by Nancy Grace
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danger. The Constitution didn’t set up a jury trial to be a popularity test, but with a charismatic defense lawyer like Cochran, it can turn into the homecoming parade, not a search for the truth.
Although Cochran and I vehemently disagreed on many, many things—most notably the issue of Simpson’s guilt—I consider myself to be a friend of Johnnie’s. We agreed to disagree, but when it comes to Cochran, I know I am battling one of the best there is. Do I agree with him? Never. Do I acknowledge his abilities? I’d be a fool not to.
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The one thing that Mark Geragos and Johnnie Cochran have in common is that they are both incredibly charming. They’re both attractive, likable, and unfailingly smooth. The major difference, as of this writing at least, is that Cochran has won all of his major high-profile cases. I in no way suggest that “winning” a felony case puts the defense in the right or is some litmus test of right or wrong, moral or immoral. To do so would be like putting perfume on a pig . . . it still stinks.
As for Mark Geragos, in the space of a single year, he has become one of this country’s most famous lawyers for simultaneously taking on two of the most infamous defendants of the decade: Scott Peterson and Michael Jackson.
At the onset of the Peterson trial,* no one knew what to expect from Geragos, especially in light of his own words about his client before he signed on to defend him. Two days before Peterson’s arrest, Geragos stated on air, “You’d be hard-pressed to find a prosecutor who couldn’t put together an indictment, let alone a conviction. There are a lot of guys sitting in state prison on a lot less evidence. There is just an over-
*As this book went to press, on March 16, 2005, Scott Peterson was sentenced to death by lethal injection or, in the alternative, the California gas chamber, for the murders of his wife and their unborn child.
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whelming amount of circumstantial evidence. His defense at this point is, ‘Oh, my God, somebody else must have done it and was trying to set me up.’ I don’t think it’s ever going to wash.”
It’s hard to ignore Geragos’s own analysis of the case, offered up on Larry King Live on April 18, 2003, the day of Peterson’s arrest. At the time, he said, “The most damning piece of circumstantial evidence [a marina receipt] comes out of his own mouth and his own hands. That is just a devastating thing. It’s a damning, circumstantial case. The man is a sociopath if he did this crime. This is a guy who has, from day one, not helped himself in any way.” Ten days later, during another television interview, Geragos was asked why Peterson lied to Amber Frey about being single. His response? “Because he’s a cad. When guys commit adultery, guys lie to a single woman in order to get them into bed.”
In the hours that followed, on April 29, Geragos met with Peterson in jail, and the next day he revealed he was considering signing on as Peterson’s lead counsel. On May 2 he announced he had taken the case. Once he was retained, he suddenly saw the light. He clearly had an epiphany: Scott Peterson was innocent. My head was spinning. Hadn’t Geragos practically finished the state’s closing argument for them on air? In retrospect, why was I surprised?
I called him on it publicly just before he announced Peterson had hired him as his lead defense attorney. That evening, I noticed a sudden reversal in his previous opinion that Peterson would be convicted.
I asked him on air, “What happened, Mark? What changed?” Geragos dodged the question—evasive as ever.
Geragos employed many disturbing strategies in handling the Peterson case. Nothing was more offensive to me than the treatment Sharon Rocha and her family received at the hands of the defense in the early stages of the case. After Laci Peterson’s remains had washed up on the rocks in April 2003, her family was banned from Scott and Laci’s house. Although the defense team and its investigators had been swarming the couple’s Modesto, California, home for weeks and Peter-2 0
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son’s family had been there during visits to their son, the defense still claimed with a straight face that it was a crime scene and couldn’t be tampered with or contaminated by Laci’s own family.
By having people come and go as they pleased, the house had long lost its value as an untampered-with crime scene. That fact didn’t stop the defense from using it as a premise to prevent Laci’s family from getting into the house and retrieving some of her personal belongings as mementos. A long tug of war ensued between Scott’s camp and Laci’s camp.
Finally, Laci’s family went over to the couple’s house and collected a few items, including her wedding dress, some of her plants, some watering cans and diplomas. Sharon Rocha went into Laci’s room simply to sit in Laci’s rocking chair, trying to feel her daughter’s presence.
And you know what happened that afternoon?
The Peterson defense team raced to the house and demanded police file a burglary report. As if the murder of their daughter weren’t enough. Is it legal? Yes. Is it moral? Absolutely not. After realizing they had created a public-relations disaster, the defense backed off their strident calls to have Laci’s mother arrested, and nothing more was said of it. For the defense, it was as if nothing had ever happened. For Laci’s mother, it was another wound that will never heal.
With Geragos at the helm, Scott Peterson was transformed from an orange-jumpsuit-clad “Monster in Chains,” as described by the New York Post, into a well-groomed, upper-middle-class, college-educated young man in tastefully subdued suits. The defendant’s ill-advised dye job and facial hair were replaced with a close-cropped haircut, a clean-shaven face, and a thoughtful yet pensive look in court.
But Geragos couldn’t whitewash Peterson’s image as a cheating cad, and he had his work cut out for him in order to erase the idea his client was a man on the run. When Peterson was arrested in San Diego, police searched the 1984 Mercedes-Benz 500SEC he was driving. He wasn’t traveling light. Among the items found in the car: $15,000 in cash, twelve Viagra tablets, several credit cards belonging to various members of the Peterson family, a water purifier, a knife, a fire starter, O B J E C T I O N !
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and tons of survival gear. The few superficial changes Geragos instigated had somehow managed, virtually overnight, to erase the damaging image of Peterson as a fugitive.
Unfortunately, the defense attorney couldn’t control Peterson completely. During one of the earliest days of the trial, the defendant went a little too far to win the title of Mr. Congeniality. Entering the courtroom, he lit up a thousand-watt, Hollywood-love-me smile for a huge jury pool.
One potential juror summed it up beautifully as she was leaving the courtroom: “It was creepy.” After that misstep, Geragos likely advised Peterson to hold back all that charm and just look down and take notes.
Geragos tried out a series of theories on the public via statements and court papers to see if any would stick. At the beginning of the trial, we heard a host of stories about people and events that might be tied to Laci’s disappearance and murder. First came the story about a brown van and a missing shoe that would explain everything; then came a mysterious woman with important information. Those were followed by various and sundry tales, including “Donnie” the dope dealer, the evil burglars, the homeless killers, a besotted neighbor in love with Scott Peterson, a possible jewel heist, a deranged sex offender, a Hawaiian gang, and, of course, a satanic cult. A court-imposed gag order only added fuel to the flames of speculation.
An important word about leaks: Courthouse leaks can come from many sources, from calendar clerks to assistants who file documents to messenger services to the person responsible for collecting faxes off the courthouse machine. A leak could also come from a secretary at the defense lawyers’ firm, a courier, or a law clerk. Identifying the source of leaks is always difficult, and that is why leaking is rarely punished—
because so many people have
the ability to get their mitts on court documents. The bottom line is, most leaks are highly favorable to the defense, just as we saw in the Kobe Bryant case, where things got so bad that the judge had to issue a written apology to the alleged rape victim. In most cases, logic clearly suggests that the leaks are in fact orchestrated by the defense. Although it’s pretty much impossible to stop leaks, I believe that 2 2
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if they were investigated as actual crimes against the court and then prosecuted, they would dry up pronto. This could easily be achieved through a contempt of court–like statute and proceedings.
Surprisingly, Peterson’s trial quickly became a made-for-television spectacle. Geragos first asked for a closed preliminary hearing, which included the barring of reporters from even sitting in the courtroom, much less a camera watching Peterson’s every move. When the idea of a closed courtroom was rejected, Geragos switched positions and argued the reverse—to allow television cameras to cover the entire proceeding live, a motion the judge also denied. Geragos is extremely savvy when it comes to working the media. We might never know why the telegenic defense attorney waffled on this issue, but, believe me, he had his reasons for switching gears, both in his representation of Peterson after pointing out his likely guilt on air and in his request not to allow cameras in court.
Although truth won out in the end, in Geragos’s first major battle, he scored a victory when the court agreed to a change of venue out of Laci’s hometown. After gauging the pulse of the Redwood City jurors, he asked for another venue change. That was denied, so Geragos dug in and the trial commenced. Shrewdly, however, whenever he got a chance, he renewed his dissatisfaction with the venue, announcing often that his client could not get a fair trial.
True to form, Geragos was charming and cordial in the courtroom.
As demonstrated throughout jury selection and trial, only occasionally did he let the jury see another side of him, when he bullied witnesses and other lawyers. Another less-than-winning quality of the usually smooth defense lawyer is his penchant for sarcasm. In late July 2004, Detective Dodge Hendee was on the stand testifying about what he found while searching Scott Peterson’s warehouse. During cross-examination, he told Geragos he found what appeared to be cement residue in what looked like five rings, which indicated that Peterson had made five anchors—but only one was found. Geragos, trying to punch holes in Hendee’s theory, showed the pictures of the so-called rings and O B J E C T I O N !
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commented that they looked more like light right angles than rings. He mocked Hendee, saying, “Is this a ring? And is this a ring? Is this a circle?” His attempt at witty sarcasm fell flat. Although there were a few chuckles in the courtroom, some of the jurors looked disgusted by the treatment the detective received. He was a credible witness who deserved to be treated with respect. Evidently Geragos thought otherwise.
When Geragos’s long-anticipated cross-exam of Peterson’s former lover, Amber Frey, was set to commence, he deadpanned in open court,
“No questions.” He then paused for effect before adding, “Just kid-ding.” While there were a few people who thought this was hilarious, certain members of the jury looked on stoically and never even cracked a smile, as if to relay the message, “What’s funny about murder?”
There’s no doubt Mark Geragos is a talented lawyer. How far can sheer talent take a defense when pitted against the truth? In State v.
Scott Peterson, the truth won out.
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One thing for sure about Geragos is that this million-dollar defense attorney not only knows the ropes, he knows how to tie them into a lasso for the prosecution. The Modesto Bee reported that two judges decided last July that taxpayer money would go to help Geragos defend Peterson. Stanislaus County Superior Court judges Roger M. Beauchesne and Linda McFadden met with Geragos behind closed doors in July 2003 and sent him their decision a few days later. At the time we couldn’t know the facts supporting their decision, since the law requires that the ruling remain confidential. When asked about the motion, Geragos told reporters, “Look, if I did file, I couldn’t tell you. If I didn’t file, I still couldn’t tell you.”
The last time I checked, public funds are generally used with the public’s knowledge, with the exception of secret FBI and CIA opera-tions. There is no justification for keeping this information secret.
While Geragos shouldn’t be made to reveal trial strategy, taxpayers 2 4
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have a right to know how much money judges are forking over to the defense. As for his asking for any money at all, I firmly believe that he and other high-priced lawyers like him should be paid the same rates as court-appointed attorneys, prosecutors, and state experts.
Much of the public’s money designated for defendants’ attorneys goes to pay for court-appointed attorneys, not high rollers from silk-stocking law firms. It’s the exception, not the rule, for defendants to hire expensive private attorneys, run out of money, and end up with their hands in our pockets.
Erik and Lyle Menendez, who gunned down their parents in Beverly Hills in 1989, and Danielle van Dam’s killer, David Westerfield, received public money. If Geragos ever does reveal just who paid the bill, I suspect we won’t hear the real story for quite a while.
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When Geragos was in charge of Michael Jackson’s defense in its early stages, virtually everything the defendant did was a horrendous mockery of the justice system. With a client like Michael Jackson and a lawyer like Mark Geragos, division of fault is pretty tricky. I do not necessarily believe that Geragos knew what was to come, but I have to wonder, did he have an inkling?
In January 2004, when Michael Jackson pled not guilty in his first hearing on child-molestation charges, the judge planned to keep a tight rein on the singer and the attorneys in the case. Judge Rodney Melville immediately set a strict tone and kicked off the day’s proceedings by scolding Jackson for being twenty-one minutes late to court—laying down rules he expected attorneys on both sides to follow. The judge told the singer, “Mr. Jackson, you have started out on the wrong foot here. . . . I want to advise you that I will not put up with that. It’s an insult to the court.”
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That was just the beginning. As if his court appearance were some sort of entertainment event, Jackson’s website promised free transporta-tion for fans wishing to travel to the courthouse as part of a “Caravan of Love.” Well-wishers in tow, Jackson arrived late, although his route was planned well ahead of time and extra security—paid for by the taxpayers—was employed to ensure Jackson’s arrival. Police Chief Danny Macagni told the Associated Press that 42 of the 107 officers in the Santa Maria Police Department were assigned to the courthouse that day, along with 50 sheriff’s deputies. Already late, Jackson was further delayed after taking time to greet cheering fans, leaving Judge Melville inside the courtroom to cool his heels. The incident widened the gap between Jackson supporters and those who believe that he will be treated differently, more leniently—with kid gloves—because of his celebrity status. This one incident sowed the seeds of resentment among many court watchers.
Outside the courthouse, it got worse. The self-titled King of Pop broke into dance on top of an SUV and invited a throng of his fans to join him at a party at his Neverland Ranch. Meanwhile, some three thousand people, including fans and news media from as far away as Japan and Norway, clamored around the courthouse itself, making the event more like an awards show than a criminal proceeding. Even though there was no red carpet, Geragos had to have anticipated the throngs of reporters and fans. He had to see that Jackson was dressed as if he were in the front row of a fashion show or in an MTV video—
complete with huge sunglasses, a black ensemble with a white arm-band, a military medallion, and glitter shoes—instead of a defendant facing child-molestation charges.
As Jackson drove away from the courthouse, fans mobbed his SUV.
The singer only encouraged them by reaching out his window and waving. Fans were egged on by Jackson’s camp, headed by Geragos, to travel from Southern California and Las Vegas in chartered buses and cars.
About a thousand people came to Jackson’s “after-party,” a postarraign-ment affair at Neverland. Hundreds of cars were backed up on the two-2 6
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lane country road that led to the estate. Rides were in full operation, and ice cream, popcorn, and soft drinks were provided.
What exactly were they celebrating? Jackson being indicted for child molestation? The anguish of a family who, along with their cancer-stricken son, must now endure a long, drawn-out trial? The entire episode was a bizarre mockery of the justice system. Regardless of whether Geragos orchestrated the whole performance, he let it happen.
At the onset of the case, I believed Geragos’s strategy was to discredit the victim or the victim’s family. The problem with that approach is that there could be many alleged molestation victims. But is everybody a liar? Everybody but Jackson? I don’t think so.
Already, one young boy settled his case against Jackson in 1994 for $20 million under the direction of Johnnie Cochran. One thing that Cochran did do for Jackson that Geragos wasn’t able to do was save him from an indictment.
In the end, Geragos himself fell victim to Jackson’s erraticism.
Following his formal indictment, Jackson booted his lawyers, including not only Geragos but also co-counsel Ben Brafman and two security teams in quick succession. Jackson then retained another high-profile lawyer who put up with actor Robert Blake for a period of time acting as his defense attorney, Tom Mesereau. My advice to Mesereau, since he didn’t ask, is this: If Jackson can fire two veteran trial lawyers like Geragos and Brafman on a whim, don’t work nights on your closing statement. No matter how good you are, you may not be around by then.
