Word: courtrooms
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...some vicarious satisfaction. On Friday many members of the media and legal VIPs--including author Lawrence Schiller and former Simpson defense attorney Robert Shapiro--were relegated to watching the trial on a screen in a "listening room" at the Doubletree hotel next door to the courthouse. And inside the courtroom there was an air of occasion as Simpson and plaintiffs' attorney Daniel Petrocelli began their cat-and-mouse game. Simpson--who had stopped to jauntily sign autographs as he arrived--at last found himself nearly face to face with members of the Goldman clan, who sat close to the witness...
...wrongful-death suit filed by the families of murder victims Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, Simpson has no choice. So like some promise of light emerging from the fog of an obscure and unpredictable trial, there he was on the witness stand in a Santa Monica, California, courtroom last Friday morning, impeccably dressed, a little nervous--and who wouldn't be?--answering the first of what may indeed turn out to be thousands of questions. This is real life, so there was no made-for-TV bombshell--no weeping O.J. confessing, no furious O.J. tripped up by damning contradictions...
...evidence arises to prove that plenty of people still find the subject compelling. Books about the case keep climbing best-seller lists; erstwhile O.J. friends still give prime-time interviews to the likes of Barbara Walters; dozens of cameras greet the parade of witnesses who have been entering the courtroom since the civil trial began on Oct. 23. And last week, with Simpson on the stand, the tangled tale was back on the front pages, back on Nightline and Larry King Live, back as a staple of our dinner-table conversations...
...civil trial has offered plenty of surprises, with many more to come. It is just that with the parties under a gag order and cameras banned from the courtroom, the proceedings have been a little harder for outside observers to decipher. In reality, this is turning out to be a very different trial, with key pieces of evidence, including the bloody shoe prints, and the time line being cast in an entirely new light. Rulings by Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki--who has been nicknamed the anti-Ito for his decisive, suffer-no-fools demeanor--have also caused significant shifts...
...Simpson's left hand were caused by the struggle with Ron Goldman, who gouged Simpson with his fingernails, riveted jurors. (Spitz even offered to rake his nails across defense lawyer Robert Baker's skin to demonstrate. "We're not going to have any gouging of flesh out in my courtroom," Judge Fujisaki said.) Even without that dramatic flare-up, the cuts--or rather the assorted stories he has told about them--may prove problematic for the defense. Simpson testified at his January deposition that he cut his left pinkie as he rushed around getting ready to leave for Chicago...