Simpson’s Credibility Under Attack

If there is one subject that has been off-limits at O.J. Simpson’s road rage trial, it is the past. The two murders in Brentwood. The chase in the Ford Bronco. The glove that didn’t fit.

But during the final day of testimony in an air-conditioned, fourth-floor courtroom here Tuesday, Simpson’s past did make an appearance, albeit a fleeting one.

During cross-examination, Assistant State Atty. Abbe Rifkin asked the 54-year-old defendant if he ever would lie, “especially if your life depended on it.”

“I’ve never been put in that position, to have to lie with my life on the line,” Simpson replied from the witness stand.

When the prosecutor pressed Simpson about whether he had a history of being aggressive, Dade Circuit Judge Dennis J. Murphy halted the questioning. He also would not allow a question about whether the former pro football star had ever been aggressive “in a situation with another vehicle on the road.”

The road rage case should go to the six-member jury today following closing arguments. Simpson could be sentenced to up to 16 years in prison if jurors find that he did indeed reach into another car during a traffic argument in Kendall, Fla., last December and pluck the glasses from the other driver’s nose.

Rifkin’s apparent strategy before deliberations begin was to try to damage Simpson’s credibility with the jurors--who know perfectly well who he is and that he was tried and acquitted in the 1994 deaths of his ex-wife and her friend.

The prosecutor also reminded jurors that Simpson had worked as a Hollywood actor, getting paid to make believe he was someone else, most memorably Officer Nordberg in the “Naked Gun” police spoofs.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of being an actor,” Simpson replied, an observation that elicited loud laughter from the courtroom.

During often testy cross-examination, Simpson denied two key planks of the state’s case: that he stuck his arm into the car of the other man, Jeffrey Pattinson, and that he took Pattinson’s glasses.

“[For] what purpose would I grab glasses off a guy’s face?” Simpson asked.

During a break in the proceedings that began Thursday, Simpson--one of the best running backs in NFL history--mocked the believability of Pattinson’s claim.

“If I took your glasses,” Simpson asked one reporter, “do you think you could get them back?”

As for Pattinson’s contention that his glasses were grabbed from him while he was in his car--making the alleged incident a felony under Florida’s burglary from a vehicle law--Simpson flatly denied it under oath.

“I just [told the police] the guy was lying,” he testified. “He wasn’t in his car.”

According to Simpson, he was the one verbally set upon by Pattinson, who allegedly was furious because he thought Simpson had cut him off at an intersection.

“I was upset with myself that I stopped,” Simpson testified. “It was wrong for me to stop, but the guy made it impossible to drive.”

Simpson was the only witness to appear for the defense; his lawyers opted not to call his two teenage children, who were with him at the time of the incident.