Triumph of Justice by Daniel Petrocelli

Author:Daniel Petrocelli [Petrocelli, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780609601709
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 1998-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

How Do We Deal with O.J.?

I was working twenty-four hours a day. I was on the Simpson case in my sleep. I barely saw my family. I’d leave for work while they were still sleeping and get back when they were already in bed. I couldn’t stop thinking about the case. My only diversion was an occasional Saturday night movie, and no matter what movie it was, something in it brought me back to the case. By now, a fair number of people recognized me from the steady stream of television reports as the trial date drew near. While people who approached me only had good things to say, usually exhorting me to “get the bastard,” this only served to increase the already enormous pressure I felt. Look at all the people depending on me. What if I lost? How would they feel, how would my family feel? How would my client feel?

The fellow members of my team were deeply immersed in their areas as well. We circulated memos daily, and talked to one another constantly. I’d go into Tom Lambert’s office ten times a day, reporting on the depositions, passing along new information, determining areas that needed more work, testing ideas. We began to hold frequent team meetings. The case had become our life.

In late July we held a big trial-prep team meeting to map our overall strategy. Opening day was only two months away and we still had a tremendous amount of work to do.

In our team’s shorthand, I had plunged myself in the “motive” side of the case: O.J. Simpson’s world, what drove him in general, and what drove him to commit the act of murder in particular. At trial we were scheduled to present our case first, and since Simpson himself was at the center of the case, I had always assumed that we would put him on the witness stand. I went into our meeting with that assumption. “The jury will want to hear from him,” I said. “He is what the case is all about, and we need to tell the motive part of the story anyway.” I did not expect any disagreement. To my surprise, I found my assumption was not widely held.

Ed Medvene was very concerned. He didn’t want to call Simpson at all. “The physical evidence proves that he did it,” Ed began. “We’ve got all this good hair and fiber evidence. Tom’s got the blood evidence. We’ve got the shoe evidence. We now have the Scull photo. That is the guts of our case. Simpson really doesn’t matter.

“We win our case without Simpson, with the forensics. We don’t need Simpson to say anything or do anything on the witness stand to prove that he committed these murders. We don’t need to prove that he is a liar, that is not our burden. If we take on that burden and don’t meet it, we are in trouble.

“Plus, Simpson is a larger-than-life guy. Not that you wouldn’t do a bang-up job on him, but, you know, he could really charm the jury.

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