Lawyer Derides Plaintiffs’ Case Against Simpson

Exhorting jurors to use their common sense, O.J. Simpson’s lead defense lawyer said Wednesday that the case against his client “doesn’t pass the smell test,” arguing that the facts don’t add up, the theories are preposterous and the incriminating testimony is little more than “character assassination.”

Simpson, he insisted, did not kill Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman on June 12, 1994. “I know my client very well,” attorney Robert C. Baker said in a low, urgent voice. “It never happened.”

Although the defense has insisted all along that Simpson was framed, Baker did not once mention the words “conspiracy,” “frame-up” or “planting.” Nor did he dwell on the defense’s theory that the blood evidence was contaminated by bumbling police criminalists. Baker promised that he and co-counsel Robert Blasier will pick up those themes when their closing argument resumes this morning.

On Wednesday, though, Baker left the Los Angeles Police Department alone, after a brief opening salvo accusing officers of contradicting one another and lying on the witness stand. Instead, he turned his anger on other players in the long-running Simpson drama.

He accused witnesses of fabricating sensational testimony just to get their faces on television. He contended that federal agents were out to get Simpson at taxpayers’ expense. And he accused the media of slanting the coverage against Simpson to prolong the story. He even sneered at Ron Goldman’s father, Fred, whose attorneys have led the civil case that is now drawing to an end.

“This isn’t a fight for justice,” Baker said. “It’s a fight for money.”

His voice dropping to a flinty whisper, Baker then looked over at his oldest son, Phil, who has worked with him on the case, and said: “I would never take $450,000 for my boy.” He was apparently referring to the $450,000 advance the Goldman family has received for a book contract.

Fighting a bad cough and a crackling voice, Baker strayed from topic to topic in his three-hour speech, which seemed tentative and lackluster compared with the fiery rhetoric he has often unleashed in the courtroom. He frequently confused dates and times, and even mangled the name of Simpson’s street. Still, he posed several questions that he said proved the plaintiffs’ case was utter nonsense.

For example, he asked: Why do the plaintiffs make such a big deal about the fact that no one saw Simpson between 9:35 and 10:55 p.m. the night of the killings? Simpson is a bachelor. He lives alone. Why should anyone see him when he’s hanging around the house packing and reading? Isn’t it more significant that no one saw Simpson slashing throats on Bundy Drive or careening through town in a desperate rush to get home in time to catch his limo ride to the airport?

Then there are the much talked-about shoes, the Bruno Maglis that left size-12 prints at the murder scene. Why in the world, Baker asked, would Simpson change into dress socks and expensive Italian shoes to go commit a murder? He was wearing loafers and sneakers earlier in the day. “It doesn’t make any sense,” Baker said.

As for the alleged motive, Baker dismissed that as inane. He cited Simpson’s testimony that he had moved on with his life after breaking up with Nicole for a final time in May 1994. He said Simpson had never abused Nicole, was not obsessed with her and was not sinking into a black, vengeful mood the night of the killings.

“There is simply no motive for O.J. Simpson to have committed murder,” Baker said.

To back that up, he read from a letter Nicole Simpson wrote her ex-husband in March 1993, just before they embarked on a one-year trial reconciliation period. In the letter, she blames herself for their 1992 divorce. “O.J., I want to come home,” she wrote. “I just never want to leave your side again. . . . I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you.”

Earlier in the day, as plaintiffs wrapped up their closing argument, jurors heard from another of Nicole Simpson’s letters--one that painted a far bleaker picture of their relationship. In that undated letter, she wrote to Simpson: “You beat the holy hell out of me and we lied at the X-ray lab and said I fell off a bike. Remember!?” Referring to a fight that sent her to the hospital on New Year’s Day 1989, she wrote: “I called the cops to save my life, whether you believe it or not.”

Attorney John Q. Kelly, who represents Nicole Simpson’s estate, cited those passages as evidence that she feared O.J. Simpson. He also played the tapes of Nicole Simpson telling a 911 operator in a trembling voice that her ex-husband was acting “crazy” and “animalistic” during a fight eight months before her murder.

“She had no doubt that he had the capability of killing her,” Kelly said.

But Baker asserted that the letter he showed jurors represented Nicole’s true vision of the relationship. He said she made up the tales of abuse to get a better deal in the divorce.

Baker also scoffed at the plaintiffs’ timeline for the killings. Both sides agree that the murders began about 10:35 p.m. But the plaintiffs, backed by their expert witness, insist both victims would have died within about two minutes. The defense, on the other hand, argues that the struggle took as long as 15 minutes--though even Simpson’s own expert witness conceded it could have been as quick as a minute.

In any case, Baker said Simpson would simply not have had enough time to kill two people and get home by 10:55 p.m., when the limo driver spotted him outside his front door.

In a self-conscious echo of the defense’s mantra in the criminal trial--”If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit”--Baker offered up his own defining verse. “I’m no poet, but I know that if you don’t have the time, you most certainly cannot commit the crime,” he said. “And I don’t care what they say about blood and fibers.”

Indeed, Baker did not talk at all about the physical evidence--not the blood, not the fibers, not the 31 photos of Simpson wearing Bruno Magli shoes. He did take out the bloody gloves, preparing to ask Simpson to try them on in a replay of the criminal trial’s most famous moment, but the judge barred any such demonstration.

So Baker focused instead on rebutting the plaintiffs’ claims that Simpson beat and slapped Nicole repeatedly over their 17-year relationship.

He also told jurors that Simpson’s actions the night of the murders--signing autographs at the airport, chatting with passengers on the plane--proved he could not have butchered two people. “There’s nothing in his demeanor to remotely suggest he had done anything even comparable to this crime,” Baker said.

Plus, Baker asked, how could Simpson have been so dumb as to leave key evidence like a hat, gloves and blood at the crime scene and then be so smart as to conceal the murder weapon, shoes and bloody clothes where no one has ever found them? And if he had been intent on killing his wife, why would he do it early in the evening, when chances were much greater that someone could have strolled by and seen him?

“Think about it,” Baker repeatedly admonished the jurors. “Use your common sense.”

Baker also told jurors that they cannot let their “sympathy, passion or prejudice” sway their verdict. That instruction came just a few hours after the plaintiffs wrapped up their closing argument with a subdued but wrenching appeal that had a few jurors--and many spectators--wiping away tears.

In that appeal, which Baker dismissed as a sympathy ploy, lead plaintiff attorney Daniel M. Petrocelli implored jurors to “make Mr. Simpson pay for what he did” and urged them to “bring about some small measure of justice.”

If the jurors find Simpson liable for the murders, they can order him to compensate Goldman’s parents for the death of their son. The tangible loss is minimal: Goldman’s clothes, shredded and bloodied during the assault, were worth about $100, and his funeral cost about $7,500. Potentially more costly is the emotional toll--the love and companionship Goldman’s parents would have enjoyed had their son lived out his natural life.

As Fred Goldman sobbed just an arm’s length away from the jury box, Petrocelli tried Wednesday to give voice to that void. He reminded jurors that the bereaved father will never again get to sit down with his son at a Passover Seder or hug him at a birthday party. He told jurors that Fred Goldman would never get to barbecue with his son on a summer day, never rush to the hospital to cradle Ron’s first-born child.

Michael Brewer, who represents Ron Goldman’s mother, Sharon Rufo, told jurors that his client also lost something precious. Although Rufo had spoken with her son only a few times in the decade before his death, exchanging small talk about his haircut and her cat, Brewer said they were linked by the unbreakable bond between mother and son.

And he told jurors that she lamented “what will never be,” reading aloud a poem she wrote that read in part: “I believe we could have come together. . . . That chance was taken from me forever.”

Court will start early today because Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki is eager to hand the case to jurors by the end of the day. After the defense finishes its closing argument, the plaintiffs will have the opportunity for a brief rebuttal.