(7 of 9)
Most evenings after court, Baker and his team would adjourn to the law offices of Baker, Silberberg & Keener, housed in a huge, black-glass building next to the Santa Monica airport on Ocean Park Boulevard, just minutes from the courthouse. There, a four-module space called the "O.J. Archive" is filled with documents from the trial--and before. Johnnie Cochran, who had recommended his friend Baker to Simpson, sent over photocopies of all the defense documents in October 1995, immediately after it became clear that a civil suit was to be lodged. The Los Angeles district attorney's office, however, showed less alacrity, defense sources said. It sent numerous boxes in haphazard order, and the bulk of the 10,197 boxes did not arrive until July and August 1996. Individual documents in the boxes, moreover, were jumbled. Twice, Phillip Baker had to go to court to get evidence.
One of the greatest potential resources for the defense was O.J. Simpson himself. Says Phillip Baker: "O.J. is intelligent. He knows the case better than anyone else. I can't think of a client who was more active." Simpson offered tips on how to cross-examine witnesses and understood all the blood and scientific evidence, defense sources said.
Yet despite being welcomed into his home and collaborating with him over legal strategy, Simpson's attorneys often seemed awkward in his presence, and their collective demeanor in the courthouse bordered on stilted formality. They had little chemistry with Simpson. When Robert Baker and the rest of the team lunched near the Santa Monica courthouse, their client was rarely with them; he usually chose to eat with his sister and brother-in-law. Indeed, the trial has had wider personal repercussions for the Bakers. They have encountered social ostracism by some members of Los Angeles' well-heeled society.
By the night of Jan. 30, as the jury deliberated, Petrocelli was taut, his jaw rigid. It wasn't the wait or the fact that the jury had asked to examine key defense points. "Listen, I hate waiting," he said. "This is absolute torture. But they're looking at the evidence, and they're doing their job the way the criminal jury should have." What did disturb the plaintiffs was that two jurors from the criminal trial had sent letters to two jurors in the civil trial suggesting a meeting to help discuss their future financial options and recommending a particular agent. Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki was livid and launched an investigation. The affair was eerily reminiscent of the circumstance in the criminal trial that resulted in what turned out to be the unwarranted dismissal of Francine Florio-Bunten for trying to capitalize on being a juror while the trial was still going on. Florio-Bunten, who was convinced of Simpson's guilt, never wrote a book, nor tried to. Petrocelli had also learned that Pat McKenna, the defense investigator who had worked in the criminal trial, was again working for Simpson. The roil about the jury ended with the dismissal of Rosemary Carraway, the lone black juror. As it turned out, her daughter worked for the L.A. district attorney's office. A nervous Petrocelli argued to keep her on the panel because he felt she had done nothing intentionally wrong; the Simpson defense wanted her out.