Ahem. I’d like to get the attention of the American Bar Association, please. While I’m at it, the attention of each of the State chapters of the ABA too.

Are you there? Good. Listen, at the risk of getting some of my lawyer friends mad at me I want to register a complaint about some of your members.

They are the lawyers who go on television to pontificate about court cases they have no connection to and have never sat in on.

As a veteran courthouse reporter I know how the game is played. The TV host needs someone to interview about a high-profile legal case and who better than a lawyer, right? No problem so far. We can all certainly benefit from a good and thoughtful lawyer’s legal perspective.

My complaint is about those attorneys who appear on television not to enlighten but to perform and to promote themselves. [click to continue...]

I wondered if I would ever see this day. I’m glad I lived to see it. 13 years after his double murder acquittal and after 13 hours of juror deliberation - GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY.
As I recently wrote (see column below: OJ Simpson’s Baggage - Sept 20, 08) I’ve been reporting on the exploits of Orethal James Simpson since that day in June 1994 when I stood in the blood of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman.
With his trusty, longtime defense attorney Yale Galanter at his side Simpson had maintained to a Las Vegas jury that it was okay for him to burst into a hotel room with a group of goons with guns and take back his memorabilia. And I’m sure deep in his heart he believes that. It was not an act - Simpson truly believes the world is out to get him and that he can operate under a different set of rules. He likely never thought that when he burst in and barked out the command that “No body leaves this room,” that that constitutes kidnapping. Kidnapping was one of the dozen charges Simpson was found guilty of committing.
Part of me says, “Finally! Justice has caught up with him.” What I really mean by that is that he’s finally going to be where he should have been 13 years ago after he murdered Nicole and Ron. But make no mistake about it. OJ Simpson is not going to prison for that. He’s going to prison because his escapade in that Vegas hotel room was caught on both audio and video tape and this time there was just no talking his celebrity way out of it.
I guess it doesn’t matter why he’s in prison. After his December 5th sentencing we may learn he’s in for what amouts to a life sentence. But if I’m the family of Nicole or Ron Goldman I’m not sure I’m feeling satisfied or particularly victorious.
There will be an appeal and as I predicted it will likely be based, in part, on the make-up of the all-white jury.
So be it. For now it feels good to say, “Mr. Simpson, meet Lady Justice…..”
~ DD

This is the time in every outgoing President’s term where they pour over requests seeking Presidential pardons. I’m sure it’s no different for President George W. Bush as he gets set to vacate the White House.Those convicted of federal offenses - everything from white collar crimes to bank robbery - will have filed petitions by now, spelling out exactly why the nation’s Chief Executive should wipe clean their slate and restore to them the full rights of U.S. citizenship.

It is often a controversial and criticized exercise.

Take my on line poll at the end of the column ….

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A
merica has a doctrine that very clearly separates our government from our various religions, a definite separation of Church and State. Our founding fathers wrote about the need to keep the two institutions detached way back in 1791 when adopting the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Being a career journalist I especially like the First Amendment. You know, the one that guarantees free speech and makes it illegal to infringe on freedom of the press? It’s also the amendment that includes language guaranteeing the “free exercise of religion” and prohibits the government from taking steps to prohibit it.

The amendment does not guarantee a citizen’s right to abuse children in the name of God, marry multiple wives, withhold taxes from the government or use deadly snakes in services. But all of that - and more - has occurred in the name of religion.

Consider characters like 74 year old Tony Alamo who runs a Christian ministry headquartered in tiny, isolated Fouke, Arkansas. Federal agents moved into the compound last week to rescue several young girls. The FBI arrested Alamo a few days later at a motel in Arizona on suspicion of transporting minors across state lines for sexual purposes. [click to continue...]

I had never seen so much blood in my life.

As the coroner’s wagon pulled away - there it was. Puddles of it. Some of it had oozed down the cracks in between the pathway pavers and toward the sidewalk. As I looked closer I could see paw prints from a large dog and patterned traces of wispy blood that its dragging leash had left behind. Up toward the gate of the fancy condo statuesque Agapanthus stood, its purple flower heads dotted with drops of this blood.

It was June 1994, about ten a.m. on a sunny Sunday in Brentwood, California. My cameraman and I, the reporter on duty that weekend, had been assigned to go to the home of Nicole Brown Simpson. Word was O.J.’s ex-wife had been murdered.

My first thoughts that beautiful morning were: Why didn’t someone take a hose and wash away this horror - and - where were the police?

With no one to stop us, and with camera rolling, we gingerly tiptoed to the gate and opened it. Across a shallow courtyard was the plate glass window behind which Nicole had lived. We could see inside the cozy living room with its overhead balcony leading off to the side bedrooms. Candles were still burning, framed photos of a smiling Nicole and her kids were everywhere. Outside, there were bloody footprints and what seemed to be a bloody handprint on the side of the house. Eerie, and to this day I remember it vividly.

Is OJ’s voice on the audio tape evidence enough?
Vote in my online poll after the jump…

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