Court System Not Guilty, In O.J. Case

For 28 years, Linda Deutsch has simply done what most people in this country do each morning - get up and go to work. In the last year, however, much of the world suddenly began to pay attention to Deutsch’s daily chores.

Deutsch, an Associated Press news reporter, covers the courts in Los Angeles. So Deutsch was there to hear every witness, every argument in the O.J. Simpson trial.

Deutsch has been the solid, anonymous reporter recording California courtroom dramas for the more than 1,500 daily newspapers in America that rarely can afford to send someone to cover the bizarre California trials of Charles Manson, the Menendez brothers, Angela Davis or Patty Hearst. Her coverage of these trials entered into the American memory even if her face and name did not.

In the past year and half, though, she has covered what others hyped as The Trial of the Century. To her surprise, Deutsch became something of a star. Her lifetime of coolly observing the drama in Southern California courtrooms suddenly became a hot asset. Throughout the O.J. Trial, she regularly appeared on TV, probably the most grounded and nononsense commentator on the circus in Judge Ito’s courtroom.

So in these raw days after the verdict, as the nation struggles to understand the trial, the judicial system, and the profoundly different ways black and white America perceived the result, we might all consider a bit of salve being applied by Linda Deutsch.

“Everyone who worried about the system not working in this case should not worry so much,” Deutsch said a few days ago to a group of newspaper editors meeting in Indianapolis.

“Sure, the trial lasted too long. The attorneys postured for the public and the possibility of a second trial. It seemed like the witnesses all were playing to book agents and movie deals.”

While the O.J. trial raised some troubling issues about the role of cameras in the courtroom and the ability of judges to keep control of the courtroom, Deutsch doesn’t believe the O.J. trial has seriously harmed the judicial system.

“This was an unusual trial from the very beginning,” she said. “O.J. is the most famous man in America ever to be charged with murder.”

For this reason the O.J. case wasn’t representative of what happens most of the time in the courtrooms where Deutsch regularly works.

After listening to every day of testimony and watching every witness, Deutsch concluded before the verdict that the result likely would be a hung jury or a not-guilty verdict.

“Twelve people came and saw the evidence, listened to the case and they made a decision,” she said. “This is the system working and there were plenty of reasons for the jury to have a reasonable doubt about what they saw and heard.”

Day after day she saw brilliant defense attorneys offer reason after reason for reasonable doubt. “The gloves were an incalculable blunder by the prosecution,’ she said. “They clearly didn’t fit and the prosecution should never have demanded O.J. try them on if they didn’t know for sure they wouldn’t fit. When he put them on he was in complete control of the courtroom. The only words the jury ever heard O.J. say were, ‘They are too small.’

“Then there were the socks. No one saw any blood on the socks. Then, two months later, they were soaked in blood.”

And then there was Mark Fuhrman. He was the one who found the bloody glove, the blood in the Bronco, the one detective who let the world know about the murders.

Once Fuhrman’s credibility was in doubt, Deutsch said the prosecution’s case simply collapsed. “Given the Fuhrman tapes, no defense team in the country would not have made race an issue,” she said.

The glove that didn’t fit, the bloody socks, the too tight timeline and the lost credibility of a key witness were reasons a jury could, and did, find reasonable doubt, the veteran court reporter believes.

These are the reasons Deutsch believes we should not worry too much about the O.J. verdict. Even with the extraordinary celebrity of the defendant and the grueling days in the courtroom, the jury rendered a verdict that a veteran court reporter could understand.

The system will survive, and a case can be made that it even worked the way it was designed to work. “That’s a hard sell in America right now,” Deutsch said as she made her way to the airport and back to her “beat” - the courtroom in Los Angeles.

, DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the Editor of the Spokesman-Review. His column appears each Sunday.