Should Simpson Testify? Legal Minds Don’t Agree

As the O.J. Simpson doublemurder trial nears its midpoint, the pivotal question of whether the former football player should testify on his own behalf draws differing views from attorneys.

“I would advise him not to take the stand because he doesn’t have anything to add to the defense,” said attorney Christina Arguedas. “It’s not like a self-defense case.”

Arguedas, who successfully defended Stockton, Calif., developer and sports promoter Michael Blatt in a murder-for-hire case in 1992, said Simpson could say only that “I didn’t do it. I don’t know how my blood got there.”

But Patrick Hallinan, who recently testified in his own behalf when a former drug-smuggling client accused him of money laundering, said there is no better witness than the accused.

“I would do everything I could to prepare my case in such a way that I could put O.J. on the stand,” said Hallinan, who was acquitted of all charges.

However, James Goodman, a former homicide prosecutor, said the risks Simpson faces by testifying probably would not be worth the rewards.

“There’s just too much evidence out there that’s just not explainable from his standpoint,” Goodman said. “He apparently got at least two other people’s blood in his car. How does he explain that?”

He also said Simpson could lose the points he apparently scored with jurors when the prosecution had him try on a blood-soaked glove that fit too tightly.”He could be asked, ‘Where are those gloves?”’ Goodman said. “He could say, ‘I lost them,’ but that would sound a little lame.”

Joseph Russoniello, a former U.S. attorney in San Francisco, said putting Simpson on the stand could court disaster.

“I can’t imagine that they’d put him on and subject him to a crossexamination that might uncover and expose real gaps in his alibi or claims of what he was doing in a critical time period that would be so preposterous no one would believe it,” Russoniello said.

But San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Brown said he would put Simpson on the witness stand because “nobody knows for sure what’s going on in the minds of the jurors.”

“There has been an awful lot of testimony connecting Simpson to the scene circumstantially,” Brown said. “If they (the defense) don’t put a case on or he doesn’t testify, that stuff goes unrebutted.

“Although the prosecution has looked scrambled and ragtagged from time to time,” Brown added, “they can still put on a hell of closing argument tying it all together.”