The Search for Justice (45 page)

With the hits the prosecution was taking on collection and contamination of DNA evidence, they began to mount a broader DNA
argument. Rockne Harmon, the prosecution ’s DNA expert imported from Northern California, showed up as we prepared to head
into the technical phase of DNA testimony.

Rock Harmon is a quintessential prosecutor. Even if he wanted to, he probably couldn ’t function well as a defense lawyer.
A graduate of Annapolis and a Vietnam veteran, he is a true believer in absolute right and absolute wrong. To Harmon, those
on the side of right are prosecutors; the rest of us sit at the right hand of the devil.

Harmon is known as an intimidating opponent to others in his field of forensics, and has a reputation for attacking his peers
personally if their views differ from his—which by his lights are absolutely, scientifically correct. His courtroom style,
which could be described as energetically abrasive, was effective. In fact, as different as they seemed in background and
style, Harmon was cut from the same cloth as Barry Scheck. The two of them often went at it with their hands very close to
each other ’s throats. They didn ’t like each other, they didn ’t trust each other, and the question of mutual professional
respect was moot. Their antagonism made the DNA wars in this trial more
hard-fought, more energy-sapping, and ultimately more tedious than anything we could ’ve anticipated. Except, of course, for
Harmon and Scheck, who were in their glory.

In my experience, a client ’s participation can be pivotal to a case, and every day, O.J. was more and more integral to the
defense. He had a great recollection of every event that had taken place in his life, and everyone he ’d ever known. He insisted
on getting copies of every motion and memo, and he studied them all, from Ito ’s rulings to the DNA textbooks. He would be
on the phone late into the night with Dershowitz, with Uelmen, with me and with Cochran, going over details, refuting and
arguing with testimony that had been presented, anticipating what was going to come up the following day. He was especially
critical of any lawyer when the subject at hand was one he knew about, especially anything having to do with the Brown family,
Nicole ’s life, and their friends and neighbors. “You guys gotta talk to me,” he ’d insist. “You sometimes don ’t know what
you ’re talking about.”

April 21, a Friday, was supposed to be a half-day session, but early that morning I heard a news item on the radio that surpassed
almost anything I ’d heard in my twenty-five years of law practice. The Simpson jurors—eighteen in all, including the remaining
six alternates—were refusing to come to court and were demanding that Judge Ito come instead to their hotel.

The week before, echoing one of ex-juror Harris ’s remarks, a juror had complained to the judge that three of the sheriff
’s deputies were giving preferential treatment to white jurors. Since this was the second time he ’d heard this complaint,
which involved the same three deputies that Harris had singled out, Judge Ito reassigned them, and put new deputies in their
place. It was this action that precipitated the jury “strike,” which, it
turned out, wasn ’t so much a strike as it was an expression of solidarity with the removed deputies.

Ito refused to meet with the jury at the hotel. Instead, he pledged that he, along with attorneys for the prosecution and
defense, would willingly hear their complaints in chambers. When they arrived, we were startled to see that thirteen of the
jurors were dressed in black.

What I feared was happening—that the jury was dividing down racial lines—was in fact
not
happening. True enough, there was a division, but it appeared to be between the older, more conservative jurors and the younger,
more outgoing ones.

The consensus was that when Judge Ito dismissed the deputies, without explaining to the jurors why this was done, their sense
of safety, of security, was somehow damaged. They were wearing black, they said, because they were in mourning. Members of
their “family” had abruptly disappeared. “These guys were an integral part of our life here,” said one juror. “They were our
link to the world. They took care of us. We cried with them when we had family emergencies, or when we had the blues.” What
these jurors wanted, it was clear, was some control over their personal destiny.

Their litany of complaints wasn ’t surprising. The pace of the trial was too slow, the pressures too enormous, and the separation
from their familiar lives and loved ones was becoming unbearable. Some jurors were asking flat out to be allowed to leave.
Small quibbles had become huge battles. Who sat with whom at meals, who was in control of the video clicker, whether they
came back from a shopping trip in an hour or in an hour and a half—these had become make-or-break issues.

Ito now found himself in an untenable position. If after two complaints he hadn ’t dismissed those deputies, he would ’ve
been criticized for not being sensitive to jurors ’ feelings and needs. But taking the action he did had made him, in the
press ’s eyes, a judge who ’d lost control of a jury. The sheriff was mad at him,
Time
magazine now named him a “Loser of the Week,” and worst of all, the trial had come to a screeching halt.

The real question was one of philosophy. What were the responsibilities of the deputies? According to Judge Ito, first and
foremost was providing security for the jurors, to make sure nothing happened to them. Their second obligation was to accommodate
jurors ’ needs. The job description seemed to fall somewhere between guard and flight attendant, with some psychological training
thrown in.

As with the deputies, a judge at trial can ’t be all things to all people. Ito ’s failing was that he was too kind, too considerate,
for the unprecedented challenge of long-term jury sequestration. There were too many agendas here: the immediate legal concerns
of prosecution and defense, the needs of the Browns and the Goldmans, the welfare of the jurors. How could he possibly have
made everybody happy—if, in fact, making people happy was part of
his
job description?

We decided we needed to make a few adjustments. The first task would be to pick up the pace. Testimony would begin promptly
at nine in the morning. Lunch breaks would be only an hour. As for the individual jurors, Ito would continue to hear and heed
their complaints. More outings would be arranged for them, so that they weren ’t tethered only to the courthouse and the hotel.
It seemed, for the time being, that the jury storm had blown over.

On May 1, juror Tracy Hampton, one of the jurors who had insisted on the ouster of the three deputies, was dismissed. She
had been fragile and emotional for some time, and Jo-Ellan Dimitrius had predicted that Ito would let her go. A few days after
she left, Hampton was taken to the hospital for what was reported as severe stress; we heard later that it was a suicide attempt.
She recovered and was featured in a
Playboy
magazine layout in March 1996.

During the trial, I attended only one Lakers game, although normally I would ’ve gone more often. On this one night, I was
sitting midcourt, in the sixth or seventh row, and Linell and the boys were with me. Up on the big video screen, they flashed
pictures of celebrities in the audience. Magic Johnson ’s image drew cheers from the crowd, as did Jack Nicholson ’s. When
my face appeared, I heard some scattered boos for the first time, along with a couple of voices in the crowd shouting “Guilty,
guilty!” The man sitting next to me leaned over and said, “Don ’t worry, Bob. When this is all over, they ’ll be cheering.”

Moments later, the screen televised the face of Los Angeles Raiders owner Al Davis, who had recently announced that he was
moving the team back up to Oakland. Davis drew an immense chorus of sustained boos. I wondered if he or the athletes on the
floor ever grew used to them. I wasn ’t sure that I would.

I
n the spring, Kato Kaelin ’s book deal with Marc Elliot was announced; sixteen hours of taped interviews that Kaelin had done
with Elliot were turned over to the prosecution by the author. I saw Kaelin some time later, at an engagement party for Larry
King. I made a deliberate point not to talk to him.

Marcia Clark could have recalled Kato after the news of the book deal came out and impeached his earlier testimony that there
was no book in the works. For whatever reason, she made a strategic decision not to do so.