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

Chapter 9. If It Please the Court

Chapter 9 If It Please the Court    Dealing with the lawyersin the Simpson case seemed at times like trying to contain a roomful of two-year-olds. Ito fined them, sanctioned them, admonished them from the bench, chided them in chambers, and issued written orders about their conduct. Still, they cavorted, pouted, postured, quarreled, delayed proceedings, defied the judge, ridiculed one another and at least one witness, and often behaved as if everything was all about them. Even lawyers not on the case got in on the act. In addition to the camerahoming Gloria Allred, who represented Nicole Brown Simpson’s family,1 issued press releases about them2 and even appeared in court on their behalf,3 other attorneys cashed in on the emerging cottage industry of TV legal punditry, regardless of whether they had any firsthand knowledge of what was going on with the case.4 “There probably aren’t two lawyers in all of Los Angeles who haven’t been on TV about this trial,” Ito said in May of 1995. KNBC news director Bill Lord confirmed that, saying lawyers were constantly calling him about serving as commentators.5 Eventually joining their ranks was Eric Menendez’s lawyer Leslie Abramson , a tightly wound woman with a steel-wool mop of blonde hair who was known during the Menendez brothers trial to repeatedly throw angry barbs at the broadcast media and even to raise a strategic finger at camera crews trying to get shots of her as she walked to and from the courthouse. 130 Interestingly, Marcia Clark had asked at least one prospective juror during jury selection if he thought Simpson should be treated differently because he was a celebrity.6 And an outraged Cochran blustered in a pretrial hearing that it was“preposterous to say that Mr.Simpson expects any special kind of treatment. He’s not getting any special treatment. . . . He’s being treated like any other defendant.”7 Yet,here the attorneys themselves,particularly defense attorneys,were treating him differently and arranging for others to do the same. Defendants who are in custody during trial, as Simpson was, are customarily held in a small locked cell, called lockup, off the courtroom when proceedings are in recess during the court day. Simpson’s attorneys, however, made a case for him to remain in the courtroom when court wasn’t in session , particularly during the lunch break. They contended that they wanted to confer with him on issues on which they needed his input.8 Ordinarily, lawyers confer with in-custody clients in lockup.The nearly dozen lawyers on Simpson’s defense team,however,made meeting in the close confines of a cell nearly impossible. Lunch became the next issue. Lockup fare consisted of a sandwich of baloney, jokingly referred to as “mystery meat,” and perhaps cheese and an apple. The food that Simpson’s lawyers brought in for him was a definite improvement over that.Before long,however,courtroom deputies reported that instead of working, Simpson was bantering and playing solitaire on a computer his defense team had installed on the counsel table. Ito promptly ended the privilege and ordered him held in lockup when court wasn’t in session and directed that he have the same lunches as other in-custody defendants. Simpson’s lawyers also gave him candy from a jar that sat on the clerk’s desk and doughnuts Ito brought in on Fridays for court staff. Ito’s bailiff eventually put the doughnuts out of sight on a little table in the back hallway behind the courtroom.9 The immature, snippy, frat-house behavior some of the lawyers engaged in included little episodes such as Shapiro pointing at Deputy DistrictAttorney Christopher Darden’s necktie one day as they came out of Ito’s chambers. When Darden looked down, Shapiro chucked him sharply under his chin and made a remark I didn’t catch. From the look on Darden’s face, though, I doubted it was collegial.10 If It Please the Court 131 While the vitriol that flew between the two sides in court was thinly glazed with such preambles as,“my esteemed colleague,”“my good friend,”and“my opponent, whom I highly respect,” behind-the-scenes confrontations were more bare-knuckled. During one meeting in Ito’s chambers in early May, defense attorney Cochran accused one of the prosecuting attorneys, Hank Goldberg, of being defensive. “You should be a...