The O.J. Simpson Murder Trial (Part II)

Preliminary hearing

On June 20, Simpson was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to both murders. As expected, the presiding judge ordered that Simpson be held without bail. The following day, a grand jury was called to determine whether to indict him for the two murders. Two days later, on June 23, the grand jury was dismissed as a result of excessive media coverage, which could have influenced its neutrality.

Jill Shively testified to the 1994 grand jury that soon after the time of the murders she saw a white Ford Bronco speeding away from Bundy Drive in such a hurry that it almost collided with a Nissan at the intersection of Bundy and San Vicente Boulevard, and that she recognized Simpson's voice. She talked to the television show Hard Copy for $5,000, after which prosecutors declined to use her testimony at trial.

As well as Shively, the grand jury hearing included Ross Cutlery providing store receipts showing Simpson had purchased a 12-inch (305 mm) stiletto knife from salesman Jose Camacho six weeks before the murders. The knife was determined to be similar to the one the coroner said caused the stab wounds. The prosecution did not present this evidence at trial after discovering that Camacho had sold his story to the National Enquirer for $12,500.  The knife was later collected from Simpson's residence by his attorneys; they presented it to Judge Ito and it was subsequently sealed in a manila envelope to be opened only if brought up at trial. This was not the murder weapon: tests on the knife determined that an oil used on new cutlery was still present on the knife, indicating it had never been used. The police searched Simpson's estate three times and could not find this knife. Simpson told his attorneys exactly where it was in the house and it was promptly recovered.  Fuhrman thinks the murder weapon was a Victorinox Swiss Army knife. Simpson allegedly told a limo driver "You could kill somebody with one of these."

Rather than a grand jury hearing, authorities held a probable cause hearing to determine whether or not to bring Simpson to trial. This was a minor victory for Simpson's lawyers because it would give them access to evidence as it was being presented by the prosecution in contrast to the procedure in a grand jury hearing. After a week-long court hearing, California Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell ruled on July 7 that there was sufficient evidence to bring Simpson to trial for the murders. At his second arraignment on July 22, when asked how he pleaded to the murders, Simpson, breaking a courtroom practice that says the accused may plead using only the words "guilty" or "not guilty", firmly stated: "Absolutely, one hundred percent, not guilty."

On November 13, former NFL player and pastor Rosey Grier visited Simpson at the Los Angeles County Jail in the days following the murders. A jailhouse guard, Jeff Stuart, testified to Judge Ito that at one point Simpson yelled to Grier that he "didn't mean to do it," after which Grier had urged Simpson to come clean. Ito ruled that the evidence was hearsay and could not be allowed in court.

At first, Simpson's defense sought to show that one or more hitmen hired by drug dealers had murdered Brown and Goldman – giving Brown a "Colombian necktie" – because they were looking for Brown's friend, Faye Resnick, a known cocaine user who had failed to pay for her drugs.  She had stayed for several days at Brown's condo until entering rehab four days before the killings. Ito ruled that the defenses drug killer theory was "highly speculative" and with no evidence to support it. The police added that the fact that Nicole Brown's home was not burglarized after the murders undermines their theory as well.  Consequently, Ito barred the jury from hearing it and prohibited Christian Reichardt from testifying about his former girlfriend Resnick's drug problems.

Defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran produced a potential alibi witness, Rosa Lopez, a neighbor's Spanish-speaking housekeeper, who testified that she had seen Simpson's car parked outside his house at the time of the murders. However, Lopez's account was pulled apart under intense cross-examination by Clark, when she was forced to admit that she could not be sure of the precise time she saw Simpson's Bronco outside his house. Consequently, the defense dropped her from the witness list and the jury never heard her testimony.

Trial

Simpson wanted a speedy trial, and the defense and prosecuting attorneys worked around the clock for several months to prepare their cases. The trial began on January 24, 1995, and was televised by Court TV, and in part by other cable and network news outlets, for 134 days. Judge Lance Ito presided over the trial in the C.S. Foltz Criminal Courts Building. Within days after the start of the trial, lawyers and those viewing the trial from a single closed-circuit TV camera in the courtroom saw an emerging pattern: continual and countless interruptions with objections from both sides of the courtroom, as well as one sidebar conference after another with the judge, beyond earshot of the unseen jury located just below and out of the camera's frame.

Jury

District Attorney Gil Garcetti elected to file charges in downtown Los Angeles, as opposed to Santa Monica, where the crime took place.  The decision would prove to be highly controversial, especially after Simpson was acquitted.  It likely resulted in a jury pool with more blacks, Latinos, Asian-Americans, and blue-collar workers than would have been found from Santa Monica.

C.S. Foltz Criminal Courts Building

In October 1994, Judge Lance Ito started interviewing 304 prospective jurors, each of whom had to fill out a 75-page questionnaire. On November 3, twelve jurors were seated with twelve alternates. Over the course of the trial, ten were dismissed for a wide variety of reasons. Only four of the original jurors remained on the final panel.

According to media reports, Clark thought that women, regardless of race, would sympathize with the domestic violence aspect of the case and connect with her personally. On the other hand, the defense's research suggested that women generally were more likely to acquit than men, and that jurors did not respond well to Clark's combative style of litigation. The defense also speculated that black women would not be as sympathetic as white women to the victim, who was white, because of tensions about interracial marriages. Both sides accepted a disproportionate number of female jurors. From an original jury pool of 40 percent white, 28 percent black, 17 percent Hispanic, and 15 percent Asian, the final jury for the trial had ten women and two men, of whom nine were black, two white and one Hispanic.  The jury was sequestered for 265 days, the most in American history. It broke the previous record with more than a month left to go.

On April 5, 1995, juror Jeanette Harris was dismissed because Judge Ito learned she had failed to disclose an incident of domestic abuse.  Afterwards, Harris gave an interview and accused the deputies of racism and claimed the jurors are dividing themselves along racial lines. Ito then met with the jurors, who all denied Harris's allegations of racial tension among themselves. Two, however, did complain about the deputies, with one being Tracy Hampton. The following day, Judge Ito dismissed the three deputies, which upset those jurors who had not complained.  On April 21, thirteen of the eighteen jurors refused to come to court until they spoke with Ito about it. Ito then ordered them to court and the 13 protesters responded by wearing all black and refusing to come out to the jury box upon arrival.  The media described this incident as a "Jury Revolt" and the protesters wearing all black as resembling a "funeral procession". Ito's dismissal of the deputies lent credence to Harris's allegations, which the protesters felt was not deserved.

Prosecution case

The two lead prosecutors were Deputy District Attorneys Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden. Clark was designated as the lead prosecutor and Darden became Clark's co-counsel. Prosecutors Hank Goldberg and William Hodgman, who have successfully prosecuted high-profile cases in the past, assisted Clark and Darden. Two prosecutors who were DNA experts, Rockne Harmon and George "Woody" Clarke, were brought in to present the DNA evidence in the case. Prosecutor Lisa Kahn, who was the DNA coordinator for the district attorney’s office, assisted Clarke and Harmon.

The prosecution decided not to seek the death penalty and instead sought a life sentence. The prosecution's case was built around circumstantial evidence to establish Simpson had motive and physical evidence to establish he had means and opportunity to commit the murders.  A total of 488 pieces of evidence was presented to the jury, though no witnesses to the murders and no murder weapon were found.  The physical evidence included classic forensic sciences - hair, fiber and shoe print analysis - as well as novel forensic sciences including DNA fingerprinting and serology.

Theory

The prosecution began presenting their case on January 24, 1995. Christopher Darden presented the circumstantial evidence of Simpson's history of domestic violence towards Nicole Brown as the motive for her murder.  Darden argued in opening statements that Simpson had a history of physically abusing Nicole and had pleaded guilty to one count of domestic violence for beating Nicole in 1989. Darden described Simpson's alleged financial, psychological and physical abuse of Brown.  It was alleged that, on the night of the murders, Simpson attended a dance recital for his daughter and was reportedly angry with Nicole because of a black dress that she wore. Simpson's girlfriend, Paula Barbieri, wanted to attend the recital with Simpson but he did not invite her. After the recital, Simpson returned home to a voicemail from Barbieri ending their relationship. Simpson then drove over to Nicole Brown's home to reconcile their relationship as a result and when Nicole refused, Simpson killed her in a "final act of control." Ron Goldman then came upon the scene and was murdered as well.

Marcia Clark presented the physical evidence that Simpson had the means and opportunity to commit the murders and Eyewitness testimony to refute Simpson's claim that he was home that night. The gloves worn by the murderer were recovered: one found at the crime scene and the other at Simpson's home. Clark stated that there is a "trail of blood from the crime scene through Simpson's Ford Bronco and into his house in Rockingham." She stated "there is a 'Mountain of Evidence' pointing to Simpson's guilt" that is too high to climb.

Domestic Violence

The prosecution opened its case by calling LAPD 911 dispatcher Sharon Gilbert and playing a four-minute 9-1-1 call from Nicole Brown Simpson on January 1, 1989, in which she expressed fear that Simpson would physically harm her and Simpson himself is even heard in the background yelling at her and possible hitting her as well. The officer who responded to that call, Detective John Edwards, testified next that when he arrived, a severely beaten Nicole Brown Simpson ran from the bushes where she was hiding and to the detective screaming "He's going to kill me, he's going to kill me," referring to O.J. Simpson. Pictures of Nicole Browns face from that night were then shown to the jury to confirm his testimony. That incident lead to Simpson's arrest and eventually pleading no contest to one count of domestic violence for which he received probation.  LAPD officer and longtime friend of both Simpson and Brown, Ron Shipp, testified on February 1, 1995 that Simpson told him the day after the murders that he did not want to take a polygraph test offered to him by the police because "I've had a lot of dreams about killing her. I really don't know about taking that thing." The prosecution then called Denise Brown, Nicole Brown's sister, to the witness stand. She tearfully testified to many episodes of domestic violence in the 1980s; when she saw Simpson pick up his wife and hurl her against a wall, then physically throw her out of their house during an argument. She also testified that Simpson was agitated with Nicole the night of his daughter's dance recital as well, the same night Nicole was murdered.

The prosecution planned to present 62 separate incidents of domestic violence, including three previously unknown incidents Brown had documented in several letters she had written and placed in a safety deposit box. Judge Ito denied the defense's motion to suppress the incidents of domestic violence. They argued that these were prejudicial to Simpson as "prior bad acts" but Ito rejected that argument stating the abuse was recent. However, Ito only allowed witnessed accounts to be presented to the jury because of Simpson's Sixth Amendment rights. The letters Nicole had written herself and the statements she made to her friends and family were inadmissible because they were hearsay as the witness, Nicole Brown, was unable to be cross-examined by Simpson. Despite this the prosecution had witnesses for 44 separate incidents they planned to present to the jury.

However, the prosecution dropped the domestic violence portion of their case on June 20, 1995.  Marcia Clark stated it was because they believed the DNA evidence against Simpson was insurmountable but the media speculated it was because of the comments made by dismissed juror Jeanette Harris. Christopher Darden later confirmed that to be true.  Harris was dismissed on April 6 because she failed to disclose that she was a victim of domestic violence from her ex-husband.  But afterwards she gave an interview and called Simpsons abuse of Nicole "a whole lot of nothing" and said "that doesn't mean he is guilty of murder". This dismissal of his abusive behavior from a female juror who was also a victim of such abuse by her own husband convinced the prosecution that the jury was not receptive to the domestic violence argument.   After the verdict, the jurors called the domestic violence portion of the case a "waste of time" and claimed they discarded it because there were no new incidents of abuse after 1989. At trial, the jurors heard another 9-1-1 phone call that Nicole made on October 25, 1993, expressing the same fear for her life and Simpson is also heard shouting in the background, less than eight months before the murders. The jurors also stated that they did not believe Nicole sincerely thought her life was in danger. One of the documents from the safety deposit box the jury did see was a Will she had drafted stating her wishes in the event of her death.

Although the jury was dismissive of Simpson's abusive behavior, the public was not, and it was credited with turning public opinion against him. Shapiro later wrote that Simpson was not apologetic for his behavior either and his attempts to defend himself afterwards only worsened the backlash against him. Dershowitz later said that Nicole Brown became a symbol for victims of abuse because she told people, including the police, that she thought Simpson was going to kill her and no one believed her. Daniel Petrocelli, who successfully argued the civil case against Simpson, credited the difference in the outcome to a jury that was receptive to the argument that domestic violence is a prelude to murder.

The defense never denied that Simpson abused Nicole nor defended him for it. Alan Dershowitz and Robert Shapiro both wrote after the trial that the abusive behavior was indefensible and the cross-examinations focused on attacking the witnesses with allegations of Racism for calling the police on Simpson for the abuse. Robert Shapiro, Alan Dershowitz, and Gerald Uelmen later admitted they believe that race played a factor in the jurors' dismissal of Nicole Brown's abuse by Simpson.