Simpson Case Jurors Begin Deliberations

Jurors in the O.J. Simpson civil trial retired behind closed doors Tuesday afternoon to begin deliberations, carrying stacks of notebooks and a fat packet of instructions warning them to base their verdicts on the evidence--and not on the emotion that has long swirled around the case.

The five men and seven women are charged with sifting through months of clashing testimony and bitter argument to resolve the issue at the heart of the trial: Did O.J. Simpson murder Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman on June 12, 1994?

But they will not find that question on their verdict form.

As Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki explained to the jurors Tuesday before dispatching them to the deliberation room, the civil trial involves three separate lawsuits. They all boil down to: “Did he or didn’t he?” But they are wrapped in the peculiar jargon of the legal world, in roundabout questions about battery, malice, oppression and wrongful death.

According to the verdict form, jurors must ask themselves not whether Simpson killed his ex-wife, but whether he harmed her without her consent--and whether he did so in a “base, vile, contemptible, wretched, loathsome or miserable” manner that “ordinary, decent people” would recoil from.

The technical legal questions the panel must weigh are so confusing that it took Fujisaki a full 45 minutes to read aloud the jury instructions Tuesday. All that, and he did not even explain that if the jurors find for the plaintiffs, they will trigger a second phase of the trial and a new round of deliberations on the question of punitive damages.

The jurors must weigh the following issues:

* Goldman’s parents, Fred Goldman and Sharon Rufo, have each filed claims accusing Simpson of causing their son’s death.

If they prevail, they are entitled to compensatory damages. The award would include $7,961 to cover the cost of Ronald Goldman’s funeral and, more important, compensation for the loss of their son’s love, companionship and moral support. If jurors find these claims valid, they must decide during the current round of deliberations how much money Simpson owes Goldman’s parents. They are instructed to come up with a lump sum; the judge will divide it between Rufo and Fred Goldman.

* Ronald Goldman’s estate has filed a survivorship claim accusing Simpson of battery.

If the estate wins, jurors can order Simpson to compensate Goldman’s legal heirs--his parents--for property damage incurred during the assault. That amounts to just $100, for his bloodied jeans and shirt. But the estate is also asking for punitive damages, designed to punish Simpson for his conduct. Jurors would not decide the amount of punitive damages until a second round of deliberations, after testimony about Simpson’s financial assets.

* Nicole Simpson’s estate has also filed a survivorship claim accusing Simpson of battery.

The estate is seeking $250 in property damages for the black dress she was wearing when she died--plus punitive damages. Again, jurors would set the size of punitive damages in a second phase of the trial if the plaintiffs win this round. Any money awarded to the estate would flow to the two young children of O.J. and Nicole Simpson.

More Hecklers Appear

To reach a verdict on any one of the claims now pending against Simpson, at least nine of the 12 jurors must concur. In civil trials, the decision need not be unanimous.

The Simpson jury, which will deliberate daily from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. except during a lunch break, includes a masonry worker, a theater manager, a computer programmer and a mother of six. There are nine whites, one African American, one Latina and one man who described himself as of mixed black and Asian descent.

Long before they settled into the jury box to hear the evidence, a few panelists expressed trepidation that their verdicts--whichever way they went--would provoke a public backlash.

“Whatever the outcome, I will offend people with my decision,” fretted a white man in his 30s.

Indeed, demonstrators are already revving up for the verdicts. More hecklers have been staking out positions outside the courthouse in recent days, some waving signs, some shouting through bullhorns. The plaintiffs requested a police escort to guide them past the rowdy crowd Tuesday; uniformed officers pushed aside television cameras and kept back protesters as the lawyers walked out of court with the Goldman family.

Mindful of the intense emotions the Simpson case evokes, Fujisaki has admonished the jurors each day to insulate themselves not only from news accounts of the trial, but also from relatives or strangers who might pressure them to vote a certain way. On Tuesday, he added another instruction: He told them their verdicts could not be influenced by anything that happened in the criminal trial, which ended in Simpson’s acquittals, or in the recent court case that concluded with a judge awarding Simpson custody of his young children.

Yet despite Fujisaki’s instructions that jurors must not be swayed by outside influences, attorneys from both sides have bluntly reminded the panelists that many hopes and fears are riding on their verdicts.

Both sides referred during closing arguments to the passion the Simpson case still provokes--passion evident every day outside the Santa Monica courthouse, where demonstrators shout “murderer” when Simpson appears and “gold diggers” when the Goldman family emerges.

Lead defense attorney Robert C. Baker urged the jurors to buck political correctness and vindicate Simpson once and for all. Playing to the disgust that some jurors expressed about incessant press coverage of the case, Baker told them that only they could put a halt to the media “gravy train” that he said feeds off Simpson’s plight.

For his part, lead plaintiff attorney Daniel M. Petrocelli told jurors that they represent the public’s last real chance to hold Simpson responsible for the murders. “Two people lost their lives . . . and they deserve their final peace,” he told them. “Their lives mattered.”

Most of the jurors looked solemn as they filed into the deliberation room to carry out their duty.

The first question they will face on their verdict form relates to the wrongful death claims filed by Goldman’s parents: “Do you find by a preponderance of the evidence that defendant Simpson willfully and wrongfully caused the death of Ronald Goldman?”

The standard “preponderance of evidence” means, in layman’s terms, “probably” or “more likely than not.” So jurors can vote against Simpson even if they believe that there is just a 50.1% chance that he killed Goldman.

There is no comparable question for the death of Nicole Simpson because the Brown family chose not to file a wrongful death claim. Only legal heirs can bring such a claim, so pursuing it would have put the Simpson children in the traumatic position of suing their father for killing their mother.

Instead, the Browns brought a survivorship action on behalf of Nicole Simpson’s estate, which could reap big money for the children without turning them into plaintiffs. (Sydney and Justin still have the right to file their own wrongful death lawsuits in the future; the statute of limitations will not run out until they turn 19.)

Survivorship claims allow the victims’ representatives to act on behalf of the deceased. If Goldman and Nicole Simpson had survived the attacks, they would have had the right to sue their assailant for battery and collect punitive damages. Since they did not survive, that right is transferred to their estates--represented by their legal heirs.

Jurors Must Search Their Hearts

To unravel that rather complicated technicality, jurors must work through six questions on their verdict form.

First, they are asked: “Do you find by a preponderance of the evidence that defendant Simpson committed battery against Ronald Goldman?” That question is clearly redundant; if Simpson killed Goldman, of course he attacked him. But jurors have to answer it nonetheless to establish--or to dismiss--the survivorship claim.

If jurors determine that Simpson committed battery against Goldman, they must then answer two questions about whether they find “by clear and convincing evidence” that the battery was carried out with “oppression” and “malice.” If they answer “yes,” the jurors will trigger the punitive damages phase of the trial.

Under California law, jurors must take three factors into consideration when calculating punitive damages: how reprehensible the defendant’s misconduct was, how much economic damage it caused and how wealthy the defendant is.

But there are no such guidelines for determining compensatory damages. In fact, jurors are expressly forbidden to consider either the defendant’s or the plaintiffs’ wealth in this phase of the trial. If they find that compensatory damages are in order, they must search their own hearts to figure out how much to award Goldman and Rufo. They have heard evidence about how close each parent was to Goldman, but no attorney has presumed to put a dollar figure on love. Jurors must figure it out for themselves.

“It is not based on anything other than the collective conscience of the jurors,” Beverly Hills attorney Paul Kiesel said. “Two different juries will give two different awards.”

As proof of how subjective compensatory damage awards can be, Kiesel pointed to a wrongful death case in which he represented the families of three men killed by a drunk truck driver. At the first trial, he won a $3.2-million damage award for his clients. But that verdict was scrapped for technical reasons, so the case went on to a retrial with a new jury--which awarded Kiesel’s clients $7.8 million in compensatory damages.

“When it’s not about hard economic losses, but about damages for the loss of love, you’re going to get a wide variety of views,” veteran civil attorney Larry Feldman said. In the Simpson case, he added, jurors could be so angry at the brutal killings that they could pump up the award just to send a message.

“If the jury has concluded that O.J. Simpson has committed these murders,” Feldman said, “they’re liable to take it out on him in the verdict.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Conflicting Claims

Jurors in the O.J. Simpson civil trial will sort through many conflicting claims and contradictory testimony. Among the issues they must consider:

The Photographs

* DEFENSE: A photo depicts no bloodstain on the bottom rung of the back gate at the murder scene. Two weeks after the photo was taken, police scraped blood from that rung and matched it to Simpson. The defense claims a frame-up.

* PLAINTIFFS: The photo’s angle distorted the gate and kept the bloodstain from being visible.

* DEFENSE: A photo taken Aug. 10, 1994, shows no blood on the console of Simpson’s Bronco. Police collected blood from three locations on that console three weeks later; it contained genetic markers consistent with a mixture of DNA from both victims and Simpson.

* PLAINTIFFS: The blood was there all along and other photos taken Aug. 10 depict blood all over the Bronco--although not on the top or side of the console.

* PLAINTIFFS: Entered into evidence are photos showing O.J. Simpson wearing Bruno Magli shoes, the brand that tracked size 12 bloody footprints near the bodies. A former head of the FBI’s photo analysis division vouched for the photo’s authenticity.

* DEFENSE: Yes, the shoes are Bruno Maglis, but all the photos are faked.

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The Timetable

* BOTH SIDES SAY: The fatal assault began about 10:35 p.m.

* PLAINTIFFS: The killings happened very quickly, in less than two minutes.

* DEFENSE: Ronald Goldman could have struggled for 10 to 15 minutes, or even longer. That scenario would make it almost impossible for Simpson to get back to his house to meet the limo driver.

* PLAINTIFFS: Brian “Kato” Kaelin heard three thumps outside his guest room at 10:52 p.m., noises Simpson caused when he vaulted a fence and crashed into an air conditioner in his rush to get home.

* DEFENSE: Kaelin heard the noises about 10:40 p.m.; no explanation for what caused them was offered.

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The Science

* DEFENSE: Blood evidence in the case shows signs of contamination. In addition, sloppy handling and poor police techniques rendered other evidence meaningless.

* PLAINTIFFS: There is no evidence whatsoever of any contamination; DNA results are reliable.

* PLAINTIFFS: There is no sign that any blood was planted from test tubes containing the preservation EDTA.

* DEFENSE: There were traces of EDTA in blood recovered from the socks and the back gate, raising suspicion of a frame-up.

* PLAINTIFFS: A forensic pathologist says gouges on Simpson’s left hand were fingernail marks inflicted during a fatal struggle.

* DEFENSE: A medical examiner disputes that conclusion and disagrees about whether Simpson had any bruises on his body in the days after the murders.

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The Motive

* PLAINTIFFS: Simpson killed in a jealous frenzy after Nicole Simpson dumped him for good a few weeks before the murders. They say he beat her throughout their 17-year relationship and was obsessed with controlling her.

* DEFENSE: Simpson had no motive to kill his ex-wife. Simpson never beat Nicole and was not pursuing her. On the contrary, Simpson was glad to get on with his life after he broke up with her in May, 1994, following a one-year attempt at reconciliation.