You cannot make these reckless generalizations about people. Experience had shown me that black female jurors are perfectly capable of convicting a black man who brutalizes his wife or girlfriend. As I’ve said before-and I’ll say it as many times as I have to-the Simpson case was an anomaly. What was perceived here as apathy on the part of black women jurors toward Nicole’s suffering seemed to me rather a deliberate form of denial. I truly believe that our black female jurors knew in their hearts that O. J. Simpson was no better than the average asshole who gets drunk on Friday nights and throws his woman against a wall. But I think they felt they couldn’t afford to act on that knowledge. Too few black men succeed in penetrating the ranks of upper-class white society for them to allow one to be taken out in such an ignominious way. Looking back on it, I think I’d have to say that blacks of both sexes were moved to breathtaking feats of denial in order to keep the Juice from going down.
With the departure of Jeanette Harris, the Clique of Four lost its center of gravity. Little Tracy Hampton claimed to have awakened one night to find a white female deputy standing at the foot of her bed. She went running to Ito, claiming that the deputies were “spying” on her, that they were going in and out of her room when she wasn’t there.
Now, during jury selection Hampton had come across as an okay sort. She was unusually quiet, but not someone we particularly had to worry about hanging the jury. During the early days of sequestration, however, she’d been drawn into the gravitational pull of the stronger personalities in the Clique and had gotten way off into the race thing.
Now we had to figure out what to make of her allegations. Ito talked to the deputies, who denied her charges. The defense, obviously, wanted to keep this juror, so they were all for rotating the deputies to another post. Chris, for once, agreed with the defense. He was afraid of the bad press it would generate if we cut Hampton loose and she spouted off to reporters about “spying” and “racial discrimination.”
I was scandalized. These deputies were doing a difficult job and doing it admirably. They’d done everything for these jurors. When a couple of jurors had deaths in the family, the deputies had accompanied them to the funerals and quite literally given them a shoulder to cry on. Now we were going to let their reputations be sacrificed for the sake of expediency? I felt it was just flat-out wrong to punish those deputies based upon the word of a juror who, in my opinion, wasn’t wrapped too tight.
But Ito thought he could hose Hampton down by removing the deputies. So that’s what he did.
Whenever I hear the pundits wringing their hands over the racial tensions on the jury, I defy them to explain what happened next. After little Tracy got the white deputies rotated out, most of the remaining jurors were so angry and upset that they demanded to see the judge to discuss the matter. One by one they professed affection for the deputies and sorrow at the shabby treatment they’d received. Through it all, Johnnie looked confused and worried. I could just about tell what was going through his head: Oh, my God. They’re identifying with law enforcement.
Only by promising the jurors that the deputies would not have black marks on their records did Ito get them to agree to return to the jury box. Thirteen of them wore black in support of the deputies. Two of the Clique of Four-Tracy Hampton and Sheila Woods-wore bright colors to express their opposition.
The irony, of course, is that Ito’s appeasement strategy didn’t work. Within days, Tracy was back in chambers whining that she was being ostracized. “I can’t take it anymore,” she pleaded. This time, Ito showed the good sense to cut her loose.
Two of the Clique had bitten the dust.
Defense: 3. The People: 4.
In late May, the court received an anonymous letter purporting to be from a “receptionist in a literary agency.” The letter writer claimed to have knowledge that Francine Florio-Bunten-a thirty-eight-year-old white woman we considered one of ours-was circulating a proposal for a book to be entitled Standing Alone-A Vote for Nicole.
When I read that letter in Ito’s chambers, I looked straight at Johnnie. This was a setup. I had no doubt of it then, and I have no doubt now. The defense had been itching to kick Florio-Bunten.
Ito, however, felt this source was reliable, largely because the writer had confidential” knowledge that the jurors were staying at the Inter-Continental Hotel. (The issue of confidentiality was nonsense, of course, since the fact had already been published in a British newspaper and had long since made its way Stateside.)
Once again, Ito questioned jurors individually. The last of these, a young black woman who, I believe, was an alternate at the time, told us she’d seen Farron Chavarria, a young Hispanic woman who was friendly with Florio-Bunten, write something on a newspaper and pass it to Florio-Bunten. Francine reportedly read it and then threw it in the trash. Ito immediately dispatched a deputy to get the newspaper. Sure enough, there was a note saying, in effect, “They want to know if someone’s writing a book.” The words had been scribbled over, as though someone had tried to obscure what was written.
Farron was called first. She admitted writing the note-although, she said, she hadn’t meant to disobey the judge’s order. Then he called in Francine, who denied seeing the note, even after Ito showed it to her.
Lance had no choice. Florio-Bunten might have been lying about reading the note, and that alone was grounds for dismissal. What galled me was my certainty that Florio-Bunten had been set up. Our investigators scoured the city of Los Angeles trying to locate this supposed “literary agency.” They found nothing matching the one in the letter. To this day, Florio-Bunten maintains that the letter was a fraud. And I believe her.
But what really floored me was that after her dismissal, Florio-Bunten took to the airwaves proclaiming that the prosecution’s case was “too circumstantial,” that the blood drops at Bundy could have been left by Simpson at an earlier time. And this was supposed to be one of our jurors!
Defense: 4. The People: 4.
The departure of Florio-Bunten made it inevitable that the other shoe would drop. Days later, Lance booted Chavarria for passing the note, then not leveling with him about it. And that left us down in the standings.
When the defense made its move to kick Chavarria, I leaped up and moved immediately to kick Number 1489.
Number 1489 was Willie Cravin, an African American and one of the two remaining members of the Clique of Four. Willie was a big dude with a mug so fierce that one of the reporters dubbed him the Easter Island Statue. He was a hanger for sure. He was also an irascible bully. From the outset he’d gone out of his way to be nasty to Florio-Bunten and Chavarria. He’d pushed Chavarria in the elevator as they were coming to court. And once, while they were all watching a movie, Florio-Bunten was swinging her leg and happened to tap the back of his seat. He turned and said, “Don’t you ever do that to me. How dare you.”
During previous in camera discussions with the jurors, we discovered that Cravin was viewed as a bully by many on the jury. He was definitely a problem.
I’d been watching and waiting, wondering when I should make my pitch. The passing of Chavarria was my cue. I suspected that I’d find Lance in a receptive frame of mind. He could keep a scorecard as well as any of us. He’d just booted two pro-prosecution jurors in succession. Now, he’d feel he’d have to give us one. I also knew that after the Tracy Hampton incident and the revolt that followed in its wake, he was keen upon promoting harmony at all costs.