The Search for Justice (22 page)

At some point in the middle of the frenzy, a large man came up and introduced himself as a private security person who had
worked for Marvin Hagler and Sylvester Stallone. “Do you think you ’ll need any help tonight, Mr. Shapiro?” he asked. Normally
I would ’ve turned him down, but as I looked around the room, I decided it was a good idea, especially since Linell and the
boys were with me. It turned out to be a
great
idea. We
needed five linked-arm escorts just to get back to James ’s dressing room, and the same number to get out the front door.

It was hard to get to sleep that night. I knew about courtrooms, and I thought I knew about human nature. This was something
altogether different. Entertainers, politicians, and athletes covet the public spotlight; it ’s not only integral to who they
are, it defines their professional worth in a measurable, palpable way. For lawyers… well, recognition is wonderful, applause
is great, people asking for autographs can make you feel good, but I kept asking myself why. What was there about being a
lawyer for a man accused of double murder that caused people to treat me like a celebrity?

Of course, it was still early in the case; things would change. Just as quarterbacks must get used to both cheers for touchdowns
and boos for interceptions, I ’d soon hear a different sound coming from the stands.

They ’re taking potshots at him already; every lawyer in the country is auditioning for his job. That ’s something Bob would
be terribly upset by—he ’s always been a team player and a gentleman
.

—L
ESLIE
A
BRAMSON

O
n Sunday, July 31, Johnnie and I visited with O.J. in the county jail, where once again we heard him tell the story of his
life with Nicole. It was a mantra he repeated no matter who was visiting him, no matter how easily the sheriff ’s bailiffs
could overhear. That he ’d loved her, that they ’d had their problems, that he ’d accepted their marriage was over, that he
’d moved on, that he only wanted to do what was best for the kids, that he had a good life, that he never would do anything
to threaten it.

We had to get him to focus on the task at hand, to understand that what lay ahead of us was work. I know he wanted our support,
our friendship. But being his best friend wasn ’t my job, it wasn ’t what he was paying me for. I know my bedside manner could
stand some improvement, but I didn ’t think we had the time to indulge O.J. anymore. On the other hand, Johnnie seemed to
have infinite patience with him, telling him what he wanted to hear, approving of everything he said, listening to him tell
the story of his life over and over. We had work to do, and it was time for O.J. to
think
of it as work.

O.J. just couldn ’t stay with it; he kept veering off to Nicole, to the stories that had been printed about them, and to some
of the grand jury testimony that had inexplicably been leaked to
the media. There was one story in particular, about Keith Zlomsowitch, who had dated Nicole shortly after the divorce. Zlomsowitch,
who was a potential witness for the prosecution, had alleged that O.J. followed Nicole, stalking her, and had watched through
her window when she and Zlomsowitch were having sex.

As he would later repeat in his post-trial video, O.J. insisted he never stalked his ex-wife. It was a small neighborhood,
and they often simply ran into each other in the same bars and restaurants. The reason he ’d seen them being intimate on that
one occasion was that he ’d gone there on what he thought was an invitation from Nicole. The curtains were open and he saw
the two of them having sex in the living room. He went away then, he said, and waited until the next day to tell Nicole that
he ’d seen them. He told her that he didn ’t think their behavior appropriate, considering that his two young children might
walk in the room. He didn ’t hit anybody, he didn ’t yell, he didn ’t break anything. He just said, “Don ’t do that so openly
around my kids.”

After hearing this story, it occurred to me that Zlomsowitch might be a good
defense
witness; after all, in similar circumstances—an ex-wife having sex with someone on the couch, his two small children upstairs—what
man wouldn ’t go completely ballistic? And yet, O.J. didn ’t.

As we began preparations for the trial, a simultaneous grand jury investigation started up regarding A.C. Cowlings, who had
been arrested after the Bronco chase on suspicion of aiding and abetting a fugitive. Christopher Darden was the assistant
district attorney in charge of the grand jury ’s investigation.

I was more than a little suspicious of the prosecution ’s motives. By investigating A.C., they could gather information, witnesses,
and testimony (given under oath) that could be used in the case against O.J.

The law says that once a trial is in progress (and we were
considered “in progress” once O.J. had been arraigned), a grand jury proceeding related to witnesses in that trial is not
allowed. Nevertheless, Bob Kardashian was one of the first people subpoenaed; Cathy Randa was right behind him, and so was
almost everyone who had been involved in the case since the first week, including Michael Baden, Henry Lee, and even Keno
Jenkins, my driver.

Normally very soft-spoken and polite, Keno became completely unnerved during the grand jury hearing when it was suggested
that he—and I—had somehow been part of a plan for O.J. to evade the police with A.C. Cowlings. “They said they didn ’t believe
me,” he said. “They called me a liar!” His blood pressure immediately spiked, and he had to see his doctor the following day.

I even heard from an anguished Henry Lee in Connecticut, who was also completely unaccustomed to having his integrity questioned.
“Bob,” he said, “I think I might have to resign. My department is very upset with me.” He was very upset about being subpoenaed,
he ’d been criticized by his bosses for giving me the Connecticut State Police baseball cap, and the press was making his
life miserable. “They follow me, they follow my wife. Wherever we go, there they are.” He would continue to consult on the
case, he said, but he couldn ’t do so in a senior position.

When I received a subpoena demanding that I produce O.J. Simpson ’s datebook for 1994. I called Chris Darden myself.

“Chris, I just received a subpoena, and I ’m certainly willing to cooperate in any way possible. But I don ’t have this datebook
here. I don ’t think I ever had it.”

“Cathy Randa told us she ’d turned it over to you,” Darden said.

I called Cathy, who told me she ’d given the datebook to her own attorney, Melvyn Sacks. I called Sacks and asked him to seal
the datebook in an envelope and bring it to my office the next day with a letter declaring the envelope ’s contents. I then
presented it to the court, under seal, arguing that I objected to
turning it over to the grand jury. It was “privileged material beyond the scope of the Cowlings investigation, but containing
information pertinent to the Simpson prosecution” that they were not entitled to get by this method. As Dean Uelmen argued,
“The grand jury is not empowered to conduct roving investigations.”

We were assured by the district attorney ’s office that what is euphemistically known as a Chinese wall had been built between
Chris Darden ’s investigation of A.C. and Bill Hodgman ’s prosecution of O.J., keeping the current grand jury investigation
confidential. While I trusted Bill Hodgman implicitly, I never believed for a minute that there was a wall high enough or
thick enough to keep these two matters from spilling over onto each other.

In November 0f 1994, when the grand jury concluded its investigation, it was announced that there was no sufficient cause
for the D.A. to seek an indictment of A.C. The very next day, Christopher Darden became part of the Simpson prosecution team;
when Bill Hodgman fell seriously ill in January, Darden became co-lead counsel. There was a great hue and cry (from Johnnie
Cochran, among others) that Darden had been added to the prosecution team primarily because he was African-American. However,
to my mind it had less to do with that than it did with the grand jury hearing that Darden had overseen and the confidential
information he was privy to. So much for the Chinese wall, I thought.

On Monday, August 1, I was surprised to read in the
Los Angeles Times
that Judge Ito had released O.J. ’s grand jury transcripts to the public. He did it, he said, to “level the playing field,”
since significant portions of the transcript had already been leaked in previous weeks. We hadn ’t been notified, and it took
me by surprise. Of course, it made big news all day long, with Keith Zlomsowitch and the alleged “stalking” incidents taking
center stage.

Later that afternoon, we received a letter from Robert Tourtelot, an attorney representing Mark Fuhrman, notifying us that
all the defense attorneys for O.J. were going to be sued for defamation, as were Jeffrey Toobin and the
New Yorker;
however, if we publicly retracted our “statements,” the suit wouldn ’t be filed. I forwarded the material to Larry Feldman
and Tony Glassman, my own attorneys.

On Wednesday, I was called to the jail to meet with Skip Taft and Captain Albert Scaduto, who ran the facility. O.J. ’s security
needs in the jail, with special sergeants assigned to guard him, were costing $36,000 a month. They wanted to move him to
a different location, to what they called a “high-power unit,” and use a twenty-four-hour-a-day video camera in place of the
extra guards. I strenuously objected that a video camera trained on someone around-the-clock would be a significant invasion
of privacy, especially where bodily functions were concerned. All I could think of was the thriving tabloid market and what
someone might pay for a video of O.J. ’s activities in his cell.

Skip and I then went to inspect the new cell location. Once again, it was the standard nine by seven. I was discouraged to
see that since no one would be in any of the seven neighboring cells, O.J. would for all intents and purposes be in solitary
confinement. Because he was technically a “protective custody” inmate, he wasn ’t allowed to eat in the community mess halls,
work out in the rooftop exercise area, or attend services in the jail chapel. Thus far, he ’d been a model prisoner, still
presumed innocent of the crime he ’d not yet been tried for, and yet he was completely isolated. A telephone within his grasp
(he couldn ’t receive calls but could make them during limited time periods, like all other inmates) and two hours of television
a day—with the channels selected by the guards—weren ’t going to do much to mitigate that.

My mood wasn ’t helped when I got a quick look at that week ’s
Time
magazine, in which they reported the results of a
Time
/CNN poll. Sixty-three percent of whites believed that
O.J. would get a fair trial; only 31 percent of blacks felt the same. Seventy-seven percent of whites believed the case against
him was very strong; 45 percent of blacks agreed. I didn ’t worry so much about the numbers as I did about the distribution.
They ’re polling readers by race, I thought.