Verdicts Not Likely to Alter Custody Case, Most Experts Say

The verdicts against O.J. Simpson are likely to have little impact on the ongoing custody battle over his children, several legal experts said Tuesday, although opinions weren’t unanimous.

“It’s meaningless in the sense of legal impact,” Los Angeles family law attorney Sorrell Trope said of the civil jury’s verdict finding Simpson liable in the deaths of his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman.

The custody battle pits Simpson against Louis and Juditha Brown, the maternal grandparents of his two youngest children from his marriage to their daughter Nicole. The Browns are appealing a Dec. 20 decision in which a judge ruled that Simpson is entitled to full custody of Sydney, 11, and Justin, 8.

The grandparents, who live in Dana Point, believe Simpson killed their daughter. They have argued in the custody case that it would be harmful for the children to remain at their father’s home in Brentwood because of alleged instances of domestic abuse against Nicole Simpson.

But in a new ruling, the judge who presided over the custody case said she had greater concerns “that continued residence in the Brown household was detrimental to the children.”

Orange County Superior Court Judge Nancy Wieben Stock wrote in her opinion dated Jan. 31 that the “risk factors” associated with allowing the children to live with the Browns “have been exacerbated in recent weeks. These factors have included a highly emotionalized atmosphere of ill feeling toward the father and unabated and unrestrained public expression of ill feelings toward the father.”

Emotions continue to run high in the custody case--and show no signs of abating.

The Browns have criticized the judge since she awarded Simpson custody. Juditha Brown went so far as to send a personal letter to the jurist chastising her for her ruling. The emotional typewritten letter, just disclosed, was dated Christmas Day and labeled “a mother to mother conversation.”

“This murderer was O.J. Simpson, may God help me, my ex-son-in-law, to whom you just returned two beautiful, loving children,” Brown wrote.

“Yours was a Christmas present I will never forget,” she added.

It is unlikely that any decision in the civil case would have affected the judge’s ruling in the custody case, experts said.

If Wieben Stock had believed otherwise, she could have delayed her decision until after the trial, attorneys pointed out. Last Friday, Wieben Stock denied a request by the grandparents to have the children returned to them while they appeal the custody ruling.

“She hasn’t been inclined up until now to consider the evidence,” said Laurie Levenson, dean of Loyola School of Law. “I’m not sure a jury verdict in the case will change that. She had the option of waiting the 90 days until the civil case was done [before ruling] and she declined to do so.”

And Trope said that to defer to the jury in the civil trial would imply that the jury was wrong in the criminal case when it acquitted Simpson.

“The judge has basically said that O.J. Simpson is a fit father and it is in the best interests of the children for him to have custody,” Levenson said.

But Santa Ana attorney Saul Gelbart, who represented the Browns early in the custody case, disagreed.

He said the Browns now have a good opportunity to reopen the custody battle, in part because of the $8.5-million judgment against Simpson, with the jury still to decide punitive damages. The judgment could force Simpson to downgrade the children’s lifestyle, which includes attending private school and living in their father’s Brentwood mansion.

“I think it’s significant that there was a very strong recognition of the facts, finally,” Gelbart said. “There’s a significant opportunity to modify the guardianship because of the effect on the children. Not only is society saying O.J. Simpson killed these people, but he’s also been hit with a lot of money.”