'The Search for Justice'
by Robert Shapiro
Warner Books, $24.95
Two new additions to the rapidly swelling O.J. Simpson trial library have recently arrived in bookstores.
The first, Robert Shapiro's "The Search for Justice" (Warner Books, $24.95), provides an account of the trial by one of O.J.'s lead defense lawyers.
The second, Alan Dershowitz's "Reasonable Doubt" (Simon & Schuster, $20), takes a more academic approach, using the trial as a vehicle to address criminal law more generally.
Shapiro's is, in many ways, one of the most straightforward books about the trial published to date. Shapiro shuns the pseudo-autobiographical approach used by O.J. prosecutor Christopher Darden in his recent O.J. memoir, "In Contempt," and instead focuses on the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, and the trial of O.J. Simpson for those murders.
The Darden book is the No. 1 nonfiction bestseller; the more recent Shapiro book is No. 8.
Shapiro's book is far from a classic. It does, however, have an appealing immediacy, taking the reader along from the day Shapiro was hired to represent O.J. to the day of the former football star's acquittal. Although the book is a largely anecdotal account of the arrest, investigation and trial, Shapiro weaves throughout plain explanations for many of the criminal procedures designed to protect citizens from unjust convictions.
Shapiro's book contrasts sharply with another recent O.J. memoir, by co-counsel Alan Dershowitz. In what has to be
Dershowitz's 100th book, the Harvard Law School professor and sometime lawyer provides a tedious 200-page lecture on the principles underlying criminal procedure.
O.J. called Dershowitz his "God forbid" lawyer because he was responsible for appealing any conviction that might have resulted from the trial. Because no appeal occurred, he had a relatively minor role in the case. Whatever Dershowitz's skill at appellate briefing, his book is dry, ponderous and taxing. Staying awake beyond Page 20 requires substantial effort.
Shapiro, by contrast, keeps his description of the so-called "Trial of the Century" lively with detailed descriptions of O.J.'s cell, his communications with his lawyers, and the increasing bickering between the "Dream Team" members hired to represent him. Shapiro was O.J.'s first, and principal, lawyer, hired even before Simpson's arrest.
Shapiro hired all of the other defense attorneys. He considered, but rejected, the infamously self-promoting Wyoming lawyer Gerry Spence. Nonetheless, Shapiro takes almost all of his hires to task for their trial performance, calling Carl Douglas "pedantic" and "boring" and F. Lee Bailey a "grandiose loose cannon" who had reportedly "lost his fastball."
Shapiro skillfully describes the tension that developed between himself and Johnny Cochran, including Cochran's last-minute scheduling of defense strategy meetings while Shapiro was out of town.
Astonishingly, Shapiro notes that he tape-recorded the conversations between himself and Cochran in their car as they rode to court in the mornings, but he offers not a word of explanation about why he did so. It is striking evidence of the chilled, even hostile, relationship between the defense lawyers during the trial. By the end of the trial, Shapiro's wife, disgusted with the conduct of the defense lawyers, refused to appear in court or sit behind the defense table.
Shapiro notes throughout the book the glare of publicity, complaining about it on one page but proudly noting his celebrity dinners on the next. He mentions dining with Connie Chung, Norman Mailer, Martin Landau, Warren Beatty, and an engagement party for Larry King. In one passage, Shapiro describes a post-dinner conversation with Chung in which she "jokingly" offers to sleep with Shapiro in exchange for an exclusive interview with either Shapiro or Simpson, professing to have "cleared it" with her husband.
Shapiro, like Darden and Dershowitz, criticizes Judge Lance Ito for his indecisiveness, and Ito's televised interview during the trial. However, he defends the television broadcast and mutes his criticism, perhaps in recognition of his ongoing career as a lawyer in Los Angeles County.
Although Shapiro has harsh words about lead prosecutor Marcia Clark, he reserves his sharpest barbs for his partner on the case, Cochran. He complains about Cochran's "incessant baiting" of Darden, Cochran's "bodyguards" from Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, and Cochran's methodical efforts to inject race into the trial. After the verdict, Shapiro criticized Cochran for "dealing the race card from the bottom of the deck."
Throughout his book Shapiro makes great efforts to distance himself from his own trial team, as if to claim victory, yet at the same time disclaim responsibility for the racial strategy and negative public reaction to the trial and its outcome. It is, of course, a balancing act doomed to fail at the outset.
However, Shapiro's failure is at least passingly engaging and occasionally enlightening. Dershowitz's treatise is merely mind-numbing.
