Simpson May Have to Juggle 2 Cases

When he was a murder suspect, O.J. Simpson worried about getting back to his cell in time for the jailhouse dinner. He’s a free man now, but court calendars still control his schedule.

Next Tuesday, Simpson will find himself in the uneasy position of being wanted in two courts simultaneously: to fight for custody of his children in Orange County and to fend off a civil lawsuit in Santa Monica.

As Simpson’s civil lawyer pointed out in a court session Wednesday in Santa Monica, his client can’t be in two places at once. “Mr. Simpson has been ordered back to the Orange County courthouse on the 17th,” attorney Robert C. Baker said. “But I would obviously like him to be here for jury selection.”

As a stopgap solution, Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki promised to devote the opening day of the civil trial to oral arguments on some three dozen legal motions.

Simpson does not need to attend that session, so he can spend the day in Orange County arguing that he, and not his slain wife’s parents, should have custody of his two young children.

But the custody hearing, which has already lasted weeks, is likely to continue beyond Tuesday. And Fujisaki intends to start screening the first 225 prospective jurors Wednesday.

So come the middle of next week, Simpson may have to choose between defending the integrity of his family and fighting accusations that he murdered his ex-wife and Ronald L. Goldman.

To legal analysts, that’s not much of a choice.

“It is absolutely, totally essential that he be present at every moment of the custody trial,” said Los Angeles family law attorney Sorrell Trope.

As for jury selection, well, veteran civil litigators insist that Simpson has to attend every minute of that too. “It’s absolutely critical that Mr. Simpson be there,” attorney John McNicholas said.

Simpson needs to attend the custody hearing so he can listen to testimony from friends and foes about his relationship with his children. Only he can point out any falsehoods in such testimony; his lawyers might suspect someone of slanting the truth, but they need Simpson at their side to tell them exactly which points to challenge.

Simpson also needs to attend jury selection in the wrongful-death trial so he can meet the people who might be deciding his case--and, more important, so they can meet him.

“The litigants deserve to have their day in court, and jury selection is a very, very critical part of this trial,” McNicholas said.

Simpson’s appearances in both cases are so crucial, Trope added, that the defense might have valid grounds to appeal if Fujisaki plows ahead with jury selection before the custody case wraps up. “In this instance, for the man to be jumping back and forth between both proceedings would be so highly prejudicial against him that I can’t imagine a judge forcing him” to make that choice, Trope said.

“To me, it would be [appeal] petition time if the court in Santa Monica said, ‘We’re starting without him.’ ”

But the lawyer representing Simpson in the custody hearing expressed confidence that his client would be able to juggle conflicting court calendars.

Which trial Simpson attends “will all depend on what’s happening at the time in the civil case and what’s happening here,” family law attorney Bernard Leckie said. “I don’t think there will be a problem.”

Leckie predicted that the custody hearing will last just a few days more. But an attorney for Lou and Juditha Brown, who are fighting to keep custody of their grandchildren, predicted that the proceedings will continue for a week and a half.

The judicial commissioner handling the case has requested more testimony before deciding whether Sydney and Justin Simpson should live with their father in Brentwood or with the Browns in Dana Point.

Despite their interest in the civil trial, the Browns will attend the custody hearing as long as it lasts, according to their attorney, Saul Gelbart. “Everything in a custody hearing concerns the children, and the people who care about the children should be there,” he said.