Word: suited
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...criminal trial. Now his riches have become a target for those seeking both vengeance and catharsis. Simpson faces two lawsuits stemming from the double murder, one filed by the parents of murder victim Ron Goldman, Fred Goldman and Sharon Rufo (the two are divorced but have now joined their suits); and another on behalf of Nicole Brown's estate (Louis Brown, father of the slain Nicole, is the estate's executor). Depositions in the Goldman suit were to have started this week but were postponed until Oct. 30 after Simpson hired a new attorney, civil litigator Robert Baker...
There are a few notable precedents, however. In 1985, after a previous conviction was overturned, socialite Claus von Bulow was acquitted of trying to kill his wife, Martha ("Sunny") von Bulow. Claus' two stepchildren then filed a civil suit against him that was settled out of court after Von Bulow agreed, among other things, to renounce his claims to his comatose wife's fortune. Says attorney Michael Armstrong, who represented the stepchildren: "The purpose for the Von Bulow suit was to get Claus out of the lives of the family. When he agreed to do that, there was no longer...
...another instance, the family of Japanese exchange student Yoshihiro Hattori won $653,000 in a civil suit filed against Baton Rouge, Louisiana, butcher Rodney Peairs, who shot their son when he mistakenly came to Peairs' door while searching for a Halloween party. Peairs was acquitted of manslaughter, but, says the Hattoris' lawyer Charles Moore, "sometimes jury verdicts are wrong. That doesn't mean you have to throw up your hands and walk away...
Prospects for the Simpson civil suits remain unclear. New York University Law professor Stephen Gillers predicts Simpson will give the Browns custody of his children if they agree to drop their suit and allow generous visitation. The Goldmans have no such incentive to settle. If either case goes to trial, it will be held in mostly white Santa Monica, California. The standard of proof is lower in civil cases--the jury assesses guilt or innocence based on a "preponderance of the evidence" rather than "reasonable doubt." A verdict requires only nine of 12 jurors, not unanimity. Also, says Gillers...
...secrets are as various as the exorcists. In The Blue Suit: A Memoir of Crime, just published by Houghton Mifflin (216 pages; $19.95), Richard Rayner, a British writer now living in Los Angeles, tells of how, while a Cambridge University undergaduate in the 1970s, he drifted into a yearlong crime spree of shoplifting, check forgery, housebreaking and bank fraud--following the mysterious disappearance of his father, who had been sent to jail for embezzlement. The writing is stripped-down Dostoyevsky ("My head itched. Cold sweat ran down my flesh...."), the overall effect as unnerving and oddly exhilarating as the life...