THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : INTO THE SPOTLIGHT / JOHN MARTEL : County’s Answer to the Dream Team

O.J. Simpson has his team of celebrity lawyers, and the prosecution has its own stars. But until recently, no one knew that John Martel was among the latter.

The highly regarded Bay Area civil defense lawyer and writer of legal fiction--called one of the top 10 trial lawyers by the National Law Journal--has been acting as an unpaid adviser to the Simpson prosecution team for months.

Brought on first as a volunteer jury consultant, he has gone on to advise the prosecution on other matters. Though his continuing role in the case had not been widely known, that changed this week when Martel arrived in Los Angeles to hawk his latest novel.

His publicists, not surprisingly, are touting his Simpson connection to draw attention to his second novel, a legal thriller called “Conflicts of Interest.”

In an interview from his San Francisco office, Martel insisted that he is not exploiting his involvement in the case.

“I’ve put seven years into a book, and I’ve also put a great deal of time and energy into the case,” he said. “People are interested in both things, and I’m willing to answer questions about both.”

Besides, he added, his relationship with Los Angeles County prosecutors predates the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman.

Martel originally was selected by Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti as a consultant in preparation for the upcoming retrial of the Menendez brothers. After Simpson was charged, Martel said, Garcetti asked him to help on that case as well.

The arrangement, he said, has worked well, increasing his belief that lawyers in private practice should aid prosecutors who face high-powered defense teams.

That belief, Martel said, grew from what he perceived as the public’s loss of faith in the criminal justice system after the Menendez juries deadlocked.

“I was hearing people say, ‘You can get away with murder if you have enough money,’ ” he said. “I was talking to [San Francisco Dist. Atty.] Arlo Smith about it, and Arlo ended up talking to Gil.”

Martel has received no compensation for his help in either the Menendez or Simpson cases. What he brings to the table is 35 years of trial experience, including 15 months as a prosecutor in the Alameda County district attorney’s office just after law school, where he tried 50 felony cases.

Since then, he has tried more than a hundred civil cases, but has done no criminal work, a fact that caused some to question why Garcetti would use him in such a high-stakes criminal matter.

“He’s a hotshot guy . . . but he’s been away from the [criminal] game,” said John Burris, another Bay Area lawyer.

David Alexander, who also practices in the Bay Area and who once worked for Martel, disagrees. Martel’s instincts with juries are “uncanny,” Alexander said, adding that his former employer also has extraordinary strategic skills.

“This is a major league guy, and if you’ve got a major league contest, this is the guy you want,” he said.

Martel said Simpson prosecutors decided to make limited use of jury consulting expertise because they were worried they would come off as manipulative.

“The D.A. has to deal with not only trial strategy, but with public sentiment, so I can’t second-guess the prosecutors because they have their own things to be concerned about,” Martel said.

Garcetti would not comment on the decision to limit the use of Martel as a jury consultant, but he discounted any misgivings about Martel’s qualifications as a criminal trial lawyer.

“John Martel introduced us to DecisionQuest [a South Bay trial consulting firm], which resulted in them preparing all our charts and support material at a savings of over half a million dollars,” Garcetti said. “John is also a very accomplished trial lawyer and formerly a deputy district attorney.”

Garcetti also noted that Martel is not the only lawyer in private practice who has aided Simpson prosecutors. Some, including criminal defense lawyers, call in with unsolicited advice, he said.

Simpson prosecutors most often turn to him, Martel said, on “close call” issues.

He would not discuss any advice he has given, but he said he was involved in discussions on what expert witnesses to call. He has also been consulted on strategy when the team of 13 prosecutors could not agree, he said.

Martel, however, concedes that the Simpson prosecution has made missteps.

“I have observed over many months that they have a very, very finely honed sensitivity to what the public thinks of what they are doing,” Martel said. “They’ve acted in a way that doesn’t always produce the best results in court.”

Nevertheless, he said, he is convinced that the case against Simpson has been “overwhelming,” adding that he is “happily surprised” at the way the defense case is unfolding, with witnesses testifying in ways that appear to be helpful to the prosecution.

“They’re bungling it,” he said of the Simpson defense team. “I wouldn’t have done just about anything the dream team has done.”