Outrage by Vincent Bugliosi Page A

cottage industry. For the most part, it was downhill from him. After you read Chapters 4 and 5, think back to this prosecutor’s assessment of the district attorney’s performance in the Simpson case.
    Why should I care if these talking heads were babbling and ranting on TV almost around the clock? Actually, I wouldn’t have cared if Simpson had been convicted. But I feel confident—although I can’t be positive—that they contributed, even if not in a major way, to the not-guilty verdict in this case. The majority of them were criminal defense attorneys who, whenever possible, usually offered a pro-Simpson, pro-defense interpretation to what was happening in court, magnifying defense points far beyond their worth and muting important points made by the prosecution. Like the print media, they were constantly finding problems and weaknesses with the prosecution’s evidence that either did not exist or that they exaggerated. They loved to expound on how the prosecution’s case was unraveling. “The DA has no chance of winning,” one of the former Los Angeles district attorneys, who has been a defense attorney most of his career, said. “Their case is in rubbles.” These negative interpretations of the prosecution’s case were “in the air” every day and every night, and so they became the conventional wisdom, the party line, as it were.
    If the jury somehow inferred that the consensus of the community was that the prosecution’s case was full of holes and falling apart, how could this not help but push them, consciously or otherwise, in the direction of reasonable doubt, and hence a not-guilty verdict?
    Before I get into the next chapter, I’d like to restate an important point. If any reader is wearying of my fairly constant criticism of everyone associated with this case, I’d like to remind that reader of what I said in the Introduction: that I’m still angry and upset about the verdict, and unquestionably this has affected my tone. If Simpson had been convicted, this book obviously wouldn’t have been written. Even with the not-guilty verdict, if the defense hadn’t injected the bogus issues of race and a police frame-up into the case, and if Simpson hadn’t elevated, as I’ve indicated, audacity to a Zen art, my tone would be somewhat softer. But the conduct of virtually everyone associated with this case was deplorable, and as a result, we continue to be reminded of the horror of it all by the smiling face of Simpson frolicking somewhere in the sun, or by a disturbed Simpson, scolding his detractors. And in mid-December 1995, Johnnie Cochran threw a lavish celebration party for all the jurors in the Simpson case. Can you imagine the smiles, jokes, and celebratory toasts that took place? Picture Simpson with his sharp knife viciously stabbing Nicole and Ron to death while imagining the festive party-goers dining on the best food, laughing and enjoying themselves. It’s so goddamn obscene there are no words for it.

THE CHANGE OF VENUE

GARCETTI TRANSFERS THE CASE DOWNTOWN

    T here can be little question—though no one could expect any of the Simpson jurors to admit it—that most members of the Simpson jury were biased against the prosecution and in favor of Simpson. If nothing else, the jury’s outrageous verdict and the lightning speed with which they reached it, demonstrate this point. How dare Judge Ito tell this jury after the verdict that society owed them a “debt of gratitude” when they came back with a verdict that not only was incompatible with the evidence but had been reached after an inexcusably brief three and a half hours? (The guilt phase of the Manson case lasted close to seven and a half months, yet the jury deliberated seven days, and
that
was considered a relatively short time for a trial of such length. The entire Manson trial, including the penalty phase, lasted nine and a half months.) Ito could have thanked the jurors for their time without adding the absurd comment that