I had been aware, of course, of the deep racial schism in this case. But I’d held out some hope that a man of such obvious integrity as Ron Shipp might somehow bridge the divide. When I saw the trouble he’d bought upon himself and his family by speaking the truth, I felt both my ideals and my confidence crumbling. If Ron Shipp’s testimony could be flung away so cavalierly, there would never be enough evidence in this world to prove O. J. Simpson’s guilt.
Denise Brown was pretty much a law unto herself. And I had no illusions about how she would be received. She was the white girl’s white sister.
During the pretrial motions, she’d taken the defense to task on camera asking why, if they were trying so hard to find the truth, they were trying to get the evidence suppressed. On a personal level, I dug her gutsy style, but as a prosecutor I wasn’t thrilled with her penchant for publicity. One ill-considered remark to the press, I knew, could render her worthless as a witness. On top of it, Denise had had her own problems with alcohol. Shapiro was threatening a blistering cross in which he would exploit whatever information he had to taint her credibility.
“You’d better clamp down on her,” I told Chris. We needed to keep the testimony tidy and circumscribed. Understated sincerity. Easy on the tears. That was the ticket for this witness. Ito had ruled that we couldn’t bring up any violent incidents that occurred before 1981, so we had to be especially careful.
But Denise was not so easily reined in. On the morning of her testimony, she showed up in a black pantsuit with a large gold cross hanging from her neck. It was very stylish, but way too hip to make points with this jury.
During her first few minutes on the stand, Denise seemed in control of herself. Chris handled her well, leading her carefully through the early days of her sister’s relationship with O. J. Simpson.
“When did you first meet the defendant?” he asked her.
“Back in 1977,” she replied. “He was playing football for Buffalo.”
Nicole had invited Denise and Dominique out East for a game. While they were sitting in the stands, a friend of O.J.‘s came over to say hello to Nicole. She kissed him on both cheeks.
“And after the game, did you go to the defendant’s house? Chris asked.
What!
I thought.
Why is Chris giving her this opening? She’s not supposed to discuss anything that happened in 1977
.
“You returned to the defendant’s home after the game, right?”
Yes, they did.
“Anything unusual happen then?”
Denise began to vent.
“O.J. got real upset and he started screaming at Nicole.”
Shapiro objected and asked for a sidebar. I couldn’t blame him. Ito dressed Chris down for letting his witness mention an incident that occurred before the ten-year time limit.
“You are to disregard the last… answer,” Ito told the jury. “Treat it as though you never heard it.”
Things got worse. Denise told about the night she and her boyfriend Dino had double-dated with Nicole and O.J. at a watering hole in Santa Ana. They were throwing back shots of tequila when Simpson grabbed Nicole’s crotch and proclaimed, “This is where babies come from and this belongs to me.”
“And Nicole just sort of wrote it off like it was nothing,” Denise said. “Like she was used to that kind of treatment.”
A quiver had crept into her voice.
Oh no
, I thought,
no tears!
For some reason, Chris then asked Denise whether Simpson shied away when people came up to ask him for autographs. Denise, contempt in her voice, said, “Oh, no, not at all. He loves the attention. He loves it. He’s got a big ego. It feeds his ego.”
Another objection. Another sidebar. This time Ito directly instructed the witness to stick to relevant issues.
Denise then described that other double date after which they’d all returned to Rockingham, a little drunk on margaritas. They were sitting at the bar when she was moved to tell O.J. that she thought he “took Nicole for granted.” He “blew up,” she said, and started throwing things around: pictures; photos—then Nicole and the other guests. “She ended up… falling,” Denise said of her sister. “She ended up on her elbows and on her butt.”
At that point, Denise rested, forehead in hand, and wept.
“It’s just so hard,” she whimpered.
There was no doubt in my mind that she was sincerely overcome. But I cringed at how this would play to the Twelve Stone Faces. “No tears,” I’d warned Chris. But when you put on a grieving relative, you take your chances. I glanced at the jury box. Sure enough, I saw not compassion but scowls of disbelief.
I knew this icy reaction to Denise’s testimony was sounding the death knell to our domestic violence case. We’d put the brutal facts right in front of this jury, and they were quite visibly rejecting them. It couldn’t have been more clear if they’d actually given the thumbs-down.
Right then and there I made a quiet decision to cut our losses. Chris would not accept this without a fight. He and Scott were so personally invested in DV that they would want to pick up the thread again later on in the trial, when Ito had said we could present the B-string battering incidents. I knew I could not let this happen. Introducing the abuse witnesses so late in the case would seem out of context—certainly a step backward. It would also seem like a desperate effort at character assassination, the kind of move you make if you’ve failed to prove your case. The witnesses would seem like afterthoughts, and the jury would have been furious at hearing them then. I held the veto and I would use it.
On February 3, the day of Denise’s testimony, we had proof positive that this jury was too besotted by the fame of the defendant to hear the cries of his victims. No one else knew it for sure. But I knew Denise Brown would be the last domestic violence witness in the case of
People v. Orenthal James Simpson
.
CAR TAPE.
It’s February 6, Monday. Came to work and saw the
National Enquirer’
s two-page inside spread of me… . I use the word with great intent. I’m just plastered all over the place. [It’s] just so disgusting. I felt so humiliated
. . . .
This would never happen to a man. The world is so far more sexist than anybody ever dreamed. I feel so sick, I can barely see straight
.
After Denise’s breakdown on the stand that Friday afternoon, Ito dismissed us early. In a way I was relieved that the rest of her testimony would be held over until Monday. It would buy me some time. I was due to put on the dog-bark witnesses immediately after Chris wrapped up domestic violence. Now I had an unbroken block of weekend hours to polish my questions.
When I arrived at my office on Monday morning, I was feeling pretty squared away. There was a knock on my door. Suzanne appeared, looking very uncomfortable.
“What’s up?” I asked her, trying to arrange foldersful of witness outlines in chronological order.
“Um… Marcia…” she stammered. “I don’t know how to tell you this…”
That stopped me cold. Whenever Suzanne opened a conversation this way, it usually meant fresh hell from the “newses”—her quaint expression for the broadcast media. I kept expecting those guys to lose interest in me. Each new offensive left me more bewildered than the last. I felt like I was chained to a breakwater. The waves would batter me into the pilings. They’d subside for a while and then swell and pound me again. There was nothing I could do about it.
“It’s really not that bad,” Suzanne continued in her best effort to soothe. “It’s just that your ex-mother-in-law…”
Huh?
“Well, she sold some pictures of you to the
Enquirer
. . . Did you ever visit a nude beach in Europe?”
Nude beach?
At first, it didn’t register. And then my befuddled thoughts settled on an image of that carefree afternoon more than twenty years ago when I was kicking loose after the bar exam. In my mind’s eye, I could see Gaby and me and our Italian train-conductor friend. We were playful and giddy. I’d shed my top. It was so innocent. And such a long time ago, and in another world.
I’d never been on real close terms with Gaby’s mother, Clara. After Gaby’s accident, she’d taken him back to Israel to live with her. I hadn’t spoken to her for at least fourteen years, but I could imagine she was pretty bitter about the way things turned out. And I’m sure she held me responsible, however unfairly, for Gaby’s misfortunes. But to sell a personal photo of me to a tabloid? I later learned that a private eye, hoping to curry favor with the Dream Team, had tracked her down in Israel and put her in touch with the
Enquirer
.
I tried to speak but I couldn’t get any words out.
“I can bring it to you if you want,” Suzanne offered, breaking the long silence.
I knew if I looked at those photos, realizing that they were being sold by the millions at checkout counters around America, I’d fall to fucking pieces. The only comfort, however slight, came from the knowledge that my jury was sequestered. Even if news of them were tracked into the Inter-Continental by visiting spouses, at least the jurors wouldn’t be able to see them. But wouldn’t just the knowledge of those photos affect my credibility? And what about my peers? I’d have to walk down the halls of my own office knowing everyone had seen me bare-breasted. And what about the defense?
The defense
. I’m sure those low-dealing bastards were laughing up their sleeves about now.
“Thanks for the heads-up,” I finally managed to get out. “Maybe I’ll come by later and take a look.”
It was a lame attempt at bravado. But better, I guess, than self-pity.
I packed up my books and notepads and flattered myself that I could shut the whole incident out of my head. During the morning session, I felt as if I did manage to concentrate on Denise’s testimony. By the mid-morning break, I was finally feeling strong enough to assess the damage. I asked Scott Gordon to come with me for moral support.
We ran into Suzanne’s secretary at the door.
“Maria,” I whispered to her. “Before I take the gut shot, tell me, what do you think?”
“I tell you, girlfriend,” she whispered back, “you got nothin’ to be ashamed of.”
The
Enquirer
was lying on Suzanne’s desk. I flipped to the spread. There I was, wearing a “sunny smile” and a striped bikini bottom. And nothing on top. A black bar had been superimposed over my nipples. But it did nothing to mitigate the tawdry effect. Here I was, a professional woman in the middle of prosecuting a major criminal trial, suddenly exposed naked in a supermarket tabloid. I was so lost in my own humiliation that I couldn’t hear the words of comfort my co-workers were trying to offer me.
I should never have tried to make it back to court that day. I guess I wanted to prove that I was tough enough to keep my head up and keep on working. I overestimated my own strength. No sooner had I taken my seat at the counsel table beside Scott than I felt the tears welling up in my eyes.
Oh, God, no
, I told myself.
You can’t lose it now
.
Way off in the distance, I heard Chris’s voice as he conducted his redirect of Denise. He turned in my direction and beckoned me to sidebar. I could tell that he needed me immediately.
It didn’t matter. I felt myself slipping further and further into pain. The tears were rolling down my cheeks. I wiped them away and leaned into Scott’s shoulder to hide my humiliation from the defense, the jury, the press.
The redirect ended quickly, and Lance must have caught my distress, because, in a singular act of compassion, he quickly managed to recess court for the day.
I holed up in my office, trying to regain my composure. I couldn’t stop beating myself up for crying in court. Chris walked in without knocking and, with his usual lack of ceremony, dropped into a chair.
“I’m sorry I let you down today,” I apologized. “It won’t happen again.”
He shrugged.
“Don’t let them get you down, G,” he said. “In a week no one will remember it.”
He was right. Or at least I wanted to think he was right.
“Besides,” he continued, “I thought you looked real good in those pictures.”
“You really think so?”
“Sure.”
“You didn’t think I looked fat?”
He laughed.
“No way, man. It gave me a woody.”
I took a minute to get it. By that time Chris was grinning.
I laughed. Then we both started to laugh. And we laughed and continued laughing until we were actually howling. With a single bawdy quip, Chris had managed to restore my perspective.
How
, I asked myself,
does he manage to do that?
M
e Recuerdo
My first witnesses were not flashy, but they were rock-solid.
Pablo Fenjves and Nicole’s other neighbors were all emphatic in their testimony: they’d heard a dog start to bark at 10:15 to 10:20 P.M. By that time the killer was most likely on the premises. The murders were most likely in progress. In fact, Ron and Nicole were probably dead.
During the months after the trial a bleating throng of pundits would try to suggest that I declined to put on certain witnesses because they didn’t fit into my “time line.” That is absolute rubbish. At no time did I or any other member of the prosecution team lock ourselves in to 10:15 as the time of the murder. From the very start of this case, the window of opportunity we were looking at was 10:15 to 10:40. Even the later time would have given O. J. Simpson twelve to fourteen minutes to dash back to Rockingham in time to be seen by Allan Park.
Johnnie couldn’t put a ding in the dog-bark witnesses. Nor did he score any points on the employees of Mezzaluna. In fact, the defense seemed to be holding back. I knew they were saving their salvos for the cops.
Although we couldn’t make out any coherent strategy coming from the Simpson camp, we knew they would hammer away at two related themes: The cops messed up the scene. And Mark Fuhrman moved evidence. Our first LAPD witness, Officer Robert Riske, went a long way toward debunking both claims.
Riske, a muscular man with close-cropped sandy hair, had been the first officer to arrive at the scene. He described how he and all the cops after him had taken particular care to avoid tracking through the pools of blood. Most important, when Riske arrived at Bundy,
there had been only one glove at the scene. That was a full two hours before Mark Fuhrman arrived
.