All in the Family–and Defense Team

Does this strike you as bizarre or is it just me?

I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising for a Kardashian to hire a lawyer who’s well-known to his family. Rob’s dad, Robert, was co-counsel with Bob Shapiro on Simpson’s defense team. Nor should it be surprising for Kardashian to go with a lawyer who was on a winning side, which Shapiro was as part of that defense team, which prevailed in Simpson’s 1995 murder trial.

Still… What do you think?

http://forward.com/fast-forward/376637/rob-kardashian-hires-oj-simpsons-former-lawyer-to-defend-him-in-wake-of-rev/

Summer sale on Anatomy of a Trial: Public Loss, Lessons Learned from The People vs. O.J. Simpson @ Anatomy of a Trial: Public Loss, Lessons Learned from The People vs. O.J. Simpson — $7.99 (includes shipping with Prime). Or get a signed copy directly from the author — $7.99 plus shipping @ http://anatomyofatrial.com/contact/.

 

OJS Series Cast Good, Book Anecdote Not

Casting for the TV series  American Crime Story: The People V. O.J. Simpson looks pretty good, so far.Cuba Gooding Jr. as       (Photo: Getty Images)                                                                            O.J. Simpson

Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark                          (Photo: Gregg DeGuire, WireImage)

John Travolta as Bob Shapiro                         (Photo: Philip Cheung/Getty Images)

David Schwimmer as       (Photo: D Dipasupil/Getty Images)                                            Robert Kardashian

So far as appearances are concerned, these actors are believable as the characters they’ve been cast to play. The series is reportedly based on a book , The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson, by New Yorker magazine writer Jeffrey Toobin. My greatest hope for this series is that it won’t follow Toobin’s account of a visit to Ito’s chambers by Larry King. Because it’s wrong. I don’t know where Toobin got his information about the description of the meeting and conversation, but setting the meeting up was my idea. Ito agreed to it only because I suggested it would be an opportunity to thank King personally for granting two requests Ito had made  concerning media coverage, which he thought would complicate jury selection. While King’s visit turned into a fiasco, which I describe on page 65 of Anatomy of a Trial,the exchange Toobin relates didn’t happen. “…he provides a great example of why courts don’t permit hearsay testimony,” I wrote. It had to be hearsay because Toobin wasn’t present during King’s visit. I know, because I was. I was escorted King and his entourage to and from the visit. At no time was Toobin there.

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/john-travolta-joins-american-crime-story-people-v-oj-simpson-20150107#ixzz3PQLKiFFl

“Simpson Case Forces Jail Renovation”

The headline on this blog post appeared on a Los Angeles Times August 3, 1994, story and explains the haiku I wrote the day before, which was:

A star defendant.

Poor jail accommodations.

Court ordered changes.

8/2/94

The problem was the rooms in the Men’s Central Jail, where O. J. Simpson was held were either too small to accommodate his “dream team,” which included the basic three–Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian and Bob Shapiro, augmented by Carl Douglas, F.Lee Bailey and a host of others , or  closed on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, unless special arrangements were made which involved overtime pay for special guards.

The sheriff’s department, which operates the jail, said that renovations to enlarge the visiting rooms and install more intercoms, which would enable an inmate to speak to as many as four people at a time, were overdue. So Simpson just prompted what was already needed.

The L.A. Times article concludes with:

“Simpson is housed in a 9-by-7-foot windowless cell in the so-called “high-power” wing of the 6,500-inmate jail, where other residents have included Christian Brando [actor Marlon Brando’s son], Charles Keating and, currently, Erik Menendez.” [Erik Menendez and his brother Lyle were convicted in 1996 of the 1989 shotgun murder of their parents in their Beverly Hills home . I served as the L.A. courts media liaison on both trials. The first ended up with hung juries — although tried together, the brothers had separate juries — and the retrial. Fascinating times!]