THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : The High Price of Playing Ball With Lawyers

The O.J. Simpson trial hasn’t been easy for author Joe Bosco, who is writing a book on the case.

First Bosco dislocated his shoulder in an after-hours bar fight with a man who disagreed with his view of the investigation and trial. Recently, he broke his neck diving into the shallow end of a swimming pool.

On Monday, his head and neck immobilized by a brace and pain shooting up and down his arm, Bosco was hit by more trouble. Defense attorney Robert L. Shapiro handed him a subpoena, demanding that Bosco reveal his source for a piece he wrote for Penthouse magazine. The Simpson team believes the information would be helpful to the defense.

For the second time Monday morning, a reporter had come under attack by a defense team desperately searching for evidence to free Simpson. First, Tracie Savage of KNBC took the witness stand, refusing to disclose who had given her information for a story last year on blood tests. Next it was Bosco’s turn.

It was a landmark in Simpson case media-lawyer relations. At the beginning, the Simpson lawyers eagerly fed the press information favorable to their case. Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. was the reporters’ pal. Now, seeking evidence that might free their client, the lawyers had turned on their media friends.

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I met Bosco last summer, shortly after I began covering the Simpson trial.

I enjoyed the way he told stories in the twang of his native Mississippi, softened a bit by an accent he had picked up in his present home, New Orleans. He used to be a Chicago Cubs scout and one night at Dodger Stadium told me his personal experiences with the young Dodgers he had encountered when they were coming up from the minor leagues. Baseball, he said, was his religion and the ballpark his place of worship.

I liked his book, “Blood Will Tell,” the story of the murder of a young mother. Blood evidence was crucial to the investigation of her death, and reading it helped me understand the Simpson trial.

But, as Bosco explained at dinner one night, he had become a prisoner of his own book. As the result of a lawsuit, he was under court order to produce notes and tapes he had used in “Blood Will Tell.” If he was caught in New Orleans, he’d end up behind bars. As a result, he couldn’t go home to visit his wife for months.

His experience with the Louisiana courts was clearly on Bosco’s mind when he left the courtroom at the midmorning recess. When the defense subpoena came up in court, Bosco at first spurned legal advice, but abandoned that foolishness at the urging of writer Joe McGinnis.

With McGinnis at his side, Bosco crossed the hall to the pay phone. He dialed his New Orleans lawyer. “Is Sid there?” he shouted. Then, after a long pause, Bosco said, “This is urgent. I have just been subpoenaed in front of the whole world, on television.”

Sid wasn’t around. “Is Leonard there? Is Mort? OK, get Lennie.”

Bosco filled Lennie in. “You know me, Lennie,” he said. “I go a little bit nuts. This was in front of national goddamn TV.”

But Lennie wasn’t much help in New Orleans. They agreed Bosco needed an L.A. lawyer and Bosco contacted Douglas Mirell, who handles such cases.

The beleaguered writer returned to court for the late morning session, returning to the hallway at the noon recess. Despite his professional and physical miseries, Bosco, the Southern gentleman, held the courtroom door open as Simpson’s mother was taken out in her wheelchair.

The media caught up with Bosco as he headed toward lunch. As had happened to Savage, the hunter had become the quarry.

“Are you going to testify?” a reporter asked, without a bit of sympathy. He tried to ignore the questions, but they persisted and Bosco, still the reporter, couldn’t stop himself from answering.

“Joe, Joe, don’t answer any more questions,” McGinnis said.

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It’s not the reporters’ questions that Bosco must worry about, but those of the defense lawyers--especially if he refuses to answer and gets nailed with a contempt citation and a jail term.

What Monday’s explosion of legal actions against reporters taught us is that reporters and lawyers have different goals. Ours is news, theirs is to win cases.

At first, the goals seemed similar. The government and the defense, especially the latter, planted stories with the enthusiasm of Johnny Appleseed, scattering leaks in the fertile ground of a madly competitive media. The recipients of the information prospered, as did the leakers.

Bosco’s technique lent itself to this relationship. In “Blood Will Tell,” Bosco developed close relationships with lawyers during and after the trial. They were important sources among the several hundred people he interviewed for the book. In this case, too, Bosco has developed good sources on the legal teams.

Monday, his lawyer contacts “sandbagged” him, to use Joe McGinnis’ phrase.

Playing ball with the lawyers has turned out to be costly, as we’ve learned from what happened to Joe Bosco and Tracie Savage.