LOS ANGELES -- The tape of a sobbing Nicole Brown Simpson pleading with police to rescue her from a "ranting and raving" O.J. Simpson riveted much of the nation.
But Thursday, criminal legal experts were expressing horror that such pre-trial publicity would diminish chances of finding an impartial jury.
"The circuslike atmosphere that this case is engendering is probably violating on a daily basis Mr. Simpson's constitutional rights," says Martin Pollner, a criminal defense expert and former head of the U.S. Secret Service. "Even a celebrity is entitled to due process."
Part of the tape released Wednesday by the Los Angeles Police Department, of a 911 call by Nicole Simpson last October, went like this:
Dispatcher: "What is he doing? Is he threatening you?"
Dispatcher: "Has he threatened you or is he just harassing you?"
Nicole Simpson: "You're going to hear him in a minute. He's about to come in again."
Dispatcher: "OK, just stay on the line."
Nicole Simpson: "I don't want to stay on the line. He's going to beat the s--- out of me."
"All of us involved in the legal process are concerned by the evolution of this story," former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova told WUSA-TV in Washington. "This is an example of what happens when a police department decides that it's been burned by someone such as Mr. Simpson and his lawyer."
Police were angry and embarrassed last Friday when Simpson, who had agreed to turn himself in, slipped away and led them on a car chase - televised live worldwide.
Thursday, prosecutors and investigators decided to block further release of information on the case.
The tapes should "absolutely not" have been released, diGenova said.
Says KABC-Talk Radio host Michael Jackson: "A half hour before we came on the air, the phone lines were full of people wanting to talk about O.J. Simpson. Most were about the tapes.
"Many thought the tapes would be one of the nails in O.J.'s coffin and many thought it would play into the hands of the defense lawyer in terms of a temporary insanity defense."
"Unprecedented," says Barry Levin, noted criminal defense lawyer and former Los Angeles police officer. "The district attorney is waging a publicity campaign to better position himself for successful prosecution."
District Attorney Gil Garcetti says absolutely not. He says he didn't know the city attorney's office would agree to release the tapes at the request of several media organizations.
And the public has a valid interest in hearing these tapes, says Jane Kirtley of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "The actual tapes are an excellent way for the public to judge how well the government operates these 911 lines," she says.
Throwing the tapes out in the public arena could actually be damaging - or helpful - to both sides.
The tapes could bolster an insanity defense. "I'm thinking of his wife yelling 'He's crazy, he's crazy,' and how that might play into the hands of a skilled defense lawyer," Pollner says.
Robert Shapiro, Simpson's lawyer, did not return phone calls Thursday.
Or the tapes could help prosecutors convince Simpson's ardent fans that he was not a hero but a man with a long history of violent abuse.
And both sides could be burned. The tapes may be inadmissible during trial.
"If the tapes are inadmissible, anyone who's heard those transcripts or read them is forever barred from sitting on a jury," Levin says.
