you ask this man a question or what anybody would want him to say, he seemed to try and answer it as best he could. Now, we don't always agree with everything he did, but it was refreshing to have somebody like that wouldn't he be told by these prosecutors anybody else what to say or what to do, even when he's criticized in the paper. That was Lange. But I said that I didn't always agree with him because I asked him, I said, when Riske said about that melting ice cream, now we're not Henry Lee, I mean, not by a long shot but it seemed to me that if there were ice cream that was still melting, or partially melted at 12:40 when Riske saw it and that's Riske's testimony, partially melted ice cream at 12:40. But they don't bother picking up and that ice cream remember when you were at Bundy. That ice cream is when you go down those steps and it's on that little banister there as you were going out in to the garage. It might mean that Nicole Brown Simpson went down there and was letting somebody out, when they were there earlier that evening. We'll never know. When you saw all those candles lit around the bathtub and water in the bathtub. We'll never know because they didn't bother checking. They were too worried about how they would look, notifying and worrying about the press. We'll never know. They said the ice cream wasn't important. But it was important enough that they had and this is the evidence, they had an ice cream melting test. Remember I asked Lange about this again. Lange experiments showed that this ice cream went back to Ben and Jerry's it was Ben and Jerry's ice cream, remember that. It melted in an hour and 15 minutes. it should be totally melted by that time frame. If you extrapolate backwards, if Riske finds the ice cream at 12:40 and it's partially melted, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and let's say it's all melted. If you went back an hour and 15 minutes, that's 11:25.
Now, the children asleep, Nicole's the one eating that ice cream. That seems important to us. Maybe not to them. That seems important. That's another bit of evidence. When you cannot, because of negligence and incompetence determine the cause of death, you have to look at other things. Isn't that reasonable? Those are the facts ladies and gentlemen. That's what happened in this case. They tell you it's not important. We think that is important. Another factor. You remember that photograph in the kitchen, where there's a butcher knife on the table and you see some flowers there. It seems to me that when they came home, that butcher knife was used to cut whatever was off the flowers, if it was a string or some rubber band, placed those flowers in a vase or whatever in that kitchen. You look at those photographs when you get a chance. I'm always intrigued about the things they didn't do in this case. Even Riske, who said, and his candor was refreshing, have you had any training at crime scenes. He said well, they kind of glossed over that at the depart at the academy. Remember he said that. People could have fallen over when he said that. They glossed over training at crime scenes at the academy and boy was that evermore true. The first officer at the scene told us that. We knew that right early on, didn't we. It's not anything we made up. It's not about being anti-police. You saw the police you could believe and you now know the ones you can't believe and anybody, anybody who believes at all that police are perfect, that they don't lie, that they don't have the same biases and racism that the rest of society has is living in a dream world. So this is not for the faint of heart. This is not for timid. As I said, this is for the courageous who understand what the Constitution is all about. That's what we're talking about here and so, let's look at Riske at the very outset.
In addition that he doesn't get any training, but he goes in the house and the first thing he does, he picks up the phone and uses it. I said, well, didn't you think that might mar some finger prints or if it had one of those numbers where you can get the last number called. Wouldn't that be important? Did you think about that? Oh, I didn't think about that. Did you think about the fact that you know, that you shouldn't be touching that phone and you have a rover. You have some on your hip, some way to call. You could have used those portable phones that Phillips had with all those private numbers on them. You could have done all those things. but you didn't use any of those things. You walked in there and then you didn't notice that on that phone in the kitchen, when they're looking so hard for Mr. Simpson that there's a speed dialer that you press a button and it says Dad and it says Nanna and it says all the people. If they wanted to notify the next of kin, would they call press the button they could have called Nanna. But not these investigators. They didn't think about doing that. They're too busy hatching a plan, standing around in the street, doing nothing from two to 4:30.
These are the facts. This is what you heard. This is this case, the so-called trial of the century. This is how they conducted themselves. Then we come to those socks. Those socks. They just don't fit. They just don't fit. They just don't fit. Watch with me now a video. I want you to watch the time counter in this time frame and you'll understand how important this is.
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 157 - Part 24
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: [in progress] Willie Ford says, all right , back it up please. This is Mr. Willie Ford going up in to the bedroom. It's 3:13, which he says is 4:13, because it hadn't been changed. This is 4:13 p.m. on June 13th, 1994. OK. Look at the foot of the bed there, where the socks are supposed to be. You'll see no socks in this video an you'll recall that Mr. Willie Ford testified about this and I asked him well, where are the socks, Mr. Ford? I didn't see any socks. So now, that's interesting, isn't it? At 4:13 on June 13th, 1994, these socks they supposedly recovered, these mysterious socks, these socks that no one sees any blood on until August 4th all of the sudden. These socks that are picked up, that Luper [sp] says he picks them up because they didn't look out of place. I don't have any reason to pick them up. I'll just take these socks. They're out of place. The only items that they took out of that place on that day is Lange Lange takes the Reebok tennis shoes, the one's he takes home. You remember that? That's all they really take 'cause they don't come back on the 28th before they get that one brown glove. But these socks will be their undoing. It just doesn't fit. None of you can deny there are no socks at the foot of that bed at 4:13 p.m. Where then are the socks? Where are these socks, this important piece of evidence. Well let's let me show you something. This board here was a board used by Dr. Henry Lee. This is interesting. Bear with me for a moment as you look at this.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: 1552? Thank you.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: In this photograph here, the one on the left, Your Honor you should notice something, the socks are at the foot of the bed. If you look closely at this photograph you'll see it, there's no little white card there, you notice how they put these little evidence cards there when they're going to collect something. No little white card on this photograph here and this is interesting because you see these straps on the bed, now Luper told us when he testified these straps where, like, he called them some kind of luggage straps. These luggage straps are down at this point, aren't they? See how they're down. No evidence card and the socks are there. And we come over to this photograph here, you notice how the strap is now up on the bed. It's no longer hanging down any more. It's been moved up and Luper says that's when he looks under this bed and he sees that photograph. By the way, how wrong can they continue to be. That's no wedding photograph. That's a wedding that's a photograph they took at some formal event. You look at that photograph and see. That's how they speculate and most times they've been wrong. But this is a this this is interesting. The strap is now up on the bed and you look at the socks now, there's it's been posed for you. Here's this number 13 out here with these socks. Now, you look back at that video and you'll have it, you'll notice that the video has the strap down. So the video is at a time before this card is placed, before the strap is up, before this is about to be collected. Now, isn't that strange because at 4:13, there are no socks there. Now how do we tie all this together.
You remember Fung and Mazzola have a log and on their log they tell when they collected things. They tell us that they collected the blood in the foyer at 4:30, that they then come upstairs, that they collect, here it is as we speak.
Mr. HARRIS: 1591, Your Honor.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Got to move it over a little bit, Mr. Harris, I think. Now you see this, where they collected things sequentially and they kept this log. I think that you'll remember the testimony that at 4:30 they collected the blood in the foyer. Remember that? Let me see if I can point that out for us. In the foyer, red stain and there's testimony. They testified 4:30 16:30 is 4:30. This is this is- well this is at least 17 minutes after Mr. Ford's up there with that camera where there are no socks, right. So, 16:30, right there. They're downstairs. Then they say they go upstairs and they leave this time blank, but at 16:40, they go and they look at this little red spot in the bathroom. Remember that? And they say in their testimony that the socks are collected between 16:30 and 16:40. So, let's give them the benefit of the doubt 16:35 . How could the socks be there at 4:35 when you just saw they're not there at 4:13. Who's fooling whom here?
They're setting this man up and you can see it with your own eyes. You're not naive. Nobody's foolish here and then they forget about this little strap exercise, when they're posing stuff here. They move this off the bed, move this under the bed. They're gonna make a big thing about this photograph under the bed and then they put this number down here and they take these pictures for you later. But they didn't know that we would know or find out about Mr. Ford's video. See, they took that video you know, we talked about this earlier on. LAPD should always take videos of everything at that crime scene. But they don't do that. But they took this video. Not because they wanted to Help Mr. Simpson. If anything that was missing or got broken, this was a civil liability video. Remember, they were going around taking photographs of things that might be missing or whatever if there was ever a suit later on. But they got hoisted by they're own [unintelligible] again because the video has the counter and the number. They will never, ever be able to explain that to you, because we got their testimony in black and white as to when they went upstairs and collected this. Those socks from the beginning,[unintelligible] it's gonna bring them down. So those are the socks. These socks. No dirt, no soil, no berries, no trace, nobody sees any blood until August 4th. Then all these miraculous things start happening and then Mr. Scheck will talk more about this and then we find out that it has EDTA in it. Is it planted? Along with that back gate, how would it be on there? Why didn't they see the blood before that? There's a big fight here, where's the dirt. Why would Mr. Simpson have on these kind of socks with a sweat outfit? Wait a minute. Now, you don't have to be like from the fashion police to know that. You don't where those kind of socks. You wear those kind of socks with a suit. You don't wear those kind of socks with a sweat outfit. Does it make sense to you that those socks were in that hamper from Saturday night, when Mr. Simpson went to that formal event. Those kind of socks is what you wear with your tuxedo when he was dressed with those other ladies. If they went and took it out of the hamper and staged it there, then you see what happened. Is that not reasonable under these facts? I think you'll agree it is. It's the only reasonable explanation, this pose there and the reason for doing this is because they were out place. But, is that interesting in the hamper in which Luper went and they all went. They didn't take anything else. You think the police would ask Mr. Simpson what were you wearing, in addition to the suit, what were you wearing that night? They didn't take one thing. Yet, we hear all of this talk about, wonder where the clothes went, wonder where the clothes went. You think Mr. Simpson who told them everything, who cooperated with them fully, told them like he told them about those shoes, what he was wearing. They didn't bother collecting those, did they. No towels, no nothing. She's worried about him taking this quick shower. If he took a shower and there's so much and he's covered with blood, why didn't they bring the towels in here? Something is wrong in this case. It just doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.
So the socks I could talk about these socks forever, but I'm not going to because Mr. Scheck will talk about the forensic aspect of it, but let me just remind of two quick more things. Dr. Her MacDonald came in here and he told you there was no splatter or spatter on these socks. These socks had compression transfer and he used his hands to show you somebody took those socks and they put something on them and they went all the way through to side three. Now, with all their experts, bringing people back three, four times. They never had anybody to contravene that. How this how's that how did that get over to side three? How did it get over there? It wouldn't get there if there was a leg in the sock. Can anybody explain that? Did you explain that? Maybe Miss Clark can explain that. The experts can't explain it. Something is wrong.
And finally, the EDTA, which indicates the anti-coagulant from a purple top tube. It's where that blood is from. The socks, as you know, were something which one can get emotional about because we've known about these socks for some time. This is to say the least disturbing. It's worse than that though.
In my opening statement, I told you about evidence that would compromised, contaminated and corrupted and I told you something then. I said in this case, there's something even far more sinister the socks are one example of that. Now, if you want to be fair deciding this case, you got to deal with these socks. You'll get a chance to see them. Look for the dirt you should expect on them. Look for the spatter that you'd expect on them. Look and see why it went over to side three. There's a leg in it and you know isn't it interesting how you get this blood on this sock with your pants. Your pants would have to be almost up. This would take a real contortion to do it. There's no way they can explain it. So, let's just leave it where it is and Mr. Scheck will pick up on that.
And then we've heard a lot about the so-called blood in the Bronco and I want to tell you I'm not anything like a scientist, in fact, when my mother and my father wanted to me become doctors, I didn't because I wasn't that good in science, so I became a lawyer so I could talk. But let me tell you something. Even I know about amounts of blood, especially after this case. They tell you about all this blood in the Bronco and you remember one of the early witnesses testified the total amount of blood on this console, on this console is .07 of a drop of blood. Now that's supposedly a mixture of Goldman and someone else. So now this is I'm going to a little Henry Lee experiment and I hope that it doesn't cause me cause you any problems.
Now, .07 of a drop
Judge LANCE ITO: Mr Douglas, you're going to have to take this down.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: [unintelligible] Your Honor. .07 of a drop. Not even that much is the amount the testimony in the case is of the alleged blood on that console. Now, this is an amazing thing because you remember this is the vehicle, in tradition of everything else they did in this case, is picked up, is towed away from Rockingham. You've all seen that photograph. It's taken over and ultimately it ends up Viertel's. Do you remember Blazzini, William Blazzini. Before we got to Blazzini we dealt with John Meraz. Meraz says the vehicle was just open, you just could go and get in it. The press was waiting for him before he even drove it back. Everybody knew this was O.J. Simpson's vehicle and they were all looking in it, supposedly for all this blood that's supposed to be in here. This killer must have been covered in blood and they say he drove his Bronco and it would be covered with blood, wouldn't it. So everybody's looking for the blood. So Meraz says, he gets inside the car he didn't see any blood. Meraz said that. They maligned Meraz because Meraz said, yeah, I did take those receipts out of there that had one had Mr. Simpson's name on it, one had Mrs. Simpson's name on it. But he said he didn't see any blood in there. They never called anybody to contravene that
[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]
