Word: simpson
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...year since the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, the case has been transformed into a spectacle gone terribly awry. Prosecutor Christopher Darden recently spoke with disdain of "this supposed truth-seeking process." One thing is certain: if Simpson were poor and unknown, it all would have been over months ago. "If O.J. were [represented by a public defender] in Jones County, Mississippi,'' says Robert Spangenberg, co-author of a 1993 American Bar Association report on indigent defense, "it would be a two-day trial, an open-and-shut case.'' Instead, if the bulletins from dismissed jurors...
...accelerating rate of jury attrition has raised the specter of a mistrial. It is unlikely that Simpson can afford to mount such an elaborate defense again (though a celebrity client will never lack for glory-seeking legal help), and that may well affect the outcome. For the Simpson case has demonstrated perhaps more starkly than ever before that in the American justice system, as in so much else in this country, money changes everything -- and huge amounts of money change things almost beyond recognition...
...computer support; and a thorough investigation of the crime. Although there was no physical evidence linking him to the murder, in August 1994, after a two-week trial, Bertsch was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Now 63, he sits in the Pima County Jail listening to the Simpson trial on a small radio. "I think you get all the justice you can afford," he says. "I'm not bitter, but the legal system is flawed...
Lawyers may also be following the Simpson case in dismay, but they are hard put to come up with any solutions. "What can you do?" asks Gerald Chaleff, past president of the L.A. County Bar Association. "Socialized lawyers? You can't bring everyone down to the lowest denominator." Perhaps the impetus for reform at the top of the heap, as well as at the bottom, will only come after cases such as O.J.'s demonstrate that too much money doesn't just subvert the justice system, it can stop it in its tracks...
...HIStory, Past, Present & Future-Book I, his new, epic, hubristic double CD. Both affairs were surprisingly luminary free; even Jackson skipped them. However, Johnnie Cochran, the savvy superlawyer who helped get the child-sex-abuse charges against Jackson settled out of court and who is now defending O.J. Simpson, did show up at the L.A. function, along with fellow attorney Carl Douglas. The pair circulated fabulously and posed for photos with partygoers, who were mostly record-industry types and members of the press. "When those guys walked in," said an attendee, "they were treated like our biggest rock-'n'-roll...