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In Hollywood, when a high-budget movie opens, insiders discuss whether ``the money'' made it onto the screen--whether the result, that is, justifies the expense. In this trial, O.J. Simpson's money has certainly made it into the courtroom. Scrappy, overworked state employees appear to be just that when set against the silver-tongued, monied and remarkably personable defense lawyers. Cochran, chuckling modestly in a moment of theater that must have infuriated Clark and Darden, told the court last Thursday, ``We certainly don't refer to ourselves as the Dream Team. We're just a collection of lawyers just trying to do the best we can.''
That best was impressive. Impeccably dressed as ever in dark blue, striped shirt and bold red-and-blue tie, Cochran sought to strike an immediate rapport with the jury. Spinning stories, addressing jurors like a loquacious, well-loved uncle, Cochran spoke confidently of his client's innocence, reeled out his favorite saying from Martin Luther King Jr.-- ``Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere''--and insisted that ``this case is about an obsession to win at any cost and by any means necessary.''
For all the prosecution's seemingly damning points, Cochran offered counterpoints, many of them news to every listener. But it was a strategy not without risk. Cochran must now deliver the credible witnesses and solid blood evidence that he promised. He claims, for example, that there was blood under Nicole Brown Simpson's fingernails of a type that matched neither O.J.'s nor the victims'. (The prosecution has since declared that ``Cochran took one line out of a report given to him. There is a scientific explanation that you will see presented at trial.'') Cochran also said there was a woman who saw four men in knit caps leaving the murder scene. And that the mysterious object in the manila envelope would prove the l.a.p.d.'s collection of evidence was inept. The ``trail of blood,'' Cochran insisted, was actually too sparse to match such bloody crimes. And the lawyer produced the defendant himself, in photos and in person: pictures taken in the days after the murder showed Simpson's mainly unbruised body, and the former football star stood up to display his scarred left knee as evidence that he was too disabled to commit the murders. The effect of these maneuvers on the jury may have been what Cochran intended. Simpson, he was saying, is just like you, jurors-- flawed but essentially intact.
The prosecution's objections began when it sounded as if Cochran was engaging in legal arguments, not simply presenting the case. But what sent Hodgman to the hospital later that night, and had Clark back in court the next day arguing heatedly for a 30-day continuance and sanctions against the defense, was Cochran's citing of more than a dozen witnesses not previously on the defense's witness list. One of the fresh witnesses: Mary Ann Gerchas, the woman who claimed she had seen men in knit caps running away from Nicole's house on the night of the murder. Cochran said another couple will testify that at 10:25 p.m., 10 minutes after prosecutors say the murders were committed, they saw nothing amiss outside Nicole's house.