THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Called to Caring : O.J. Simpson’s Sister Plans Group to Offer Counseling, Financial Aid and Free Legal Services to Families of People Accused of Crimes

Shirley Baker believes she found her calling in the eyes of a stranger who, like her, was on the ninth floor of the Criminal Courts Building in Downtown Los Angeles earlier this year to show support for a relative in trouble with the law.

Unlike Baker, however, the other woman seemed isolated and alone.

“I had seen her sitting in the hall in the morning, and when I came out of court, she was still there,” recalled Baker, 52. “We went to lunch and came back and she was still there.”

Later, in a chance conversation with the stranger in a courthouse bathroom, Baker learned that the woman had been sitting alone in the hallway for most of the day, lacking enough money to buy even a snack. While she was waiting, the case she came to hear was postponed for a day--but no one thought to tell her that until hours later.

After hearing her story, Baker, the older sister of O.J. Simpson, began formulating plans for a private, nonprofit support group for the families of people accused of crimes, similar to government-sponsored programs for loved ones of crime victims.

Baker recently took the first step in creating Crime Victim Advocacy Support Inc., whose purpose, according to papers filed July 26 with the state, is to provide such things as counseling, financial assistance and free legal services to people Baker believes are often overlooked in the justice system.

She is putting together a board of directors and generating fund-raising ideas for an office in Los Angeles that she hopes will grow into a nationwide network.

“I wanted to do something dignified,” Baker said this week of her budding organization.

She said it is not designed to benefit her or her wealthy brother, who has pleaded not guilty to the murders last summer of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman.

It is, she said, meant for people with far fewer resources than members of her family, several of whom commute back and forth from San Francisco on weekends so they can be in court on weekdays.

“Thank God I have a husband who is retired and who has a source of income,” Baker said. “There are many people out there who don’t, especially if it’s the principal breadwinner who is accused.”

Leo Terrell, a local civil rights lawyer who often appears on television as a legal commentator on the Simpson case, agrees.

Terrell wrote the articles of incorporation for Baker’s group, paid the $850 filing fee and is allowing her to use his Wilshire Boulevard office as a home base. He also has volunteered to provide free legal counseling to the organization’s clients.

“When you’re labeled ‘accused,’ ” he said, “sometimes the word guilty is associated with it.” That association, he said, is often transferred to anyone connected to the defendant.

Those people need assistance, Terrell said, and there appear to be people besides Baker willing to give it to them.

As a result of two television appearances in which Baker talked about her plans, Terrell’s office has received 350 phone calls, he said, mostly from people who want to volunteer their services.

Soon, he added, fund raising will begin.

Once that starts, Terrell said, it will be important that the group’s financial records be open at all times to anyone who wants to see them. The only compensation he will receive, he said, will be reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses such as the filing fee for the articles of incorporation.

Baker said that she wants strict, public accounting of how the group uses any money it raises. She said she expects the organization to be closely scrutinized.

Her main concern, however, is with the people she is trying to help.

In striking up conversations in the courthouse hallway, she said, she has been deeply affected by what some families have been going through. She has heard stories of mothers having to bring several small children with them to court because they could not afford child care; of people who could barely scrape up bus fare to get to court.

She noted that families of crime victims receive a multitude of services, including help from government-paid advocates who sit with them in court and guide them through the legal process.

Baker emphasized that she was not criticizing such programs, but believes that they do not go far enough. She said that private efforts, such as hers, can fill the void.

Herman Milholland, the director of the Victim-Witness Assistance Program in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, said the program does not provide aid to the families of defendants because that is not its purpose.

“We do what we do based on legislation that was enacted,” he said. “Our role is clearly defined in the California Penal Code, which was further enhanced by the crime victims bill of rights.”

Until that legislation was enacted in 1982, he said, crime victims and their families “had no rights. The defendants had all the rights.”

Milholland said he knows of no programs that aid the families of those accused of crimes. He would not say whether there is a need for such a service, government-sponsored or otherwise, but he acknowledged that trials take their tolls on everyone involved.

“I couldn’t be so callous as to expect that it doesn’t affect the defendant’s family,” he said.

Gloria Allred, a lawyer who represents Nicole Brown Simpson’s family, agreed, but wondered if Baker’s efforts are misplaced.

“I do feel that members of a family of a person accused of a crime are victims, because their lives have changed too,” Allred said. “But to me it’s not comparable to the kind of support needed by the immediate families of crime victims.”