The Search for Justice (39 page)

Johnnie ’s answer was a return to his now-familiar theme of “I ’ve tried cases for thirty-three years and I know what I ’m
doing.”

The next day, Johnnie delivered his opening statement. Ito had decided to turn the cameras back on, anchored in a fixed position,
so that only the attorneys, the judge, and the witnesses could be seen.

O.J. had made a request to speak to the jury as part of the defense ’s opening statements; that request had been denied, but
Ito did rule that he could show the scars on his knee, which would point to his physical inability to leap over the Rockingham
fence, or kill two people. The pictures of O.J. ’s body taken during Dr. Huizenga ’s examination, which showed no bruises
or signs of a physical struggle, were also shown to the jury. Johnnie described O.J. ’s longtime love for and generosity to
the Brown family: He had secured the Hertz franchise for Lou,
he steered clients to Juditha ’s travel business, and at one time or another he ’d paid college tuition for two sisters and
had given money to a third. He referred to this as O.J. ’s “largesse.”

Johnnie ’s statement was three hours long, and much of it was riveting. He ’s a natural-born storyteller, and the jurors were
obviously listening carefully. However, he waded into the kind of trouble I ’d been concerned about. He put too much emphasis
on Lopez and Gerchas and used only fragments of the scientific evidence our experts had worked so hard to interpret and quantify.

He elaborated on the crippling nature of O.J. ’s arthritis, in spite of the fact that we knew O.J. had shot an exercise video
three weeks before the murders, which the prosecution could (and did) use to undermine that. And as we feared he might do,
Cochran scrambled the timeline. When he gave a list of the witnesses the defense would call—witnesses, it turned out, that
the prosecution knew nothing about—he made the normally calm Bill Hodgman ripping mad. Ultimately Hodgman objected thirteen
times during Johnnie ’s opening.

“They can ’t rattle me,” said Johnnie, “they can ’t stop me, and they can ’t shut me up.”

California ’s reciprocal discovery law (which is relatively recent) mandates that each side turn over to the other any statements
or interviews of witnesses that they intend to call. The job of making sure this was done on the part of the defense fell
to Carl Douglas and Gerry Uelmen. Uelmen was winding up his daily involvement with the case; thus, the onus was on Douglas.

Hodgman was personally and professionally appalled at what Johnnie had done. We had given them “a myriad of issues” to deal
with, he said. He was visibly angry.

As Judge Ito said to the defense attorneys, “How do you suggest I deal with the objections of the prosecution after I succeed
in peeling them off the ceiling?”

Ever since the case began I had been criticized very often, especially by the ubiquitous attorney Vincent Bugliosi, for turning
over too much material, some of which didn ’t need to be turned over at all. My reasoning had always been that we had nothing
to hide, and our story wasn ’t going to change, so why not give the prosecution everything?

After Ito suspended the proceedings, I walked over to Bill Hodgman and put my arm around his shoulder, trying to find a way
to address the way he was feeling. Hodgman is a great believer in the justice system, a man who truly embodies the expression
“public servant,” and at that moment he was rigid with anger.

“Bill, why don ’t you move for a mistrial, and we ’ll start all over again,” I joked.

There was no cajoling him. “Bob,” he said intensely, “we really have to sit down and talk.”

“You ’ve got to slow down with this,” I said, alarmed at the look on his face. “If you don ’t take care of yourself, you ’re
going to have a stroke.”

That night, I was shocked to hear on the news that Hodgman had been hospitalized with chest pains. Earlier that evening, while
he and the prosecution were reviewing Johnnie ’s statements, he was taken by paramedics from the Criminal Court building to
Torrance Memorial Medical Center. It wasn ’t a heart attack, the reporter said; more likely, it was stress and exhaustion,
exacerbated by anger.

When we assembled the next morning, I was thinking that we might request a short delay to give Hodgman a chance to recover
and come back to court. But O.J. ’s position was no more delays, and we supported him in that.

Marcia Clark requested a recess until one-thirty that afternoon. When she came back—the jury was still recessed—she launched
the most vicious attack I ’ve ever seen one lawyer hurl at another in a courtroom. On the record, she accused Cochran
of activity that could (but would not) be reported to the bar, including deliberate misconduct and taking away forever the
People ’s right to a fair trial. She and Darden said Johnnie had deliberately hidden evidence, was guilty of willful misconduct,
and was deserving of sanctions from the court. In return, the prosecution wanted the judge to consider everything from not
allowing defense witnesses to testify to reopening the prosecution ’s opening statements.

Johnnie immediately launched a counterattack, saying that the prosecution had withheld DNA reports and, furthermore, had stopped
him from completing his opening statements, which had seriously compromised our case in front of the jury.

Without bringing the jury back in, Ito recessed for the weekend to consider the charges and countercharges. It was clear we
were off to a rocky start, and nerves were frayed. Nevertheless, Chris Darden ended the day by saying, “I love the man. He
’s Johnnie Cochran, he ’s my idol.”

“No offense to Chris Darden,” responded Johnnie, “but I hope my wife doesn ’t love me the way he does.”

The next day was a day of odd contrasts and wildly erratic emotions. Court was still in recess; Bob Chandler ’s valiant battle
with lung cancer ended; O.J. ’s book,
I Want to Tell You
, was published.

On Monday, January 30, Carl Douglas came back to argue for the defense, and it was the beginning of a pathetic week for us.
He began by saying that the discovery law was relatively new, and there was little familiarity with it, and that even though
he acknowledged that the withholding of information was his fault—since he was in charge of discovery—exactly how much responsibility
we were held to under the law was still being interpreted. The argument was not compelling. The fact of the matter was, we
’d made a mistake.

When Ito issued his ruling, it was as harsh as it could be, and handed down in the presence of the jury. He said Cochran
had deliberately withheld information, in violation of California law, and as a result Ito was going to allow the prosecution
the unprecedented right of reopening their opening statement. It was as egregious an attack on a defense lawyer as I had ever
seen by a judge, especially in a case that was being so closely watched all over the world.

When Marcia Clark came back the next day to make her second opening statement, she took Johnnie ’s statement apart point by
point, weakening whatever impact his opening might ’ve had with the jury. To add insult to injury, she refuted Johnnie ’s
references to Mary Anne Gerchas, characterizing her as a “Simpson case groupie.” Ultimately, we didn ’t call Gerchas to the
stand.

Johnnie then began his whirlwind TV week, starting out his day on
Good Morning America
, continuing on
Entertainment Tonight
, and ending it with Ted Koppel on
Nightline.
The rest of the defense team got a call that there would be a photo shoot for a
Newsweek
cover at Johnnie ’s office, a project that O.J. had approved. I reluctantly went to the shoot—the photo was never used—but
the reporter, Mark Miller, called me the next day to tell me he ’d inadvertently taken our witness list showing which lawyers
were going to examine which witnesses. He returned the list and to my knowledge never used the information.

On February 1, Ron Shipp testified. He was a former L.A. cop and self-proclaimed old friend of O.J. ’s. In my view, he was
more of a hanger-on, a wanna-be. Shipp testified to two things: one, that because of his expertise on domestic abuse, he had
counseled O.J. after the 1989 incident, and O.J. had admitted then that he had a tendency to be jealous of Nicole; and two,
that on the night of June 13, he and O.J. had a conversation about a polygraph test.

According to Shipp, O.J. had expressed reservations about the test. “Would dreams affect it?” Shipp said O.J. asked. “Because
I must tell you honestly, I ’ve had some dreams about killing Nicole.”

Shipp testified that he told O.J., “Well, that ’s something you have to talk to your lawyer about.”

In fact, O.J. did talk to me about it and on his behalf, I offered a polygraph to the district attorney ’s office, on the
condition that the results were admissible. They turned down the offer.

Contrary to what Shipp suggested, O.J. was never afraid to take a lie-detector test, although he, like anyone confronted with
an unfamiliar science, had some understandable questions about how it worked. In his first statement to the police, he admitted
as much. “I ’ve got to understand what this thing is. If it ’s true blue, I don ’t mind doing it.”

As Carl Douglas was cross-examining Shipp, O.J. ’s concern was evident, as he kept turning to me and asking, “Do you like
what ’s happening? Is it going well?”

“O.J., do you want to hear what you want to hear, or do you want to hear my honest opinion?” I asked.

It was a bad cross. Douglas was antagonistic and sarcastic, trying to destroy the witness by repeatedly asking questions—in
a loud voice—about his being with a blonde in a Jacuzzi, when Shipp was black and his wife was sitting right there in the
courtroom. He even accused Shipp of trying to launch an acting career by giving testimony in the Simpson case.

I didn ’t like what I was seeing, but Johnnie kept reassuring us. “Carl ’s doing fine, he ’s doing exactly what I want him
to do. He ’s tearing him apart.” To what end? I wondered. We had plenty of credibility witnesses to come—Fuhrman, Vannatter,
the L.A.P.D. lab staff—and we had expert witnesses of our own. If we ’re going to attack the character of every one of the
prosecution ’s witnesses, I thought, we ’re in for a very long day in court.

Gerry Spence was quoted in the newspaper as saying Douglas ’s disastrous cross of Ron Shipp didn ’t erode Shipp ’s credibility
in the least. “If I was Douglas ’s father,” Spence joked, “I ’d take him out in the woods and spank him real good so he ’d
never do what he did again.”

A lawyer must adjust an examination according to the witness ’s reaction. Put simply, Shipp wasn ’t believable, and a short
and simple cross would ’ve been effective. Had I done it, I would ’ve begun with one question: “Mr. Shipp, have you ever had
a dream that didn ’t come true?” The defense had to get it through to the jury as soon as possible that the prosecution ’s
case was shaky indeed if the time of death was decided by a dog and the motive for murder was based on a dream.

That day, Ito adjourned court early so that I, along with Skip Taft and Bob Kardashian, could attend Bobby Chandler ’s funeral.
We promised O.J. that we would go in his stead. We also did it on our own behalf, to honor Chandler and the kind of man and
friend he had been.