King’s Lawyer Urges Simpson Gag Order : Media: Attorney for motorist beaten by police says the right to a fair trial in a capital case takes precedence over the free speech of lawyers and the press.

Attorney Milton Grimes, one of the lawyers who represented Rodney G. King, said Thursday that he thinks there should be a gag order on the media covering the O.J. Simpson murder case, telling a symposium of journalism students that Simpson’s right to a fair trial has already been eroded.

“I believe the right to a fair trial, when a person’s life is on the line, takes precedence over the right to free speech of the media and the lawyers,” Grimes told a Cal State Fullerton symposium on media coverage of Simpson’s case. “O.J.’s rights to a fair trial have been severely eroded” partly because the media have been used and manipulated, he said.

Grimes said the release of a recorded 911 call in which Nicole Simpson cried for help and told an operator her husband had repeatedly abused her was harmful to Simpson.

“None of you can tell me that . . . it did not affect your feelings toward O.J.,” he said. “I don’t care who leaked it. It should never have been broadcasted.”

But a fellow panelist, Dennis Schatzman, a reporter for the Los Angeles Sentinel, the leading Southland newspaper covering African American affairs, defended the media’s coverage, saying the case has all the elements that readers want: controversy, a celebrity, conflict and violence.

“We say we don’t like it but we’ll read every paragraph,” Schatzman said.

There are racial implications in the case, despite protestations from prosecutors and others to the contrary, he said.

“We’ve all heard that race is not the issue. Now come on. A black man accused of killing beautiful, blond Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman and slicing them to pieces” does bring out the race issue.

Grimes, whose law practice is in Santa Ana, told about 75 journalism students that his experience with a high-profile, emotionally charged case soured him on the press. He represented Rodney King through the state and federal trials of Los Angeles Police Department officers first charged with beating him and later of violating his civil rights, as well as during King’s civil lawsuit for damages against Los Angeles.

“In dealing with the media my first reaction to your profession is one that is not quotable at this moment. I hated you with a passion. But then I learned how to deal with you and . . . sometimes to manipulate you,” he said.

Grimes said he worked to change the public’s perception of King as a “monster PCP user” by bringing him to high schools to encourage students to stay in school.

Journalism students in the audience, asked if they thought the media are covering the Simpson case properly, said they felt torn between privacy issues and their thirst for a good story. “If you took the ethical stance, you probably would lose your job,” said Lisa Willard, 25, a communications major. “I would go and get whatever angle I could.”