Murder in Brentwood (26 page)

When Marcia hung up the phone, I commented, “Brad and I saw those socks early on the morning of June 13 when we evacuated the house.”

“You can just forget those socks,” Marcia said, smiling.

I smiled back, at first thinking she was just joking. But she was not.

Walking out of her office it dawned on me: On every point of evidence for which Brad could provide critical corroboration, Marcia was choosing to let the evidence suffer rather than call Brad to testify. For some reason, she did not want Brad Roberts to testify, no matter what he knew. Conversely, he could corroborate everything I had observed at Bundy and many items at Rockingham. He could give convincing testimonial evidence against any conspiracy theory or charges of planting or tampering with evidence. I began to wonder: Why didn’t he testify? Who didn’t want him on the stand? What knowledge did Brad possess that would damage the prosecution?

It hit me that if Brad testified to my observations at Bundy, then he would corroborate my notes, our observation of the other drops of blood, and the bloody fingerprint. If he did that, the obvious question would be why Lange and Vannatter hadn’t followed up on these clues. The obvious answer, just as Marcia had admitted, was “They didn’t read your notes.”

By not calling Brad to corroborate my notes, Marcia seemed to be protecting Vannatter and the entire prosecution from embarrassment. If Brad had been called, Vannatter would have had to admit on the stand that he broke one of the cardinal rules of a homicide detective by not reading my notes. And the prosecution would have had the reputation of their lead detective seriously compromised.

If Marcia was protecting Vannatter, she wasn’t alone. When Darden handled Vannatter s testimony, he too failed to ask him basic questions concerning my notes. Here is an excerpt from the transcript of March 16, 1995, with Darden examining Vannatter.

DARDEN: Now, after your arrival at the Bundy crime scene, were you ever given any documents at all?

VANNATTER: Yes.

DARDEN: What documents?

VANNATTER: I was given Mark Fuhrman’s notes that he had completed before my arrival.

DARDEN: And who gave you those notes?

VANNATTER: Detective Phillips.

DARDEN: Okay. And you’ve seen Detective Fuhrman’s notes, on the Elmo [overhead projector] here in court,

Have you?

VANNATTER: Yes, I have.

DARDEN: Are those the same notes Detective Phillips gave you?

VANNATTER: Yes.

DARDEN: And did you maintain possession of those notes?

VANNATTER: That’s correct.

DARDEN: And do you recall what time it was that Detective Phillips gave you those notes?

VANNATTER: Would have been shortly after 4:05, my arrival. We stood and talked for approximately five minutes and during that period of time, he gave them to me.

DARDEN: Now, as you walked down the walkway at Bundy and exited the rear gate, did you notice anything on the rear gate at all?

VANNATTER: Yes, I did.

DARDEN: What did you notice?

VANNATTER: I noticed what appeared to be blood wipings along the upper rail of the gate and what appeared to be blood drops on the bottom rail of the gate.

DARDEN: And were these blood wipings and blood drops pointed out to you by Detective Phillips?

VANNATTER: They were.

DARDEN: You’ve told us that you have visited approximately 500 homicide scenes; is that right?

VANNATTER: Approximately, yes.

While he asked Vannatter whether he received my notes, he never asked whether he had read them. Of course, Vannatter hadn’t read my notes. Marcia knew it. And so did Darden, or he would have asked Vannatter if he had.

While Darden was examining Vannatter, my notes were displayed on the Elmo, an overhead projector which made them visible to everybody in the courtroom. There, in letters the size of my own hand, was the following:

13.
      
AT REAR GATE ON N/S OF RESID – TWO BLOOD SPOTS AT BOTTOM INSIDE OF GATE.
 
THIS AREA MIGHT HAVE BEEN WHERE THE DOG WAS KEPT. SUSP RAN THROUGH THIS AREA. SUSP POSSIBLY BITEN BY DOG?

14.
      
REAR GATE, POS BLOOD SMUDGE ON UPPER RAIL OF GATE.

15.
      
REAR GATE, INSIDE DEAD BOLT (TURN KNOW TYPE) POSS BLOOD SMUDGE AND VISIBLE FINGERPRINT.

16.
      
BLOODY PAW PRINTS OF LARGE DOG LEADING FROM RESID, SIB ON SIDEWALK APPROX 60 FT S. OF RESID.

Despite the fact that the fingerprint notation was clearly projected on the wall, nobody mentioned it. Vannatter was not alone in failing to read my notes. None of the journalists sitting in the courtroom that day read them either. Here was a front page story staring them right in the face, but the press corps was too distracted to notice.

Had Marcia s decision not to call Brad as a witness affected only the Bundy scene, specifically the fingerprint, I could maybe understand that, as the fingerprint was already lost. But it also hurt the rest of the case. By refusing to call Brad as a witness, the prosecution lost the opportunity to answer many other claims made by the defense. What follows are important incidents that would have been cleared up by Brad Roberts s testimony:

1.
        
Brad was with me at the Bundy scene, where he saw one glove and a knit cap.

2.
        
Brad saw the additional drops of blood on the walkway gate at Bundy.

3.
        
Brad saw a bloody fingerprint on the turnstile knob of the Bundy walkway gate. Brad believed it to be identifiable.

4.
        
Brad had a discussion with me on the street outside the Bundy crime scene as we waited for Robbery/Homicide. We made plans to go to breakfast. No conspiracy here.

5.
        
Brad joined me at the Rockingham estate and observed the blood inside the Bronco. Brad and I called Vannatter over to the Bronco to see it. Considering his excitement, I’d say this was the first time Vannatter saw the evidence. Brad thought so, too.

6.
        
Brad observed drops of blood on the driveway leading from Rockingham and began numbering them for evidence collection. Vannatter might have also seen these drops, but Brad certainly did.

7.
        
Brad saw the large drop of blood outside the front door of the Rockingham estate and the three drops inside the foyer. Again, Vannatter might have made these observations, but Brad could have corroborated them.

8.
        
Brad helped me evacuate the house of whomever arrived there before the Rockingham estate became an official crime scene, and in doing so we both observed the two dress socks in Simpson’s master bedroom.

9.
        
Brad was the detective to take Simpson from the officer who had handcuffed him around noon on June 13. Simpson made statements to Brad that appeared very incriminating, accompanied by bodily reactions that were definitely incriminating. I had Brad put these statements to paper within hours. These statements were never told to the jury, yet appeared in the homicide book, a total history of the investigation.

10.
      
During the period of the first search warrant, Brad found dark clothes in the washing machine and blood on the bathroom light switch in the service area.

When Marcia refused to have Brad testify, she seriously compromised the case.

An interesting coincidence: The only two people not already teamed up who knew each other from the beginning of this case were Phil Vannatter and Marcia Clark. Remember that Vannatter called Marcia into this case in the first place. They recently had worked together in another case, and they no doubt had a professional friendship. Marcia probably had more loyalty to Vannatter than any of the other detectives involved, and she probably took his advice. Did Vannatter’s advice include keeping Roberts out of this case, so his own mistakes didn’t become public knowledge?

Marcia Clark didn’t set out to blow this case. She became a victim of celebrity, both O.J. Simpson’s and her own. The pressure and attention were so much, and Marcia was so afraid that cither she or her detectives would look bad, that she ignored important evidence and witnesses.

Once the trial made her famous, Marcia became a different person. Hearing of (lie troubles she had after the trial, I felt sorry for her. When Vannatter first called Marcia to the scene, she had not even heard of O.J. Simpson. Perhaps she might have been better off never knowing anything more about him.

Chapter 18

DARDEN FOR THE DEFENSE

Still, I was torn. My responsibility as a prosecutor clearly told me to take the case. But I had other responsibilities, as a black man, and they were difficult to sort out.

CHRISTOPHER DARDEN

THE PROSECUTION LOST the Simpson case for two reasons. As we have already seen, the prosecution team did not argue all the evidence they had. The other reason they lost is that they didn’t have an effective strategy for countering the defense’s race card. In fact, not only did they not counter these bogus tactics, but in some cases the prosecutors joined in, creating racial controversy themselves.

By the time Marcia Clark, Chris Darden, Cheri Lewis, and I began working together in earnest, the preliminary hearing was over, many racial issues had arisen about me, the defense had .spun the planted glove theory, and we all knew that I would be the defense’s primary target. Still, I thought that the prosecution would light to keep the trial focused on the evidence instead of the sideshow. As it turned out, the prosecution never had a clear strategy from the beginning. They should have appealed Judge Ito’s decision to allow racial issues and the use of the “N” word into the case. And throughout the trial they should have fought hard to convict O.J. Simpson instead of caving in on racial issues.

Personally, I got along with everyone on the team, and they treated me with friendship and respect. Chris Darden is the only member of the prosecution team who has admitted that he harbored anything other than a professional attitude toward me during this time. Chris let his personal emotions enter this case in too many places and times. It wasn’t professional. He wasn’t a team player.

As he wrote in his book In Contempt about our initial meeting: “I didn’t like him from the first time I saw him. I looked at him sitting in Scott Gordon’s office, waiting for me, and I had the urge to run.”

Chris was an hour and a half late for our meeting, but that didn’t bother him. As he said in his book: “I didn’t give a shit.” Chris Darden is a brooding, confused man. He is hotheaded, immature, and not in the least bit organized. He didn’t seem concerned with the case, or, if he was, he did a good job of hiding it. He pouted constantly, and when things didn’t go well, he seemed to feel persecuted. He is obsessed with race, and throughout the trial he appeared more concerned about his image in the black community than his effectiveness as a prosecutor.

Chris was acutely sensitive to any criticism, especially when it came from other blacks. “Where the hell were these people when the LAPD was vilifying me, calling me ‘too black’ and ‘too militant?’” he said to People magazine. “Am I supposed to have surrendered my skin color just because I’m doing my job? I’ll tell you, when this case is over, the families of black victims will be asking for me.”

Darden often saw himself as a black man first and a prosecutor second. In the following quote from his book, lie discusses his ambivalence about accepting the district attorney’s offer to join the prosecution team. “Still, I was torn. My responsibilities as a prosecutor clearly told me to take this case. But I had other responsibilities as a black man, and they were difficult to sort out.”

This statement illustrates the problems that Chris brought to the case-racial hypersensitivity, callowness, an inability to make up his mind, and amnesia about his oath as a prosecutor.

What if I arrived at a homicide scene-which appeared to be the murder of a black man by a white man-and said that I was not sure I wanted to investigate this case, since I was torn between my responsibilities as a homicide detective and my responsibilities as a white man? I would be justifiably criticized,

if not run off the force. But Darden’s

[Darden often saw himself as a black man first and a prosecutor second.]

public anguish was either passed over without criticism, or seen as an example of his thoughtfulness and racial pride.

I don’t understand why Chris was brought into the case. His obsession with race and police misconduct was not a secret. Chris claims that during his tenure in the Special Investigations Division, he prosecuted a lot of cops. In fact, he may have investigated a lot of cops, but he took only a couple to trial. One was a good friend of mine, who had allegedly mistreated a suspect, an undercover cop, and supposedly used a racial slur. This officer was forced into early retirement because of the incident, even though the suspect’s charges were completely unjustified. My friend was branded as a racist, despite the fact that he is married to a black woman. It doesn’t make any sense, but racial politics rarely do. And Chris Darden used racial politics to advance his career. Turning the Simpson case into a racial issue would position him as the only black person on the side of justice. It would also make him rich.

If a racist is someone obsessed with race, whose perception is clouded by the color of a person’s skin, and who sees himself as a member of a racial group first and a human being second, then Chris Darden could be called a racist. But I won’t.

Despite all this, Darden was initially given the responsibility of handling my testimony. In fact, he was awarded the job precisely because of racial considerations.

In his book, Chris describes the meeting when it was officially decided that he would examine me. Marcia had just said she would examine the timeline and police officer witnesses:

That left me. I looked around the room and realized how white they all looked. All these white people and me. How would that look to the homies in South Central: one brother surrounded by all this whiteness, sticking out like a scratch on a new Mercedes? Damn, I thought, I really am going to pay hell for this.