The Search for Justice (50 page)

It would be foolish to try to weigh one victim against the other, to say that one person was less or more vulnerable than
the other. However, the press had often tended to treat Goldman ’s death as secondary to Nicole ’s, as an afterthought or
a footnote. It was clear inside that courtroom that the jury saw him as an equal victim.

During Lakshmanan ’s testimony, O.J. was obviously distraught and tearful, breathing heavily, rocking back and forth in his
seat. Bob Kardashian had returned to the defense table, positioning himself not just to comfort O.J. but also to shield him
from the camera.

We adjourned early one afternoon, as the jurors were overcome by the photographs. Two actually left the jury box before officially
being excused. I had seen the pictures often enough to believe I would be immune when they were actually put on the
screen. However, the obvious grief in the room combined with the images on the screen was overwhelming. I grew lightheaded
and dizzy, and my chest hurt. At one point I even took my watch off and checked my pulse. I thought of asking Ito for a recess
or an early adjournment, but knew that if the request came from me, the press would ’ve announced that Shapiro had gone out
with a heart attack.

Dr. Lakshmanan ’s testimony tied with Dennis Fung ’s for marathon length: eight days. As I prepared to cross-examine him,
I felt the jury had been bored by too much detail, some of it painfully numbing. My mission was to hammer home our major points.
I went to the far podium so I wouldn ’t be distracted by O.J. ’s comments, or Johnnie ’s. Neither one claimed expertise in
forensic pathology, and their suggestions were distracting, throwing my rhythm off.

Lakshmanan admitted under my questioning that in his entire career he had never testified in place of—nor heard of anyone
else testifying in place of—the coroner who had actually performed the autopsy in question, especially when that coroner (Dr.
Golden) was available to testify. I hoped that this would make the jury wonder why Lakshmanan was on the stand.

Lakshmanan had been asked on direct examination about possibilities—vague medical possibilities. I wanted instead to narrow
the focus. “Reasonable medical certainty” is a term doctors use to describe conditions or opinions, rather than speculation.
I had no doubt that any question I asked about reasonable degrees of medical certainty would be answered in a way favorable
to the defense, since I believed Lakshmanan was an honest witness. Even though he was appearing for the prosecution, he wouldn
’t risk ridicule by others in his profession by saying he could make an absolute determination when he clearly could not.

“Can you tell us with a reasonable degree of medical certainty how many people are responsible for these homicides?” I asked
him.

“No,” he answered.

“Can you tell us with a reasonable degree of medical certainty how many different weapons were used to accomplish these homicides?”

“I already opined, saying that a single-edged knife could have caused all the knife wounds,” he said. “But with reasonable
medical certainty, I cannot exclude a second knife.”

Assistant district attorney Kelberg had taken eight days to convince the jury that a guilty verdict could be built upon speculation,
conjecture, and theories that were “consistent with” his hypotheticals. Dr. Lakshmanan ’s answers to my cross-examination
reminded them of the need for
proof without doubt.
The only hypothesis about which there was no doubt was that these two people had died by virtue of having their throats cut.
By what, by whom, by how many—no one could say.

Until that day, I ’d believed that my cross-examination of Irwin Golden in the preliminary was my career best; in the trial,
I was proudest of the work I did with Lakshmanan. Afterward a reporter wrote, “Within ten minutes, Shapiro destroyed eight
days of testimony.”

As the prosecution moved toward closing its case and we began to work on presenting the defense case, everyone was getting
a little punchy. Serious legal debates and fights at sidebars were often punctuated with bad jokes, knowing insults, or the
kind of humor you might see at summer camp.

Even though the jurors had become legendary for their impassive facial expressions, they were each very different. Some took
notes, others didn ’t. Some stayed alert and awake throughout even the most daunting scientific testimony; others struggled,
and even dozed. Over the months we felt we ’d come to know them, their individual moods and reactions. So, instead of referring
to them by their numbers or seat locations, we ’d often call them by the nicknames we ’d given them.

“Foo-Foo Lemieux took a lot of time with her hair today,” someone observed of one juror.

“The Demon is in a bad mood today,” someone else would say. “I don ’t think she likes us much.”

“Touchy-Feely isn ’t paying much attention,” a third would notice. “Neither is Horsehair.”

“I wonder how Two Tons of Joy will vote when this is over,” another would say, looking over at two of the heavier women in
the jury box. And we all knew which way Grampa would vote.

It wasn ’t that we didn ’t take them seriously. It was more that we took them too seriously, and if we thought too much about
who they were and what they were thinking, we wouldn ’t be able to get through the rest of the trial.

That glove has holes in it, and worn spots. If they knew anything at all about O.J. Simpson, they ’d know the man doesn ’t
own anything that ’s worn, or with holes. He barely tolerates the wrinkles in his jail uniform. They say they ’ve convicted
hundreds of people with less evidence than this. If they ’ve put people away on less than this… I ’m worried.

—B
ILL
P
AVELIC

I
n mid-June, Richard Rubin, the former vice president of the Aris Isotoner Company, had flown out from New York to testify
about the brown leather glove. During a break, while O.J. was in the lockup, Chris Darden told Judge Ito at sidebar, “I ’m
going to ask O.J. to try on the gloves.”

“That ’s completely inappropriate,” Johnnie said. “We ’ll object.

“We ’re going to take this up on the record later,” said Ito.

Rubin walked over to the evidence table, put on a pair of thin latex gloves, and began to examine the leather gloves as if
they were ancient Egyptian tapestries. Gingerly, he picked the right one up, looking first at one side, then the other. After
he put it down, he picked up the left and conducted a similar inspection. After he ’d put both gloves back down again, I looked
over to the prosecution table and asked Chris Darden and Cheri Lewis if they objected to me examining the gloves myself. “Go
right ahead,” Lewis said, reminding me to put latex gloves on first, which I did.

And then I did something that to my knowledge no one else
had done. In front of everyone, I put the leather gloves on. Yet nobody seemed to be paying any attention to me. I then very
quickly took the gloves off and headed for the lockup.

I walked up to O.J. and said, “Show me your hand. Palm up.” He put his hand against mine. Each finger was a half-inch or more
longer than mine; his palm at its widest was at least an inch wider than mine.

“You ’re not going to believe this,” I said to him. “But I just tried the gloves on. They fit me, although they ’re a little
loose at the wrist. But there is no way they ’ll fit you.”

“I told you!” he exclaimed. “Those gloves are not mine. Bob, I ’ve been telling you guys that all along! Thank God!”

“Juice,” I said, “when the jury comes back in, Darden ’s going to ask you to put the gloves on. We ’re going to object, for
the record, but I know Ito ’s going to allow it. I want you to walk in front of the jury, put the glove on, try as hard as
you can to get it on—because believe me, it ’s not going to fit—and then hold your hand up in front of them like you ’re carrying
the Olympic torch.”

When I left the lockup, I walked over to Johnnie. “Try the gloves on,” I said quietly. “You ’re in for a surprise.” After
he ’d done it, we just looked at each other. Our case was at a turning point, and Chris Darden was going to take us through
the turn, just like the engineer on a train. He was going to break The Rule and ask a question he didn ’t know the answer
to.

The demonstration took place exactly as I ’d expected. Cochran and O.J. and I, escorted by a bailiff, approached the jury
box. As O.J. was putting the gloves on, Darden instructed him, “Pull them on, pull them on.” O.J. did as he was told, turned
to Darden, and said, “They don ’t fit. See? They don ’t fit.” And the jury heard him. He ’d spoken to them, and he wasn ’t
going to be cross-examined on it.

The prosecution tried to scramble. They argued that the gloves didn ’t fit because of the latex gloves that they ’d insisted
everyone wear underneath. Maybe it was because the gloves had shrunk, because of the blood on them. We countered with the
results of a test showing that blood could not have shrunk the gloves. Maybe he was exaggerating or acting—although
then the joke became that he ’d never been a very good actor to begin with, why would that change now? Rubin would testify
about the special stitching and the glove lining, which might have shrunk. Extra-large should fit O.J., Rubin said. But it
didn ’t matter. The gloves didn ’t fit.

For months, critics had been lambasting the “Dream Team,” saying that the whole trial came down to how much money O.J. was
prepared to spend to buy himself a defense. Well, if anything showed what the defense was up against, it was Bill Bodziak,
and the FBI ’s investigation of possible shoe patterns found at the crime scene.

The FBI had examined the L.A.P.D. photographs of the blood patterns at Bundy. Among those patterns was what appeared to be
a shoe sole. They sent that pattern around the world to determine the manufacturer of the sole, tracing it to a small factory
in Italy. The manufacturer traced the sole to two companies that had bought the piece to be used in their shoes. Bruno Magli,
one of the shoe companies, had used the sole on two limited styles and estimated that only 300 pairs had been made in size
twelve. The FBI traced when and where the shoes were sold retail in the United States and went through every receipt in Bloomingdale
’s in New York City to see if they had been purchased there; they had not. They contacted additional retailers throughout
the country in an effort to show that the shoes could have been purchased by O.J. Simpson. They were unsuccessful in this
unprecedented investigation.

Then they brought in what they believed to be a duplicate pair of the shoes that fit the pattern. When we took them into the
lockup under Magnara ’s supervision, O.J. took one look and said, “I ’d never wear those ugly-ass shoes. They went through
my closet. They know what kind of shoes I wear.”

Bodziak, an expert witness who had been with the FBI ’s forensic laboratory for ten years, came into court on June 19 to testify
about the sole pattern. He looked every bit the part of
an FBI agent: short dark hair, lean fit body, and an air of discipline that I suspected would be hard to break.