THE SEARCH FOR JUSTICE: A DEFENSE ATTORNEY’S BRIEF ON THE O.J. SIMPSON CASE. Robert Shapiro with Larkin Warren. Warner Books. $24.95. 363 pp.
The meat and potatoes of the O.J. Simpson double murder case are known to anyone who saw the trial on TV last year. Regardless, Simpson defense attorney Robert Shapiro goes over commonly digested material with a many-tined fork in his new book The Search for Justice, written with Larkin Warren.
Occasionally, Shapiro discovers a bit of caviar on the trial plate, too. These forkfuls of new information are fascinating. Shapiro reveals the growing enmity between himself and F. Lee Bailey, a friend he hired to be on the defense team. Bailey emerges as a swaggering big-mouth, a drunk and a tattletale who leaked information to the media, thus endangering Simpson’s right to a fair trial.
This behind-the-scenes scenario holds more water than the stuff about Shapiro the growing celebrity. In the shadow of Hollywood, Shapiro finds himself the subject of a People magazine interview (and gladly bungee-jumps for their cameras).
The author returns to point out the ways he lost faith in lead defense attorney Johnnie Cochran, characterized as a back-scenes manipulator and media showman. (It’s a battle of ethical bottom-fishing between Bailey and Cochran as to who comes off worse, in Shapiro’s eyes.) Shapiro isn’t above telling tales on himself. He goes into detail about the regrettable incident of handing out fortune cookies reading “Hang Fung” that knocked police criminologist Dennis Fung, the prosecution’s second-worst witness. This bad joke caused some immediate back-pedaling by Shapiro with Los Angeles’ Asian-American community.
One bombshell is almost worth the price of the book. We now know what was in the sealed manila envelope presented to the judge during the preliminary hearing. It was a knife recently purchased by Simpson and hidden in a bedroom mirror panel, undiscovered by police investigators after the murders. This knife was once theorized to be the weapon that killed Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman.
There are also surprises, including praise and empathy for unexpected sources. Prosecutor Marcia Clark gets higher marks for her opening argument than Cochran, who bungled by mentioning two witnesses that wound up never being called. Shapiro felt bad for the way Cochran constantly baited prosecutor Christopher Darden about issues involving race. It was an unnecessary power play.
When Shapiro carefully walks the reader through an examination of the evidence and its potential for contamination, he makes a sounder argument in print than the defense team did in court. If you believe Simpson guilty on the first page, you might be convinced by page 363 to have voted for an acquittal, as the jury did.
Key to the case were screenwriter Laura Hart McKinny’s audio tapes of Police Officer Mark Fuhrman bragging about targeting blacks and planting evidence. During the trial, she was stupidly shopping the tapes around Hollywood in an attempt to get a movie deal.
But there was enough sloppy police work and prosecutorial ineptitude to have tipped the case toward the defense anyway. Though Shapiro is too self-effacing to say it, his side involved superior lawyering. From the think-tank session he organized with 39 lawyers uninvolved with the case to using jury consultant Jo-Ellan Demetrius, the defense used the skills of savvier people.
Recitation of the trial’s progression and the defense’s tactics is enhanced by gossipy tidbits. Shapiro couldn’t understand it when Cochran, against the advice of Simpson, the defense team and his own wife, flirted repeatedly in open court with the receptive Clark. One of the early Simpson well-wishers was actor Kurt Russell, who appeared at the defendant’s house on the night of the slow-speed freeway chase with a message for Simpson.
On the rumor front, Shapiro, despite his reputation as a fine negotiator who settles cases, denies ever wanting to enter a plea bargain for Simpson. His client maintained his innocence from the beginning and Shapiro proceeded accordingly.
With a smattering of personal information about how the trial affected his family, Shapiro keeps the focus on the trial and the minutiae surrounding it. The prose is clear and highly interesting for the most part, except for discussions of DNA and blood evidence that put some jurors to sleep.
It is worth noting, a few seasons after the acquittal, the Simpson case continues to be waged on the best-seller lists between authors from the defense and the prosecution. Darden’s book is No. 1, but for how long with the release of Shapiro’s?
Candice Russell, former film critic for the Sun-Sentinel, is a free-lance writer.
