Civil Trial in Simpson Case Gets Underway

Attorneys out to prove O.J. Simpson a killer unfolded their cases before attentive jurors Wednesday, promising to use tapes and photos never before seen in court, along with familiar blood and fiber evidence, in their effort to incriminate him.

Above all, they plan to use Simpson’s own words, both in an early interview with police and a 10-day deposition, to try to prove him responsible for the June 12, 1994, murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman.

“We will reveal to you the lies and deceptions of Mr. Simpson,” lead plaintiffs’ counsel Daniel M. Petrocelli said in his three-hour opening statement.

Going even further, attorney John Q. Kelly said: “It’s as if Mr. Simpson had left a note pinned to these two bodies indicating he had committed the murders.”

Simpson, who was acquitted on criminal murder charges last year, stared straight ahead during much of the plaintiffs’ opening statements, at times clenching his jaw, at times smiling in apparent disbelief or shaking his head in disagreement. He rarely looked at the jurors.

For the first time in the civil trial, all three parties who are suing Simpson for financial damages were in court as well. To prevail, they must persuade nine of the 12 jurors that the preponderance of evidence--as little as 50.1%--implicates Simpson.

Nicole Simpson’s parents, Lou and Juditha Brown, and her sister Denise dabbed at their eyes with tissues while an attorney described the murder victim as a devoted mother and friend, “as sweet and as beautiful as they come.” Fred and Patti Goldman clenched hands during graphic descriptions of their son’s murder. And Ron Goldman’s biological mother, Sharon Rufo, dissolved in silent weeping while her attorney explained that although she had not seen her son for years, she feels his loss keenly.

Aside from a few attempts to sketch the victims’ characters, the plaintiffs’ attorneys stuck to a dry recitation of the evidence against Simpson. Their statements made it clear that they do not plan to rehash the criminal trial. Instead, they will try a fresh strategy--and one with some apparent gambles.

Jurors in the civil trial will hear and see evidence not introduced in the criminal trial, including: fibers matching the carpet of Simpson’s Ford Bronco that turned up on crime scene evidence; a photo of Simpson wearing the same rare brand of shoes that left size 12 footprints at the murder scene; his taped interview with police the day after the murders, and a despondent letter he wrote before fleeing arrest and embarking on the famed low-speed chase.

In one bold move, the plaintiffs set a new timeline for the killings--relying on a witness that prosecutors in the criminal trial had dismissed as unreliable.

Prosecutors had pegged the murders at 10:15 p.m., based on testimony from a neighbor who heard a dog’s plaintive wail at that time. Petrocelli, however, said he would prove that the knife assault took place at 10:35 or 10:40 p.m.

To do so, he indicated that he will call Robert Heidstra, the car detailer who said he heard a dog barking, two male voices shouting “Hey! Hey! Hey!” and a metal gate clanging about that time. Heidstra also said he saw a white utility vehicle with tinted windows, similar to a Ford Bronco, speeding away from Bundy Drive. Those shouts, Petrocelli said, were the sound of Goldman confronting Simpson.

“Ronald Goldman died with his eyes open,” Petrocelli said. “In the last few moments of his life, he saw the person who killed his friend Nicole. The last person he saw through his open eyes was the man who ended his young life, the man who now sits in this courtroom, the defendant.”

Petrocelli’s decision to rely on Heidstra for the timeline could be risky because Heidstra was a somewhat skittish witness called by the defense who admitted during the criminal trial that he had told friends he might make money off his testimony. “It surprises me that [Petrocelli] is putting so much stock in Robert Heidstra, because his credibility was seriously damaged,” Loyola Law School Dean Laurie Levenson said.

Pegging the murders so late also gives the defense plenty of room to raise its argument that Simpson could not possibly have had enough time to kill two people, drive home, dispose of the murder weapon and bloody clothes, shower, change and compose himself by the time he emerged to catch his limousine ride to the airport about 11 p.m.

While the defense can hammer on that point, UCLA law professor Peter Arenella said, overall the new timeline is an “intelligent move” for the plaintiffs, because they will not have to rely on easy-to-ridicule testimony about a dog’s plaintive wail to establish the time of the murders.

He also praised the plaintiffs for promising to focus on contradictions in various statements Simpson has made since the murders. According to the plaintiffs, those inconsistencies include:

* In his interview with police, Simpson says he cut his left hand the night of the murders, “when I was rushing to get out of my house.” In sworn testimony during his pretrial deposition, however, he told civil lawyers that he sustained the major cut the next morning, when he broke a glass in his Chicago hotel room after hearing about the murders.

* In his interview with police, Simpson says the last thing he did before getting into the limo was to get his cellular phone out of the Bronco. He also said he did not use the Bronco after about 8 p.m., except to maneuver it into his driveway when he was loading luggage into the limo. But records show that Simpson made a call from the Bronco phone at 10:03 p.m.

* In his deposition--which Petrocelli read to the jurors--Simpson said he “would never have owned” the type of Bruno Magli brand shoes that left size 12 footprints in blood at the murder scene because he considered them ugly. But the plaintiffs promised to produce a photo of Simpson wearing those very shoes--the identical brand, style and size, they said, as the killer’s. They also said they could prove that Simpson owned and wore the same Aris Leather Light brand gloves apparently used in the crime. “You will see those gloves on his hand and those shoes on his feet,” Kelly said.

While some of the contradictions may be on minor points, they are all important, because “Simpson’s credibility will be the definitive issue in the trial,” Arenella said. Even Petrocelli acknowledged in his opening statement that Simpson can be “charming and charismatic,” and legal analysts agree that the plaintiffs must use every chance they get to undermine the football Hall of Famer’s image as a brilliant athlete and larger-than-life celebrity.

To that end, attorney Michael Brewer, who represents Rufo, devoted his 20-minute opening statement to depicting Simpson as a self-centered, ego-driven star obsessed with his image. Brewer focused on yet another piece of evidence that did not emerge in the criminal trial: Simpson’s flight from arrest and the resulting slow-speed Bronco chase June 17, 1994.

Brewer read excerpts from the note that Simpson wrote before heading for the freeways in his friend Al Cowling’s Bronco. He concluded: “We believe this note will establish [that Simpson is] a man riddled with guilt and filled with denial. . . . The document will establish that Mr. Simpson was not mourning the loss of Nicole, but was mourning his own predicament.”

Even before the chase, the plaintiffs argued, Simpson did not act like an innocent man. Upon returning to Los Angeles the day after the murders, “he huddled with his lawyers rather than hugged his children,” Petrocelli said, drawing a vehement objection from the defense table.

Petrocelli’s opening statement had none of the emotional punch or rhetorical flourishes that lawyers in the criminal trial relied on. Deliberately low-tech, he did not show videos or play tapes, or even produce the autopsy photos. His only visual aids were slightly crinkled photos of the victims and maps of Simpson’s estate and the Brentwood neighborhood.

The jurors appeared to pay close attention at first, even though Petrocelli was often reading from his notes in a flat monotone. But many fidgeted later in the day when Petrocelli went through a detailed chronology of the investigation to rebut defense theories that police planted evidence.

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