For Goldman’s Father, Grief Turns to Anger

For Fred Goldman, the passage from grief to fury has been startlingly swift.

The father of Ronald Lyle Goldman has seen his murdered son’s face plastered on trading cards. He has heard the young man’s identity reduced to terms such as “waiter” or “friend.” He has watched as a tragic double murder was transformed into a sensational spectacle dubbed “The O.J. Case.”

And now, as Fred Goldman sees it, defense attorneys are misleading potential jurors, manipulating public opinion and inappropriately injecting race into the trial--all in an effort to win sympathy for O.J. Simpson, the accused killer of his son.

“Lately,” Goldman said, “I find myself screaming at the TV and screaming at the radio. It’s very frustrating to see and hear some of what’s going on and know that it’s just basically wrong. It’s simply, basically wrong.”

Originally, Goldman said, he had been determined to stay silent about the trial as it unfolded. However, during a two-hour interview last week in the den of his Agoura Hills home, the 53-year-old businessman said he feels compelled to speak out about his experiences and impressions after being unwillingly dropped into a place where private sorrow and public sensation intersect.

In the five months since he received the shattering phone call from the coroner telling him his 25-year-old son was found dead alongside Nicole Brown Simpson, Goldman has undergone an emotional reconstruction, he said.

For weeks after the murder, he rarely emerged from his house. His 22-year-old daughter, Kim, and his wife, Patti, spoke for the family.

At his son’s funeral, Goldman tried to tell hundreds of mourners about Ron’s life but was overcome. He sat surrounded by his family in the front row of the Westlake Village chapel, weeping.

“From the beginning our attempt was to take a low profile and let justice move without our getting in the way,” Goldman said. “We fully believed that our son’s death would be dealt with in a fair way, and ultimately justice would be done.”

But as he walked into the courthouse during the preliminary hearing, he saw Ron’s now-famous driver’s license photo being hawked on trading cards and he saw placards proclaiming, “Free O.J.!”

Driving to work he heard pundits lightly refer to the proceedings as “the O.J. case” instead of “the Goldman-Nicole Brown Simpson murder case.” And at home he watched television with astonishment as his son’s life was reduced to mindless talk show chatter.

“Imagine having your son murdered, and then having your kids go to school and see his picture on a trading card,” Goldman said. “It’s an outrage that people see that as OK, and it amazes me that anyone can imagine for a moment trying to make money off the murder of two people. It’s beyond my understanding.”

As the criminal proceedings have progressed, Goldman said, he has become even more incensed by actions of the lawyers.

Most objectionable, he said, is the defense team’s treatment of the race issue--a provocative undercurrent in a case in which the suspect is black and the victims were white.

The issue first surfaced when The New Yorker and Newsweek magazines quoted unnamed defense sources as saying that during the trial they may claim that LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman planted a bloody glove he found outside Simpson’s Brentwood mansion because of his racial biases--a charge that the detective and the Los Angeles Police Department have denied.

The defense has said that proof of Fuhrman’s alleged biases was contained in an unsuccessful lawsuit he filed to win a disability pension from the city of Los Angeles in 1983. Simpson’s lawyers have said they hope to use the case to undermine Fuhrman’s credibility if he testifies.

Late last month, the defense accused prosecutors of questioning African American jury prospects differently from other potential panelists during the selection process. And they questioned whether prosecutors were using a disproportionate number of their challenges to seek removal of black panelists. Eight of the 12 jurors eventually seated are black.

Goldman said the defense’s tactics helped convert his anguish to full-boil anger.

“I’ll steal a line from the movie ‘Network.’ I’m mad as hell and I can’t take it anymore,” he said. “None of us should have to put up with what’s going on. It’s bad enough that we’ve lost Ron, but to see this murder trial turned into a circus is sad. And it doesn’t do the memories of Ron and Nicole justice.”

Robert L. Shapiro, one of Simpson’s lead attorneys, said comments from the families of the victims have been painful for his client, who maintains that he is falsely accused of the murders of his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman. Both were slashed and stabbed to death June 12 in Brentwood.

“I have the greatest empathy for the Goldman family and the Brown family and the tremendous losses they have suffered,” Shapiro said. “In our attempt to pick the jury, we have explained our roles as lawyers in defending a man we believe is wrongfully accused.”

Their obligations as defense attorneys include contesting evidence, challenging the credibility of witnesses and examining whether evidence was properly gathered, preserved and analyzed, he said.

Shapiro said he and his colleagues have not tried to do anything that would add to the suffering of the Brown or Goldman families. All the defense efforts, he said, are focused on trying to clear Simpson of the charges that could send him to prison for the rest of his life.

“O.J. Simpson, like any defendant, has the presumption of innocence, not the assumption of guilt,” Shapiro said. “Our job is to present to the jury the evidence or lack of evidence in a light that is most favorable to O.J. Simpson.”

Goldman said he understands Simpson’s rights but is concerned that in the course of their vigorous defense, the attorneys have gone too far.

“They’ve called police officers liars, they’ve called people racists, they’ve inferred there were plots. All with no proof, done from my point of view clearly to manipulate jurors and public opinion,” Goldman said. “And it’s that which I find really disturbing and borderline immoral.”

Goldman’s sharp criticism of the defense is not the first to come from the victims’ families.

In a rare courthouse comment about the case in October, Nicole Simpson’s sister Denise Brown spoke briefly to question why defense attorneys were contesting evidence if O.J. Simpson had nothing to hide.

“If O.J. is so innocent, why are (his defense lawyers) trying to suppress all the evidence?” she said to some of the journalists at the Criminal Courts Building. “It’s just something on my mind, and I wanted to say it.”

Goldman said he immediately called Brown after her remarks were publicized. Although he has had little contact with the Brown family, he wanted to thank her for speaking out.

Dealing with distraught relatives of victims can be treacherous for defense lawyers, said Los Angeles attorney Gerald L. Chaleff, a prominent defense lawyer and former president of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.

“It’s always difficult because the defense tactics may be perfectly legitimate and ethical. They may be required,” Chaleff said.

Attorneys have to explain their decisions without leaving the impression that they are attacking the victims, he said. “All you can do is explain what the profession requires.”

Goldman contends that the profession’s requirements tend to vary according to the size of the client’s bankroll.

Wealthy defendants can afford attorneys who are skilled at manipulating the system, Goldman said. The result, he added, is that the rich get a different, more friendly brand of justice.

“I find that tremendously unfair and unfortunate because the vast majority of this country is not wealthy and famous,” he said.

“So you’re left with only one conclusion, and that is that there are two levels of justice. One for the famous and wealthy, and one for everybody else.”

Legal experts said Goldman’s assertions about the justice system are true, but not revolutionary.

“It’s no different than saying that if you have more money you’re more likely to have a better doctor,” Chaleff said. “In this system what we have tried to do is raise the floor, so that everyone has an acceptable level of representation.”

Goldman, who has only praise for the prosecution and police, maintains that he has not passed judgment on Simpson. But he says he is concerned that the frenzy surrounding the case will stifle any chance of knowing exactly what happened to his son.

And if Simpson is guilty, Goldman said, he should be punished.

“I think from the early days we have felt a real need to have justice done, to have the guilty punished,” he said. “And it has become very disconcerting to have to be concerned that because of all the publicity and the circus atmosphere, we have to worry that there is even a possibility that the likely murderer of my son and Nicole Brown Simpson could go free.”

Goldman said his focus now is to bring attention back to the most important aspect of the murder case--the victims.

He said he and his family will push through the mesh of cameras and onlookers to attend every day of the trial once the proceedings are reopened after jury selection.

“I would hope that by our remaining visible, that it’s a constant reminder to people that this is a trial about murder,” Goldman said resolutely. “It isn’t a trial about a celebrity accused, it isn’t a trial about the lack of comfort the accused has, it’s a trial about these two people who were brutally murdered and what should be done about it.”

Times staff writer Jim Newton contributed to this story.