His Name Is Ron

by Kim Goldman

  Prosecutors did, however, win the right to recall State Department of Justice analyst Gary Sims to introduce a new DNA test result concerning three stains found inside the defendant’s Bronco. The stains had been subjected to a form of analysis known as RFLP, and Sims testified that the results indicated a mixture of Ron’s blood and the defendant’s blood. This was a major addition to the prosecution case, since it suggested that the defendant’s blood was mixed with that of a murder victim with whom he had absolutely no previous contact. That information, all by itself, should have been enough to convict this man, we thought.

  Seeking to counter the ill-fated glove demonstration, the prosecution recalled Richard Rubin, the former general manager of the Aris glove company. After showing a videotape of the defendant broadcasting from the sidelines at a 1991 football game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Houston Oilers, Chris Darden asked Rubin’s opinion about the gloves that the defendant was wearing.

  “Based on what I’ve seen,” Rubin responded, “I would say that this is Style 70263, size extra-large, brown.”

  Chris asked, “How certain are you of that?”

  “I’m one hundred percent certain,” Rubin declared.

  The point was exquisite, for the bloody glove found at the murder scene was Style 70263, size extra-large, brown. And the bloody glove found at the killer’s home was Style 70263, size extra-large, brown.

  On Friday, September 15, in an effort to undo the damage inflicted by the defense’s expert witness Henry Lee, the prosecution re-called FBI Special Agent William Bodziak. He displayed numerous photographs to support his contention that the marks Lee saw as blood imprints were actually artifacts left years ago by the masons who constructed the walkway. He also testified that another stain Lee photographed on June 25, 1994, more than a week after the murders, was simply not there the night the crimes were committed.

  Marcia asked, “Based on your analysis of all the evidence, including Dr. Lee’s photographs, is there any evidence that more than one set of bloody shoe prints were left at the scene at the time of the murders?”

  “No, there is not,” Bodziak replied. “All the bloody shoe imprints were made by size 12 Bruno Magli design shoes.”

  “Has anything changed your opinion that the defendant cannot be excluded as a wearer of those size 12 Bruno Magli shoes?” Marcia asked.

  “No,” the agent responded.

  This testimony brought an amazing response from Dr. Lee. After court recessed, he spoke to the press, saying that he regretted his involvement in the case and adding that he would resist testifying in any retrial or rebuttal phase of the case. “I’m sorry I ever got involved in the whole thing,” he said. “I feel a little bit disappointed about the whole process. … This trial has become a game. I don’t like to play games.”

  We certainly agreed.

  But the games, indeed, continued. Johnnie Cochran, unhappy with a ruling by Judge Ito that he would not inform the jury that Detective Mark Fuhrman had refused to testify further, choreographed a protest. One morning the entire defense team showed up in court wearing ties made from African kente cloth. This sent an unbelievable message to the jury. Marcia was prohibited from wearing a tiny angel pin on her lapel, but it was apparently perfectly all right for the defense to dress as a team in order to show solidarity with African-American concerns.

  Judge Ito should have thrown the entire crew out of court until they were appropriately dressed. But his only comment to Cochran was “Nice tie.”

  We wondered if they would come in for closing arguments all wearing Buffalo Bills football jerseys with the number 32 on the back.

  On Friday, September 22, in the absence of the jury, Cochran requested permission for his client to address the court, to personally waive his right to testify. This was strange. If he spoke to the court, was he not testifying?

  Marcia was instantly on her feet. “This is a very obvious defense bid to get material admitted through those conjugal visits that is not admitted in court…” she argued. “Please don’t do this, Your Honor. I beg you, I beg you.”

  Cochran shrugged off her objection with a caustic reply. “There seems to be this great fear of the truth in this case,” he said. “This is still America. And we can talk. We can speak. Nobody can stop us.”

  Judge Ito made no formal ruling on the issue. He simply glanced at the defendant and said, “Good morning.”

  With that, the murderer stood up and began to speak:

  “Good morning, Your Honor,” he said. “As much as I would like to address some of the misrepresentations made about myself and Nicole concerning our life together, I’m mindful of the mood and the stamina of this jury. I have confidence, a lot more it seems than Ms. Clark has, of their integrity, and that they’ll find—as the record stands now—that I did not, would not, and could not have committed this crime. I have four kids—two kids I haven’t seen in a year. They ask me every week, ‘Dad, how much longer?’ ”

  Judge Ito finally cut him off. “All right,” he said.

  With that, the defendant concluded, “I want this trial over.”

  The judge should have shut him up immediately, but once again he allowed the defense to run the show.

  “Why’s he letting him talk?” Patti asked.

  With Dominick Dunne sitting on my left, I hissed under my breath, “Murderer, murderer, murderer.”

  It was my understanding that the killer had just crossed over a very important line. He had made a statement. He had just put himself in a position to be cross-examined!

  Marcia tried to argue the point, but the judge refused her request to cross-examine.

  In my opinion, letting the matter drop after a rather weak attempt was the most serious mistake that the prosecution made. I longed for any member of the prosecution to stand up and shout, “Judge, he just testified. Now I have a right to cross-examine him and if you don’t get him up there on the witness stand, I’m bringing this issue to the court of appeals tomorrow!”

  Everything would have come to a grinding halt at that moment. I believe that the court of appeals would have overturned Judge Ito’s ruling, the defendant would have been forced to submit to cross-examination, and he would either have had to lie through his teeth or confess.

  Later, at a press conference, I said of the defendant’s statement: “It’s disturbing, and it’s outrageous. If he had a statement to make, he should have gotten on the damn stand and said something and not been a coward.”

  Kim was in Chicago for the weekend, to attend the wedding of a friend. She was sitting alone in a car, listening to coverage on the radio. Suddenly she heard the killer’s voice proclaim “did not, could not, would not …” “I went ballistic” is how she described her reaction.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Light rain was falling.

  Claiming that he had received death threats, Johnnie Cochran arrived at the courthouse surrounded by six beefy-looking bodyguards, all members of the Nation of Islam. Wearing somber suits, and even more somber expressions, sporting their trademark Louis Farrakhan look-alike bow ties and carrying walkie-talkies, they skulked about in the hallway outside the courtroom.

  Cochran wore an enamel lapel pin depicting the Statue of Liberty. Explaining the pin, he commented, “That’s what we’re trying to get—liberty for our client.”

  It was Tuesday, September 26, one year to the day after jury selection began. In that year the jury had heard 465 hours of formal testimony—less than two hours per workday. And now the prosecution was ready to deliver its closing statements. I joined Patti and Kim and Patti’s mother in the court.

  Marcia Clark, with a hand over her heart, urged the jurors to concentrate only upon the evidence, despite the fact that “the sideshows may be very interesting.”

  She spoke for more than six hours, weaving together the timeline and the chain of physical evidence that linked the defendant to the murders and pointing out the “smoke and mirrors” that the defense concocted to obfuscate the
truth. She urged the jurors to see past the conspiracy, two killers, evidence planting, theories that she termed an effort to systematically fragment the case.

  Marcia looked exhausted; her eyes were shrouded with deep purple circles. Her voice was low and serious as she said, “There were roads raised, created by the defense to lead you away from the core truth and the issue that we are searching for the answer to, which is who murdered Ron and Nicole. These roads, ladies and gentlemen, these are false roads. The false roads were paved with inflammatory distractions but even after all their tireless efforts, the evidence stands strong and powerful to prove to you the defendant’s guilt.”

  For a time, Marcia focused on the demeanor of the accused. “If I were asked to try on the gloves that were worn by the murderer of the father of my children, I would not be laughing,” she said. “I would not be mugging. I would not think that was funny at all. Is that the attitude you expect, the laughing and the mugging, putting on the bloody gloves that were used to murder the mother of your children?”

  Meticulously, she reminded the panel of the significance of the blood, hair, and fiber evidence.

  “That’s his blood,” she concluded.

  As Marcia spoke, Barry Scheck scribbled on a yellow legal pad, then rolled his eyes, raised his eyebrows, and puffed out his cheeks in obvious disgust. The defendant continually muttered under his breath.

  Jonathan Fairtlough, the prosecution’s electronics expert, had been up all night, working until 4:00 A.M. to complete a unique presentation that Marcia now utilized effectively. As she detailed each significant point of evidence, she announced, “Another piece of the puzzle,” and the screen above the witness stand displayed a jigsaw-puzzle piece falling into place. Eventually they formed a picture of the defendant’s face.

  “There he is,” Marcia concluded. “You haven’t even heard the why of it, why he did it, and you know he did it.”

  It was nearly 7:00 P.M. when Chris Darden rose to begin to answer the “Why?” by weaving a tale of violence, abuse, and control. He said that the defendant had lighted a fuse of rage early in his relationship with Nicole, and he eventually exploded. When the defendant beat his wife, humiliated her, and spied on her, he was demonstrating a desperate desire to control her, Chris pointed out. “The fuse is lit, and it’s burning,” he said, “but it’s a slow burn.”

  As the long day finally drew to a close, Chris reminded the jury that Nicole kept a safety deposit box with a copy of her will and photographs of herself after her husband had beaten her. “She was leaving you a road map to let you know who it is who will eventually kill her,” Chris said in his soft-spoken style. “She knew in 1989. She knew it and she wants you to know it. She didn’t know when,” he added softly, “but whenever that event came, she wanted you to know who did it. Think about that. Just think about that.”

  A group of investigators, law clerks, and some of the attorneys joined us for drinks at the Los Angeles Athletic Club later that night. For the first and only time, we saw a vulnerable, emotional side to Marcia. Through her tears, she spoke of how much she loved her own brother and how badly she felt for Kim’s loss.

  Chris continued his closing statement the next day by playing a 911 tape. Once again, the tortured voice of Nicole echoed in our ears, pleading for someone, somewhere to help her. Chris asked the jury to consider several points revealed by the tape. He noted that the defendant’s two young children were asleep in the house at this moment. “The fact that the kids are in the house means nothing to this man,” Chris said with obvious disdain in his voice. And after that incident, he said, Nicole “knows he’s going to kill her at some point.”

  Chris repeatedly used the phrase, “The fuse was burning.” He declared that the knife wounds to the two victims represented the eruption of the defendant’s rage, the explosion that resulted when the fuse finally burned down. Each thrust of the knife reduced some of the rage, Chris said, so that by the time the defendant was finished, he was calm again. So calm that “he just walked away.”

  Throwing the defendant’s courtroom statement back in his face, Chris said, “We have shown you that he would have killed, could have killed, and did kill these two people.”

  Chris pointed directly at the defendant, who shook his head angrily. “He is a murderer,” Chris proclaimed. “He was also one hell of a football player, but he is still a murderer.”

  We all thought that Chris did a wonderful job. He spoke from the heart, not relying on the sophomoric theatrics that had so permeated this courtroom.

  That was Johnnie Cochran’s job.

  It did not take long to see where Cochran was headed. “Your verdict in this case will go far beyond the walls of the courtroom,” he said near the beginning of his argument. “Your verdict talks about justice in America, and it talks about the police and whether they’re above the law.”

  He pooh-poohed the prosecution’s contention that “this recognizable person” would don a knit cap and some dark clothes and go kill his wife. In illustration, he pulled a knit cap onto his head and remarked, “If I put this knit cap on, who am I? I’m still Johnnie Cochran with a knit cap. … It’s no disguise. It makes no sense.”

  He looked so ludicious prancing about in the knit cap that Kim could not contain herself. Marcia heard her snickering and turned around. She, too, lost her composure and started to giggle. In fact, we did not understand why everyone simply did not laugh this fool out of the room.

  Referring to the glove demonstration, Cochran tried some asinine poetry. Warming to his theme, he intoned his mantra, “It doesn’t fit. If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

  When Cochran strutted in front of the court, looked directly at us, and commented condescendingly that “some people couldn’t handle the truth,” Kim was no longer laughing. She was seething. It took every ounce of her restraint not to stand up and scream at him.

  We could not believe that Judge Ito allowed Cochran to say the things he said. Throughout his argument, he was talking down to the jurors, treating and manipulating them as if they were idiots.

  Near the end of the day, Cochran turned to the subject of Detective Mark Fuhrman. We knew that he would have much more to say when he concluded his argument tomorrow. But for now, he raged, “Mark Fuhrman is a lying, perjuring, genocidal racist!”

  Thursday, September 28. Police were concerned about the expanding crowd that gathered outside the downtown Criminal Courts Building. Bomb scares and death threats were commonplace.

  In court Cochran blatantly gave the predominantly African-American jury permission to disregard the evidence. He urged them to take this opportunity to “get even”—in other words, to free a double murderer in retaliation for hundreds of years of white oppression. This was absurd and very disturbing. The law is the law. If there are inequities in the system, you fix the system. But you do not fix the law by breaking the law. Or ignoring it.

  Even more preposterous was Judge Ito’s tolerance of the statement. He should have silenced Cochran instantly and proclaimed, “The jury will disregard what’s been said. Mr. Cochran, meet me in chambers immediately.” But as Patti said, “Judge Ito just didn’t have the courage to do anything about it.”

  Then Cochran screamed at the jury: “Stop this cover-up. If you don’t stop it, then who? Do you think the police department is going to stop it? Do you think the D.A.’s office is going to stop it? Do you think we can stop it by ourselves? It has to be stopped by you. … Who, then, polices the police? You police the police. You police them by your verdict. You are the ones to send the message.”

  Who was the racist here? It was Johnnie Cochran himself who was fanning the flames of racial hatred. Did he not comprehend that if this jury allowed a double murderer to go free, race relations in America would be set back decades?

  Apparently not. Returning to the subject of Mark Fuhrman, Cochran made the single most offensive statement of the trial. He said, “There was another man not too long ago in the world who had those same
views, who wanted to burn people, who had racist views and ultimately had power over people in his country. People didn’t care. People said he is just crazy. He is just a half-baked painter. They didn’t do anything about it. This man, this scourge, became one of the worst people in the history of the world, Adolf Hitler, because people didn’t care or didn’t try to stop him. He had the power over his racism and his anti-religion. Nobody wanted to stop him, and it ended up in World War Two.”

  We could not believe what we were hearing. Kim bowed her head in disbelief. Patti saw the veins in my neck protrude. The color drained from my face. My fists clenched. I twisted in my seat. I muttered angrily. Worried that I would lose my composure in open court, Patti held me down.

  I whispered, “I’m going to have a news conference at the break.”

  Patti tried to dissuade me, but I would not be silenced.

  Cochran continued. “And so Fuhrman, Fuhrman wants to take all black people now and burn them or bomb them. That is genocidal racism.”

  Patti could not remember feeling such deep hatred for anyone in her entire life as she felt, at this moment, for “Johnnie Cockroach.”

  I could contain myself no longer. The instant that Judge Ito called for a break, I told Mark Arenas to alert the media that I wanted to talk. “ASAP,” I growled. As I bolted from the courtroom, Patti pleaded, “Calm down, calm down.” Scared and very upset, Kim retreated to the safety of the D.A.’s office.

  Patti followed me into the elevator, and we rode down nine floors to the lobby, where the press had set up its cameras and microphones. It all happened so quickly that only a handful of reporters were there when I began.

  Trembling with rage, I yelled, “We have seen a man who perhaps is the worst kind of racist himself.” I pointed out that Cochran is “someone who shoves racism in front of everything, someone who compares a person who speaks racist comments to Hitler, a person who murdered millions of people.”