Summations in Simpson Case Near End

In his final appeal to jurors, O.J. Simpson’s lawyer implored them Monday to withstand public pressure, reject corrupt police and use their verdict to give Simpson his old life back--but the plaintiffs responded on rebuttal that the entire defense effort has been built on lies.

The jurors, who have listened patiently and impassively to four days of closing arguments, are scheduled to begin deliberations today after one last speech from the plaintiffs. They must decide whether Simpson is responsible for the June 12, 1994, murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman.

Both sides have sought in recent days to hook jurors by summing up four months of testimony in a few catchy slogans. The defense says that all evidence against Simpson has been “contaminated, compromised or corrupted.” The plaintiffs countered Monday that the defense’s theories are frauds, born of “desperation, deception and dishonesty.”

Although both sides urged jurors not to be swayed by sympathy, both spiked their final arguments with emotional pleas.

“You can’t give Ron Goldman’s life back, but you can give Mr. Simpson back his life,” lead defense lawyer Robert C. Baker told jurors, his voice an urgent whisper cutting through the courtroom. “He’s been ridiculed. He’s been tried in the press. And only you--this is justice by the people--only you can listen to the facts without an agenda to sell magazines or books or air time and render a verdict, as was done before, and give him his life back.”

Referring to the two young children Simpson recently gained custody of, after yet another courtroom fight, Baker concluded his argument with a quiet request: “Give Justin and Sydney their dad back.”

Taking the podium moments later on rebuttal, plaintiff attorney John Q. Kelly, who represents Nicole Brown Simpson’s estate, also invoked the children, reminding jurors that they will never again get a good-night kiss from their mother, will never again feel her soothing hand ease them through an illness.

Kelly explained that the children will get any money the estate wins in the lawsuit. Then he pleaded: “Let [Nicole] rest in peace knowing that her children are provided for in this small way. Bring the children under Nicole’s wing, and let them be protected by an angel.”

The tender imagery from both sides may have tugged some heartstrings--Simpson wiped his eyes after his attorney’s remarks--but it could not camouflage the bitterness that has shot through four days of closing arguments. As the rhetoric grew increasingly barbed Monday, tensions between the lawyers flared into catty exchanges and even sparked a brief shoving match at a sidebar conference, with attorneys elbowing one another to get closer to the judge.

And in remarks that even he acknowledged could be seen as “harsh,” Baker attacked Ronald Goldman’s parents, questioning how close they really were to their slain son.

Baker said he found it “interesting” that Fred Goldman considered it “tough love” parenting to let his son sit in jail after being arrested for driving without a license and to let him file for bankruptcy rather than bailing him out of his debts. He also reminded jurors that Goldman’s mother, Sharon Rufo, had not seen her son in a dozen years and did not come to Santa Monica to testify in person about her loss.

*

Finally, Baker sneered at the plaintiffs’ assertion that if Ron Goldman had not been stabbed to death, he would by now have opened the restaurant of his dreams, a restaurant in the shape of the Egyptian ankh, the symbol for eternal life. “Ron Goldman wouldn’t have had a restaurant,” Baker scoffed. “He’d be lucky to have a credit card. Don’t buy into these emotional ideas because it isn’t reality.”

Painting his client as the true victim in the trial, Baker complained that “to destroy a human being’s life [is] what the LAPD and the plaintiffs want to do in this case.” He explicitly accused former Dets. Mark Fuhrman and Philip Vannatter of planting evidence to frame Simpson, saying, “They were going to get O.J. Simpson.”

Seizing on those remarks, lead plaintiff attorney Daniel M. Petrocelli launched his rebuttal by proclaiming that Simpson must think everyone is out to get him, from the lowliest coroner’s assistant to the most grizzled detective to the complete strangers who testified that they saw him slap Nicole. “There is a conspiracy the likes of which has never before been witnessed, all to get me,” Petrocelli said in a put-upon tone meant to mock Simpson’s chief line of defense.

*

Then he turned to the jurors and asked simply: “Why? Why would they all gang up to frame an innocent man?”

Petrocelli acknowledged that the police had made some mistakes in processing the crime scene. But he challenged the jurors to consider every error and then ask the question “So what?”

The defense had proved, he conceded, that police moved an envelope at the crime scene and failed to collect a blood-soaked piece of paper near the bodies. Yet he reminded jurors that “this is not a malpractice case against the LAPD. . . . Big deal, an envelope moved. This is a crime scene, not a museum. Folks are working here. So there’s a piece of paper missing. Big deal. [Simpson’s] blood’s not missing. . . . And his hat and his gloves, those aren’t missing.”

To rebut the defense’s specific claims, Petrocelli turned the podium over to his colleague Thomas Lambert, who handled the blood evidence during the trial. Step by step, Lambert walked jurors through each of the defense’s allegations--and each of the plaintiffs’ responses.

Could blood swatches have been switched in the LAPD lab to place Simpson’s DNA at the crime scene? Lambert pointed out that the swatches were stored in a locked evidence room, which operated on a computerized key-card system that recorded the identity of everyone who entered. “There is no way anyone could have gotten in,” Lambert said.

Could blood from Nicole Simpson’s reference sample have been daubed on Simpson’s socks? Lambert told jurors that the reference sample, taken during the autopsy, was far more degraded than the blood on the socks. The sock blood was splashed on fresh, he said, not sprinkled from a test tube. Plus, the plaintiffs’ expert witness saw no credible signs that the sock stain contained the test-tube preservative EDTA.

Could blood have been planted in Simpson’s Bronco? Or on the back gate of Nicole Simpson’s condo? Lambert told jurors that was simply impossible. Six officers saw blood on the back gate hours after the murders; at least one jotted it in his notes. Several others saw stains in the Bronco long before Simpson returned from Chicago and gave his blood sample to police.

“The whole [planting theory],” Lambert said, “is simply a ruse.”

Baker, however, spoke with just as much passion and conviction when he told jurors earlier in the day that evidence was planted, that the police were corrupt, and that the killing was most likely a professional hit job carried out by two assailants. He insisted, once last time, that his client is innocent.

“The media have convicted [Simpson] in the court of public opinion,” Baker said bitterly, “of murders he had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with.”