The People V. . . . Episode Three

This episode of "American Crime Story" opens with the touching scene of Robert Kardashian talking about OJ's arrest with the kids who would later become the subject of the contemporary reality show about them.  They asked if OJ did it.   That's the question this episode addresses.

Who actually believed OJ was innocent?  Robert Kardashian, his close friend who asked him to be godfather of his children, believed it.  So did a lot of the fans who cheered OJ on during the slow Bronco/police chase.

It was clear the police did not think he was, even those who had accepted his hospitality.  It was clear no one in the DA’s office did.  In fact, they released anything they could ahead of the trial to the public in a serious effort to taint public opinion against OJ.  The media was a mixed bag, leaning toward guilty.  They published what the DA leaked.  But the media also noted TIME MAGAZINE’s intentional darkening of OJ’s mugshot.  

What of his lawyer, Robert Shapiro?  His expertise was plea bargaining.  It made no difference whether OJ was guilty or innocent.  Shapiro wanted the best deal he could get.  The only problem was that OJ would not deal   He asserted his innocence from the beginning.  

If OJ had been poor, especially a poor Black, the court would have appointed a public defender to be his counsel.  There would have been no outside experts because there was no money.  There would have been no outside investigators or extra lawyers.  There would have been no “Dream Team.”

Imagine being in that position, poor, under-represented, with the DA’s office releasing evidence against you, and threatening the death penalty.  

Criminal jurisprudence in America values a competent defense for any accused person.  That’s why some cases get re-tried when it can be shown the defendant had incompetent counsel.  

Fortunately for OJ, he had wealth and could hire good lawyers.  So when OJ refused to let Shapiro do a plea bargain which would have meant OJ admitting to some measure of guilt, a defense attorney with court smarts was needed.  Nearing the end of his illustrious career, F. Lee Bailey was asked to help.  When Alan Dershowitz, a nationally famous Harvard law professor was on TV pontificating that OJ was probably guilty, Shapiro hired him in anticipation of having an appeal.  That took him off TV and into the dream team.  When it was clear to Shapiro that there were no African Americans on the team, he had to add Johnny Cochran.  While the episode brought up how the team would deal with the DNA evidence the police were so proud of gathering and which carried much of the DA’s case, we were not told that other lawyers were working on two things, child custody, and the potential of future civil law suits against OJ, protecting as much of his wealth as possible for the future support of his children and himself.

Shapiro shrewdly invited in a reporter from NEW YORKER MAGAZINE, Jeffrey Toobin, to counter the DA’s publicity.  The thrust of the defense would be that OJ was the subject of racial prejudice, of which Detective Mark Fuhrman was the foremost example.

The DA’s office beefed up its team by adding Chris Darden, a Black staff member.  Darden trusted Marcia Clark and the police evidence.  Despite what he was hearing in the Black community, he stepped up to the task as an honor.  Did he believe OJ was guilty?  He was a lawyer and did not have to believe it.  His job was to help present the evidence, counter the defense’s arguments to the best of his ability, and let the jury decide.  Those he was working with, however, were convinced the murders had been solved by the arrest of OJ.  And they did not encourage the police to investigate any other possibility.

Did Shapiro, Bailey, Dershowitz, et al, believe OJ was innocent?  Johnny Cochran did.  The others?  It seems, according to the episode, that they may have been in it for the money and the fame.  That’s the common misconception of the part of the public that believed OJ was guilty.  After reading all I could, I concluded that there was not complete agreement on the guilt/innocence matter.  But, like Darden, they had a job to do, present all the facts that raised doubt or proved innocence, argue against what was presented by the prosecution to the best of their ability, and let the jury decide.  The money and fame were nothing new to them.  They already had that.

OJ was fortunate.  Not only was his wealth enough to afford a skilled defense, he had the good fortune of having people on his team that could argue both sides and then settle on what to do in court.  The DA’s office was so invested in believing OJ was guilty that they could not deal with anything that did not support their narrative.  As a consequence, they were unwilling and unable to counter the "Dream Team."  

This third episode showed that the Simpson case occurred when Marcia Clark was in the process of divorce.  It is no wonder she made public an incident between OJ and Nicole from some years earlier where one of their domestic fights was called in on 9-1-1.  

In my experience as an advocate, I saw many times the anger of women, earned from bitter experience, which presumed a woman’s accusation was always true.  In some cases, a woman used a situation by misrepresenting it and destroying a minister’s career.  But I found practically no one willing to look closely enough to see the evidence I found.

There is so little about Nicole shown in the episodes so far that it becomes easy to see her as a helpless female victim.  It will be interesting if the writers for "American Crime Story" series fill out her character to show what it was that drew her and OJ together to the point where the series shows him every time he is asked saying how much he loved her and was devastated by her death.

The episode concludes with Johnny Cochran telling OJ that all he needs is one Black juror and he can get a hung jury.  

Spoiler alert: Cochran got his Black juror but not a jury that could not persuade one recalcitrant to join the majority for a guilty verdict.  The jury was not only unanimous that OJ was not guilty, but reported it out within four hours of deliberation!  Watch all future episodes to see if the series shares enough of the evidence that makes such a scenario possible.

If it does not, I’ll try to provide an adequate basis for their decision.  Or better yet, get Armanda Cooley’s MADAM FOREMAN from the library and read for yourself how and why they decided as they did.

The Run of His Life, the People V. OJ Simpson

OJ didn’t do it.

Ten years ago, I undertook a careful study of the OJ Simpson case.  It became the backdrop of a novel I wrote at the time in which I solved the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman.

Hardly anyone believed me.

Now “American Crime Stories,” a fairly popular television show is presenting a series about OJ's case.  Blurbs about the series say it does not attempt to give full evidence but seeks more to dramatize the dynamics surrounding the case such as police-on-Black violence, spousal abuse, and privilege of the wealthy.  Even so, it still must offer evidence or it could not accurately portray the story.  I will be looking to see if the evidence is adequately provided or if it is left out or inaccurately offered.

You know I believe he was innocent. You must also know that the book on which the TV series is based, THE RUN OF HIS LIFE, is written by someone who believes OJ is guilty.  Jeffery Toobin says as much in the book.  Update: He reaffirmed his belief again on March 5 in a NewYorker Magazine essay.

There are three other books that I found to be very helpful in terms of the real facts presented as objectively as possible and one that really unintentionally pointed out how the police went after OJ.

In addition to the Toobin book, Lawrence Schiller’s AMERICAN TRAGEDY, which is told from the perspective of Robert Kardashian, is a must read.  The next book that deserves serious regard is KILLING TIME by Donald Freed and Raymond Briggs.  The fourth book is MADAM FOREMAN by Amanda Cooley who chaired the jury for their trial deliberations.  While Toobin and Schiller started out objective, they both turned against OJ in their updated editions.  Freed and Briggs do not commit to a solution to the murders but add new information, give critical data like the autopsies, and raise major questions about the prosecution's timeline of the murders.  The Cooley book provides grounds for their “not guilty” verdict as well as an articulate statement about the jury members themselves.

Every other book I read was mostly self-serving.  On OJ’s side, the books by Cochran, Shapiro, and Derschowitz were more about their own great careers and less about OJ’s innocence.  Marcia Clark, Chris Darden, Fred Goldman, and all the others on the prosecution side did what they could to minimize anything that would have exonerated OJ and chose only to include what would convict him.  

The worst was MURDER IN BRENTWOOD by Mark Fuhrman.  Yet his book showed some of how the framing of OJ occurred.  And Fuhrman didn’t even realize he was doing it!

I need to tell you that my work since 1980 as an advocate for ministers in trouble gave me a perspective.  I helped with many cases of pastors accused of some nasty stuff and had to sort through everything to come up with a reasonable reconstruction of the actual events, if they even occurred.  In those cases, people lied, sometimes the accuser, sometimes the accused, sometimes both, and sometimes the church leaders handling the case.  

There are several techniques that I learned to help me identify what were facts and what were misrepresentations in nearly all those cases.  One is the development of timelines based on what was said by each person involved or witnessing or handling the matter for the church.  That gave me “what they knew and when they knew it.”  Comparing timelines opened up each case to where gaps and inconsistencies existed and usually led to lines of investigation that found the crucial facts resolving the case.  The book that took that approach was KILLING TIME.  As you watch the series, you may want to take notes and put them into chronological order for yourself.  

Finally, did the series leave out important information?  Did it include things that were not in evidence or proved?  As I have the chance over the ten weeks of the series, I will critique each episode and hopefully give you good reason to look again at your opinion about the crime, whether you agree with me or not.