His Name Is Ron (35 page)

Chris pointed directly at the defendant, who shook his head angrily. “He is a murderer,” Chris proclaimed. “He was also one hell of a football player, but he is still a murderer.”

We all thought that Chris did a wonderful job. He spoke from the heart, not relying on the sophomoric theatrics that had so permeated this courtroom.

That was Johnnie Cochran's job.

It did not take long to see where Cochran was headed. “Your verdict in this case will go far beyond the walls of the courtroom,” he said near the beginning of his argument. “Your verdict talks about justice in America, and it talks about the police and whether they're above the law.”

He pooh-poohed the prosecution's contention that “this recognizable person” would don a knit cap and some dark clothes and go kill his wife. In illustration, he pulled a knit cap onto his head and remarked, “If I put this knit cap on, who am I? I'm still Johnnie Cochran with a knit cap. … It's no disguise. It makes no sense.”

He looked so ludicious prancing about in the knit cap that Kim could not contain herself. Marcia heard her snickering and turned around. She, too, lost her composure and started to giggle. In fact, we did not understand why everyone simply did not laugh this fool out of the room.

Referring to the glove demonstration, Cochran tried some asinine poetry. Warming to his theme, he intoned his mantra, “It doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.”

When Cochran strutted in front of the court, looked directly at us, and commented condescendingly that “some people couldn't handle the truth,” Kim was no longer laughing. She was seething. It took every ounce of her restraint not to stand up and scream at him.

We could not believe that Judge Ito allowed Cochran to say the things he said. Throughout his argument, he was talking down to the jurors, treating and manipulating them as if they were idiots.

Near the end of the day, Cochran turned to the subject of Detective Mark Fuhrman. We knew that he would have much more to say when he concluded his argument tomorrow. But for now, he raged, “Mark Fuhrman is a lying, perjuring, genocidal racist!”

Thursday, September 28. Police were concerned about the expanding crowd that gathered outside the downtown Criminal Courts Building. Bomb scares and death threats were commonplace.

In court Cochran blatantly gave the predominantly African-American jury permission to disregard the evidence. He urged them to take this opportunity to “get even”—in other words, to free a double murderer in retaliation for hundreds of years of white oppression. This was absurd and very disturbing. The law is the law. If there are inequities in the system, you fix the system. But you do not fix the law by breaking the law. Or ignoring it.

Even more preposterous was Judge Ito's tolerance of the statement. He should have silenced Cochran instantly and proclaimed, “The jury will disregard what's been said. Mr. Cochran, meet me in chambers immediately.” But as Patti said, “Judge Ito just didn't have the courage to do anything about it.”

Then Cochran screamed at the jury: “Stop this cover-up. If you don't stop it, then who? Do you think the police department is going to stop it? Do you think the D.A.'s office is going to stop it? Do you think we can stop it by ourselves? It has to be stopped by you. … Who, then, polices the police?
You
police the police. You police them by your verdict. You are the ones to send the message.”

Who was the racist here? It was Johnnie Cochran himself who was fanning the flames of racial hatred. Did he not comprehend that if this jury allowed a double murderer to go free, race relations in America would be set back decades?

Apparently not. Returning to the subject of Mark Fuhrman, Cochran made the single most offensive statement of the trial. He said, “There was another man not too long ago in the world who had those same views, who wanted to burn people, who had racist views and ultimately had power over people in his country. People didn't care. People said he is just crazy. He is just a half-baked painter. They didn't do anything about it. This man, this scourge, became one of the worst people in the history of the world, Adolf Hitler, because people didn't care or didn't try to stop him. He had the power over his racism and his anti-religion. Nobody wanted to stop him, and it ended up in World War Two.”

We could not believe what we were hearing. Kim bowed her head in disbelief. Patti saw the veins in my neck protrude. The color drained from my face. My fists clenched. I twisted in my seat. I muttered angrily. Worried that I would lose my composure in open court, Patti held me down.

I whispered, “I'm going to have a news conference at the break.”

Patti tried to dissuade me, but I would not be silenced.

Cochran continued. “And so Fuhrman, Fuhrman wants to take all black people now and burn them or bomb them. That is genocidal racism.”

Patti could not remember feeling such deep hatred for anyone in her entire life as she felt, at this moment, for “Johnnie Cockroach.”

I could contain myself no longer. The instant that Judge Ito called for a break, I told Mark Arenas to alert the media that I wanted to talk. “ASAP,” I growled. As I bolted from the courtroom, Patti pleaded, “Calm down, calm down.” Scared and very upset, Kim retreated to the safety of the D.A.'s office.

Patti followed me into the elevator, and we rode down nine floors to the lobby, where the press had set up its cameras and microphones. It all happened so quickly that only a handful of reporters were there when I began.

Trembling with rage, I yelled, “We have seen a man who perhaps is the worst kind of racist himself.” I pointed out that Cochran is “someone who shoves racism in front of everything, someone who compares a person who speaks racist comments to Hitler, a person who murdered millions of people.”

I screamed, “This man is the worst kind of human being imaginable. He compares racism of its worst kind in this world to what's going on in this case. He has suggested that racism is the foundation of the Police Department, of our justice system. … This man is sick. He is absolutely sick.”

I could feel Patti pulling at my arm, willing me to stop.

Upstairs in the D.A.'s office, Kim watched on television and cried hysterically, certain that I was going to collapse before I finished speaking.

Tears blurred my view of the dozens of reporters who were scrambling to hear my words. I heard my voice quiver and crack. But I would not stop.

I continued. “He walks around for the past days screaming his life has been threatened, and who does he choose to walk with? Guards from the Nation of Islam. He's talking about racism, and he talks about hate. Who does he connect himself with?” Everyone knew that Cochran's bodyguards were disciples of Louis Farrakhan, a demagogue notorious for his anti-Semitic views.

“This man is a horror walking around amongst us. And he compares what Mark Fuhrman did to misery from the—the beginnings of history. This man ought to be ashamed of himself to walk among decent human beings. This man is a disgrace to human beings. … He is one of the most disgusting human beings I have ever had to listen to in my life.

“He suggests that racism ought to be the most important thing that any one of us ought to listen to in this court, that any one of us in this nation should be listening to and it's because of racism we should put aside all other thought, all other reason, and set his murdering client free. He's a sick man. He ought to be put away.”

That evening the phone rang constantly. Friends from all over the country called nonstop to offer their support and to find out if I was okay.

A thousand spectators gathered outside the courthouse. Some chanted, “Free O.J.!” Others responded, “Fry O.J.!” Several tussles broke out.

It was Friday, the day that the prosecution would have the last
word. As we waited in the D.A.'s office for court to convene, one of the men in the Brown entourage approached Kim and asked, “Did you get the speech?”

“Excuse me?” Kim replied.

“Did Patty Jo give you the speech yet?”

“Speech about what?”

“About how to behave in the courtroom!”

Before Kim could answer, Judy Brown was at her side, launching into a litany of rules on how to behave in court when the verdict came in.

“Judy, I think I know,” Kim said coldly. She thought: What arrogance! I've been here every day for nine months. Have I done anything wrong? No. Have I done anything to embarrass myself or my family? No. Have I been chastised by Judge Ito? No.

Chris Darden, who, more and more, was caught in up in a pivotal moment in this nation's racial history, told the jury in a soft, compelling tone: “You can't send a message to Fuhrman, you can't send a message to the LAPD … by delivering a verdict of not guilty in a case like this where it is clear. You know it is clear, you feel it, you know it in your heart. … Everybody knows it.”

Chris acknowledged the tension that this particular jury had to feel. “You've got a tough job, a very tough job,” he said. “I don't envy you in that regard. But let me tell you something, I have had a tough job, too. The law is a tough thing to enforce in this town. Not everybody … wants to live up to the law or follow the law. Not everybody thinks that the law applies to them.

“I have been a prosecutor for almost fifteen years, and if there is one rule that I have lived by, if there is one rule that means a lot to me, it is this one: No one is above the law; not the police, not the rich, no one.”

He derided the characterization of the defendant as a hero. “A hero,” he said, “is a man that would rush into a life-threatening situation to save a woman without ever thinking about himself first.”

Phil Vannatter leaned back over the rail and placed a hand on my knee as Chris added, “There are no heroes in this courtroom today.”

We owed the prosecution team so much for all they did. They gave up their lives for a year and a half. Most nights they were up until three in the morning, working on the case. Their families seldom saw them. They were
scrutinized, sometimes vilified, and put through an emotional wringer. The law clerks and the investigators always seemed edited out of the thanks and praise they deserved. Kim said of our Victims' Assistance advocate, “I would give Mark my left lung if he asked for it.”

And so on this final day, we catered a lunch for the entire team. It was our small way of saying thank you to all the people who gave up so much of their lives to try to see that justice was done.

I spoke for a few minutes, and then it was Kim's turn. Through her tears she told everyone that she had really grown to love and cherish them as a family. She said that she was very grateful for the opportunity to teach them about who her brother was. She singled out Chris for a special thankyou, but the praise made him uncomfortable.

Finally she commented, “But in one second I would give all of you up to have my brother back.”

In the afternoon Marcia took the jurors through the case one final time. Where was the defendant on the night of the murders? She reminded the jurors that blood, hair, and fiber evidence inextricably linked the defendant to his two victims. She retraced the trail of blood from the murder scene to the defendant's home. She acknowledged that the defense disputed the quality of some of that evidence, but she displayed a chart showing that the uncontested evidence alone, such as blood drops at the crime scene, the defendant's unexplained whereabouts, and the history of spousal abuse, were sufficient to convict.

She said, “It's very clear, and it's very obvious. Mr. Simpson committed these murders.”

The prosecution ended its case with a dramatic audio-visual display. Once again they played the 911 tapes of Nicole pleading desperately for protection from the defendant. At the same time, on the overhead screen, they flashed slides showing Nicole, battered and bruised. Finally they showed, one last time, the murder scene, with Ron and Nicole's bodies soaked in blood.

Marcia paused for a moment. Then she said in a somber voice, “I don't have to say anything else. …”

It was 3:57
P.M
. Now it was up to the twelve men and women in the jury box.

TWENTY-SIX

We were exhausted, apprehensive, and uptight. We made no plans for the week following closing arguments. We prepared for an anxious and lengthy wait.

Patty Jo had all of our phone numbers, and by now, these were legion. She had our home numbers, cellular numbers for Patti and me, the number of Patti's school and my office, and, finally, our pagers.

I believed that there were only two possible outcomes. The best-case scenario was a guilty verdict. It was simple and logical: one plus one equals two. The worst-case scenario was a hung jury. Was it possible that one dissenter could hang the jury? Yes, of course.

I asked myself: Is it possible that twelve people could have heard all the evidence and agree that he is not guilty?