O.J. the Last Word - Hardcover

Buried under windbag sermonizing and lofty moralizing lies a cogent analysis of how the prosecution lost the O.J. Simpson case. Celebrated defense attorney Spence (The Making of a Country Lawyer, 1996, etc.) devotes the first half of his book to establishing his bona fides as a man of the people: a country bumpkin in a buckskin jacket, a lawyer who scorns lawyers (who he witheringly says lack ``personhood'') and idealizes jurors (simple folks drenched in the wisdom of life experience). Spence can also be wildly inconsistent, at one moment saying, for instance, that Faye Resnick's account has a ring of truth, at another labeling it ``swill.'' But despite arrogant lawyers and dishonest cops, the real villain for Spence is the media and its ``rape of the judicial process''--invading the courtroom, corrupting the lawyers by making them celebrities, and offering endless punditry by commentators who, Spence claims, know nothing about trying a case. Of course, he admits, he was a media pundit himself. Still, he is a leading trial attorney (whom Simpson had wanted on his defense team), and he scores some illuminating points on why Marcia Clark and Chris Darden failed to make their case to the jury--and outlines the case they could have made. Most chilling is his retelling of two incidents: First, the events of January 1, 1989, when police responded to a battered Nicole Simpson's call for help--O.J.'s escape that night paralleled his escape after Nicole's and Ron Goldman's murder. Even more eerie is another incident never presented at the criminal trial: Right before the murders, Simpson was filming a scene for a TV show that also strangely prefigured the murders and in which, playing a former SEAL, he could have learned the slashing technique used to kill his ex-wife and her friend. Spence believes that O.J. was guilty but that the jury's acquittal was just. If his brief were less self-righteous, his legitimate arguments would be easier to swallow. (Literary Guild selection) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

One of the nation's most prominent trial lawyers, Spence (The Making of a Country Lawyer, LJ 10/15/96) has never lost a criminal case. He presents here a compelling postmortem of the O.J. Simpson criminal trial and exposes the shortcomings of all the parties involved, especially the prosecution. Spence is particularly critical of lead prosecutor Marcia Clark, who, he feels, was the wrong messenger presenting the wrong case to the wrong audience. He points out the prosecution's failures, from jury selection through closing arguments, especially noting the inability of Clark and coprosecutor Chris Darden to keep their emotions under control, their insistence on using a sterile approach in presenting expert testimony, and their reluctance to present critical evidence in a matter-of-fact, folksy manner that the jury could have appreciated. The race issue is also discussed, especially in terms of how the prosecution could have more successfully presented the case to a jury for whom the sociology of race was of paramount, though not ostensible, importance. An excellent book for both current and aspiring lawyers.?Phillip Young Blue, New York State Supreme Court Criminal Branch Lib., New York
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.