ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 18, 1997 TAG: 9702180062
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: ELLEN GOODMAN
SOURCE: ELLEN GOODMAN
AND YOU thought it was all over. All of you who gawked hopelessly at the Bruno Magli shoes, who sat fixated at All-O.J. TV, who gasped in horror at the photo finish between O.J.'s second verdict and Bill's fifth State of the Union address.
Now I must repeat the most frightening five words in the English language: ``This is far from over.'' Thus spoke O.J. last week from his Brentwood home as lawyers hovered over the $33.5 million judgment. The man who was found coolly eating a chili dog at a golf course when the jury awarded punitive damages was talking about money.
But this O.J.-aversive viewer who found out how to spell relief in the second verdict - G-U-I-L-T-Y - cares less about O.J.'s hidden assets than about his two most visible assets: Sydney and Justin.
Back in December, in what Juditha Brown referred to bitterly as ``a Christmas present I will never forget,'' Judge Nancy Wieben Stock granted O.J. Simpson full custody of his children. Judge Stock followed the path of precedence: California, like most states, overwhelmingly favors parents in custody disputes. The best interest of children is measured all too literally by their biological link.
Indeed, Judge Stock even concluded that the atmosphere inside the Browns' home was bad for the children because of the explicit - imagine! - ``ill-feeling toward the father.''
But what happens now that this father has been found ``liable'' for the wrongful death of the mother? Marjorie Fuller, the children's lawyer, maintains that the verdict changes nothing. Not legally. Nor even emotionally.
``Whatever it is that Mr. Simpson may or may not have done,'' she says, ``he has an excellent relationship with his children, he is a good father to them, he has always treated his children well and cared for them well.''
How many Americans have trouble understanding how one court could find O.J. not guilty and another find him liable? Try this one: One court has ruled that O.J. must pay Nicole's children millions for punitive damages. Another has awarded him custody of her children.
``A good father''? Is our definition so warped that a man who murdered his children's mother can still be said to ``have treated his children well''?
``This is outrageous,'' says California Assemblywoman Barbara Alby. She has authored a bill at the request of the Browns to bar judges from giving custody to anyone found guilty of murdering the other parent or - as in O.J.'s case - anyone with a prior domestic-violence conviction who was found civilly liable for wrongful death.
At the same time, Denise Brown has begun a drive to recall Judge Stock. Well, I am not keen on laws that bind judges. I can imagine circumstances, rare but real, in which someone convicted of murder could still be reunited with his or her child. What about an abused spouse who finally turned on the abuser?
Nor do I think a judge should be recalled for one unpopular decision. Especially if that decision is the standard. And what is at stake here is that standard.
The current reality is, as Harvard Law School's Elizabeth Bartholet describes it simply: ``The law pays much too much deference to the biological parent's rights.''
At the least, the law ought to have a strong presumption that a parent who murders his spouse is unfit. As if murder alone weren't enough, a third of those who abuse wives also abuse kids. Domestic violence damages even the children who just grow up watching.
Sydney and Justin may well love their father and deeply hope that he isn't guilty. They will live with that pain and confusion under any roof.
Judge Stock had the right to consider Simpson's role in Nicole's death when first assessing him as a father. Now she has the duty to reconsider his ``fitness.''
No, this isn't over yet. Just last week, a lawyer suggested that O.J. Simpson could lose custody on the grounds that he is about to be financially ruined. There's an irony for even the sated O.J. watcher. It isn't murder that makes a father unfit in Brentwood, Calif. It's going broke.
- The Boston Globe
LENGTH: Medium: 79 linesby CNB