The pressure was strangling us.
Each of us dealt with it in our own way. Emotions were more readily brought to the surface, about anything, not just Ron’s loss. Tension filled the house to the point where we could almost see it hanging in the air. We either tiptoed around each other or lost our tempers over something that was totally insignificant. Sometimes a chilly silence prevailed when no one spoke at all.
There was a widespread misperception of how often I was actually in the courtroom. Perhaps it arose because of the press coverage we got whenever I chose to speak out. In truth, I had to pay attention to my work, and it was a grinding daily decision. I had been a successful salesman for most of my adult life, but my job felt increasingly irrelevant. Each morning I asked myself: Do I really have to go see that client today? Can I postpone this appointment so that I can slip into the courtroom? Can I go in the morning? Can I go in the afternoon?
Kim had no appetite. Michael saw her in the swimming pool one day and was shocked to realize how emaciated she had become. Her always slight frame now resembled pictures he had seen of girls suffering from anorexia. However, we all knew that it was useless to say anything to Kim about it. I was very concerned about her health, but whenever I encouraged her to eat more, she snapped back at me, “Leave me alone!”
Michael and Lauren were maturing into young adults, experiencing all the new excitements and pains that they wanted and needed to share with the family, but the trial had eclipsed everything.
Lauren still had great difficulty sleeping, and was plagued by nightmares.
For months on end Patti had run through her days at full gallop, with no downtime. She complained, “I feel like a machine.” There was simply not enough of her to go around. She wished that she could clone herself. Her commitment to attend the trial had turned out to be far more grueling than she ever imagined. She wanted and needed to be there every day, to represent me and to support Kim. But Michael and Lauren needed her, too. She had always been a very “hands-on” mom, but now she was stretched to the limit.
At times she felt unappreciated and taken for granted, especially if she had to leave the courtroom early to attend one of Michael’s tennis matches or to drive Lauren somewhere. If I, or anyone else, made a comment that she interpreted as questioning her priorities, she quickly lost her temper and steamed for days. When I suggested that she was doing too much, and should ask the children to chip in more and carry some of the weight, she became defensive and angry, taking it as criticism.
We did not get to bed until very late in the evening and, even as Patti dropped her exhausted head onto the pillow, she knew that morning would arrive far too soon.
Now, as she realized that this miserable trial was finally drawing to a conclusion, Patti felt a compelling need to do something for herself. She told me that she did not want to return to her part-time job at Right Start, sitting in front of a computer, answering telephones. It was not satisfying. She wanted to do something more significant.
“Great!” I said, but I had no idea what thoughts were tumbling around in her head.
Patti looked in the yellow pages for an electrology school and thought that she might enjoy the work. Without telling any of the rest of us, she made some calls, interviewed, and decided that she was interested. Because the courses began at widely spaced intervals, if she did not start now she would have to wait many months. Classes were held Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 8:30 A.M. to 5 P.M., and the schedule would force her to cut back on her attendance at the trial. But Patti decided to go for it.
When she told me, after the fact, I was not as enthusiastic as she would have liked.
“Where did you come up with that?” I asked. “Did you ever think of doing something else?” My attitude and the tone of my voice reminded her of some of my past conversations with Ron about his plans and ambitions. Sometimes my pragmatism can sound like criticism or disapproval, a sort-of unintentional putdown.
“No,” she said, curtly.
‘Would you like me to sit down and help you think of some other things?” I offered.
“No, I would not,” Patti replied. “I’m starting on September eighteenth.”
Although the specific decision surprised me, as I thought about it I was very happy for her and pleased that she had finally done something for herself. Patti deserved some time for Patti.
The last few witnesses took the stand amid the usual wrangling among the attorneys. Under pressure to conclude its rebuttal case, the prosecution dropped plans to introduce evidence about the defendant’s failure to surrender to police. They also lost a battle to inform the jury that fibers on the bloody glove found at the Rockingham estate probably came from a Bronco resembling the defendant’s. To add insult to injury, Judge Ito fined the prosecution team for being late to court.
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.