Jeffrey Toobin - The Run of His Life - The People v. O. J. Simpson

Just then, though, a paralegal arrived in the courtroom with a pair of gloves-a new pair-from the prosecution headquarters on the eighteenth floor. When Darden looked like he was going to use them for a demonstration as part of Rubin’s redirect testimony, Cochran asked to approach the bench. There Darden whispered to Ito, “I would like to lay the foundation to show they are the exact same size, similar make and model so that perhaps we can have Mr. Simpson try them on at some point to determine whether or not the gloves found at the scene and at his home will fit him.”

Cochran objected, and Ito had an understandable reaction: “I think it would be more appropriate for him to try the other gloves on… I mean, the real gloves that were found.”

Clark had a ready (and appropriate) response, the same one she had discussed with Hodgman and Darden earlier: “The only problem is,” she told Ito, “he has to wear latex gloves underneath, because they’re a biohazard, and they’re going to alter the fit.”

Ito decided to excuse the jury for a moment to let Rubin examine the new gloves and determine if they were the same model as those in evidence. As the jury was filing out, F. Lee Bailey sidled over to Darden. Almost as much as Cochran, Bailey knew how to push Darden’s buttons. “You have the balls of a stud field mouse,” Bailey whispered to Darden. “If you don’t have O.J. try them on, I will.” With that, Bailey had baited the hook. When the jury was out, Rubin said that the new pair was not the same model as the evidence gloves, so Ito disallowed their use. (Darden, of course, had discussed none of this with Rubin in advance.) Flustered, Darden told Ito, “Before the jury returns”-that is, outside the presence of the jury-“we would like to have Mr. Simpson try on the original evidence items.”

But Ito was momentarily distracted by another subject, and he invited the jury back in before Darden could conduct the demonstration with the evidence gloves. Embarrassed by his own lack of preparation, and goaded by Bailey, Darden barreled ahead-now in front of the jury.

“Your Honor,” Darden said, “at this time the People would ask that Mr. Simpson step forward and try on the glove recovered at Bundy as well as the glove recovered at Rockingham.” Seated beside Darden, Marcia Clark widened her eyes in astonishment. They had discussed this very subject. Darden had said he was not going to do this. Barely a minute before, Darden had said he was only going to do it outside the presence of the jury. Clark thought about saying something, risking the humiliation of her colleague by saying, “No! Stop!” But she kept her seat.

Ito’s clerk passed a box of latex gloves to the defense table. For several agonizing minutes, Simpson struggled to get the thin rubber over his hands-and plainly failed to get the latex gloves on all the way. Light shined through the gloves between each of Simpson’s fingers. Thus, even before Darden handed the evidence gloves to the defendant, it was clear that they could not fit over the latex.

Darden walked over to Simpson and said, “I’m handing Mr. Simpson the left glove, Rockingham.” (This, too, was wrong-the left glove came from Bundy, the right from Rockingham.)

Darden asked Simpson to walk toward him and the jury, and both Cochran and one of the sheriff’s deputies came with the defendant, creating a traffic jam in front of the jury box. As Simpson walked, he began trying to put on the left glove.

At all times, Simpson kept his thumb bent outward at a right angle to his wrist. That, too, made it impossible for the gloves to fit properly. O.J. grimaced and said more or less to Cochran, but really to the jury, “Too tight.”

“Your Honor,” Darden said, his voice now trembling, “apparently Mr. Simpson seems to be having a problem putting the glove on his hand.”

Johnnie Cochran, stifling a smile, properly objected to Darden’s narration of the event. Simpson struggled with the right-hand glove, and then began pounding between his fingers as if he were actually trying to make the gloves fit. But the bunched latex limited how far the gloves could go, and Simpson never pushed between his thumb and forefinger, where the angle was really preventing the gloves from going all the way onto his hands.

Darden noticed Simpson’s cocked thumb and said, “Can we ask him to straighten his fingers and extend them into the glove as one normally might put a glove on?”

Ito said yes, but Cochran burst in again: “Your Honor, object to this statement by counsel.” Still, because the demonstration was completely under Simpson’s control, the defendant simply ignored the request to straighten his fingers.

Recognizing the catasphrophe he had wrought, Darden tried to salvage something. “Could we ask him to grasp an object in his hand, a marker perhaps, Your Honor?” Simpson took a marker and held it in his fist the way a baby would, with his thumb still splayed out. Panicking even more, Darden asked Simpson to simulate a stabbing motion, but Cochran scotched that idea with an indignant objection.

Ito sent Simpson back to his seat. O.J. slipped the gloves off in a flash, which would not have been possible if they were really too tight.

Floundering, Darden asked to approach the bench. As he did, Alan Dershowitz, who was making a rare appearance in the courtroom, had to cover his mouth to keep from laughing out loud at the fiasco. Darden secured permission for Rubin to place his hand against Simpson’s to determine if the gloves should have fit. Ito approved, and Rubin placed his palm against the defendant’s.

Back at the podium, Darden asked Rubin, “Should the gloves shown to you here in court today have fit Mr. Simpson’s hand in your opinion?”

“At one point in time,” Rubin replied, “those gloves would be actually, I think, large on Mr. Simpson’s hand.”

Prodded by Clark, Darden asked, “Could you tell whether or not he was intentionally holding his thumb in a certain position so that he couldn’t put the gloves on?”

It was an argumentative and speculative question, and Ito prohibited it. Then the judge called it a day.

Back on the eighteenth floor, Darden-shell-shocked by the experience-sank into his office chair. Hodgman sought him out and said, “C’mon, Chris, we’re trial lawyers. There’s a way out of this.” In the book he wrote later, Darden gave a self-pitying account of the aftermath of the demonstration-“I passed my colleagues in the hallway and they were silent”-but others on the team remembered that several people approached him to offer support. It was certainly true that Hodgman invited Rubin into Darden’s office, and within minutes of the end of the court day, they were all planning how to undo the mess.

It was also true, however, that Clark did not speak to Darden. As she was driving home from the courthouse that day, she called her friend Lynn Reed Baragona on her car phone. “Do you think this is it?” Clark asked, not really wanting an answer. “Do you think it’s over now?”

The glove demonstration provided the classic example of Darden’s shortcomings as a trial lawyer-his impetuousness, his immaturity, his failure to prepare either himself or his witnesses adequately. Though some jurors thought Simpson was mugging and making a conscious effort to ensure that the gloves would not fit, several others viewed it as the turning point in the case. For good reason, then, the prosecutors sought to control the damage to their case.

Darden asked Rubin to stay in Los Angeles over the weekend, and on Monday asked him a series of tortured questions in court, attempting to undo the harm from the demonstration. Could the gloves have shrunk? Yes-something that would have been more obvious to a jury in a cold-weather region. Could the latex glove have affected the fit? Of course. Rubin had brought to court an unworn pair of the precise make and model of the evidence gloves and those-placed on Simpson’s hand without a latex barrier-clearly did fit. The damage-control operation succeeded mostly in underlining that the prosecutors themselves regarded the previous week’s stunt as a disaster. Cochran’s smirking re-cross-examination of Rubin focused mainly on how distraught the prosecution was after the previous week’s testimony.