Anatomy of a Trial: Public Loss, Lessons Learned from The People vs. O.J. Simpson

Chapter 6. Seeing Stars

Chapter 6 Seeing Stars    Although Ito never wavered from his belief that the trial would amount to no more than an “Andy Warhol moment,” at one point he remarked with a touch of cynicism how surprising it was that suddenly everyone wanted to be his friend.Among the minions were media stars, and some who thought they were. All jockeyed, cajoled, and pestered to meet him. At first he was adamant. Absolutely not. Then one day, Marcia Skolnik, municipal court public affairs officer and my boss at the time, because of a brief merger of our two courts’administrations,told me to meet her late that afternoon in the elevator lobby near Ito’s Criminal Courts Building courtroom . Speaking in a low, conspiratorial tone, she said she had a surprise. The surprise turned out to be then–NBC Today Show host Katie Couric. Skolnik escorted Couric, her editorial producer, Lori Beecher, and me through an empty courtroom to the private hallway that provides access to judges’ chambers, jury rooms, and other private offices. Destination? Ito’s chambers. Court, however, was still in session, so we waited until he was off the bench. He was cordial as he came in a few minutes later,unsnapping his robe and laying it over the back of his desk chair. Although it sounds like a cliché,surreal best describes my sense of the scene asCouric,atIto’sinvitation,dippedintothecandyjaronhisdeskandbantered with him about the mob of media that had amassed for the case.Since I wasn’t 63 in on arranging Couric’s visit, I don’t know how it came about, but one motivationbecameapparent .Asshepreparedtoleave,shesaidshehopedItowould give her the first interview when he decided to do another one. The most galling visit,however,was one by lawyer-turned-writer and television legal pundit Jeffrey Toobin.Before the Simpson case I had never heard of Toobin.He wrote for the NewYorker magazine and was going to do a book. Well, wasn’t everyone? I thought when Toobin shared that bit of news. Like many of his colleagues, Toobin clamored to meet Ito. Ito said no. “He’s a month behind the time,” Ito said in reply to one request in midSeptember of 1994.“He’s too late.”1 But Toobin persisted.2 “Just a few minutes with the judge,”he pleaded on another occasion.“Just to say hello, to introduce myself and, as a lawyer, shake the judge’s hand.” In February Ito finally relented but said to bring him in at the end of the lunch break so he could limit his time with him.As I escorted Toobin to Ito’s chambers, I delivered my spiel that everything, once he crossed the threshold , was off the record. As usual, all manner of files, documents, mementos, and other paraphernalia cluttered Ito’s chambers. As Toobin observed the surroundings,Ito showed him what he thought was an example of how crazy things had gotten with public interest in the trial.It was a note television personality Arsenio Hall had sent him in which he compared Ito’s job to President Bill Clinton’s, saying that Clinton has the second hardest job and that Ito had the hardest.3 With a shake of his head,Ito said he found it strange that people, even celebrities, apparently wanting to be part of or to somehow relate personally with the trial, would send the court notes and photographs and souvenirs. “You would think these people would have something better to do,” he said.4 But that’s not how Toobin told it. Nearly a year after the trial, Toobin hit the talk-show circuit to promote his book.5 In recounting his meeting with Ito, he said the judge wanted to meet him and had “summoned” him for a visit in chambers.Toobin’s tale was not only unethical because he violated the off-the-record condition, he reshaped the encounter, apparently to support his characterization of Ito as behaving like“just another celebrity-crazed resident of LosAngeles”and having“starry eyes.”6 Ito’s point in showing Toobin the Arsenio Hall note was to underscore how obsessed people had become with the trial. 64 Anatomy of a Trial Toobin’s account of that visit wasn’t all he got wrong. In his book he described Ito as being“thrilled” by the presence of TV talk-show host Larry King when he visited the court on January...