Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 25, 1995 TAG: 9505310048
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A17 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SUSAN STAMBERG
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Until recently, that is. Despite my perfect record, I found myself not long ago with an unexpected free day in Los Angeles and, for reasons I still don't quite understand, asked two National Public Radio reporters to get me inside the courtroom. (``Forgive us our press passes'' is my colleague Daniel Schorr's prayer about the role of the press. I extend the prayer, to give thanks for some of the privileges the pass can procure.)
So, with a fresh eye aimed at what others are calling the Trial of the Century, I settled into one of the few press seats in Room 9-307 of the Los Angeles Criminal Courthouse and for a few hours became a witness to what may end up as history at sub-footnote level.
During Watergate, I made a similar pilgrimage to a courtroom in the District of Columbia, to see Haldeman and Ehrlichman on trial. Back then, in those black-and-white-TV days (in my house, anyway), seeing them all in person caused gasps. There they are! They looked larger than life. That decade's Trial of the Century.
The O.J. Simpson trial, on the other hand, looks smaller than life. And it can't just be because of the living-color coverage. It must have to do with the wall-to-wallness of the coverage, everywhere, and all the time, on newsstands and magazine covers as well as on screen.
The courtroom itself is small, unimposing with its fake wood paneling. The ceilings are high, but the floor space is confined and crammed with rows of seats for a few guests and the press. Although the whole world is watching on television, surprisingly few people witness the proceedings inside Room 9-307.
Everyone sits quietly. Talking or eye-rolling or gum-chewing can get you thrown out of court. So the audience is consciously impassive. As is the jury, several of whom, the day I was there, came to court in white California Pizza Kitchen T-shirts.
Usually, I am told, they are rather soberly dressed. Once they all wore black, to signal dissatisfaction within the ranks. On my day in the courtroom, there was much puzzlement about their garb, until someone spotted the message on the back of the T-shirts: ``14 Ethnically Diverse Cultures Peacefully Coexisting on a Thin Delicious Crust.'' The jurors were signaling harmony in their midst.
They hadn't gotten to the DNA evidence on my day in court. They were still going over lab-test results with one of the forensic criminalists. Excruciating detail was the rule on this day, in People vs. Orenthal James Simpson, Case BAO 97211.
Ordinary snail-paced justice.
In the trial of O.J. Simpson, it became clear to me, the defense lawyers come to court from real wood-paneled board rooms where strategies are hatched, moves plotted. The prosecutors are the grunts, the working stiffs. No natty dressing or expensive haircuts. You could see the prosecutors thinking. You felt the defense was phoning it in.
The defendant was as immobile in life as he is on the evening news. This man, whose trial has a hammerlock on the attention of America, was just one of the crowd in Courtroom 9-307. You had to look carefully to find him at the table, surrounded as he was with his attorneys.
Once found, the encounter has no impact, no buzz. Orenthal James Simpson, the football hero, the star of commercials and movies, sits small and silent in Judge Lance Ito's courtroom (his ``little theater of criminal justice'' a Los Angeles Times columnist calls it), as judge, lawyers, jury, the press and a world of watchers peer into the innermost corners of the defendant's life and times.
It was a beautiful, sunny, slightly breezy day, that Friday in Los Angeles. I was glad to be out in it again. On the corner, a hawker was selling souvenir T-shirts.
There was a choice. All the shirts had O.J.'s image on them. But underneath his face was a rectangle in which was written, ``Guilty'' or ``Not Guilty.'' I forgot to ask the vendor which shirt was selling best.
Susan Stamberg is a special correspondent for National Public Radio.
The Washington Post
by CNB