There was just one problem. The so-called witness, later identified as Frank Chiuchiolo, is also a convicted felon with a history of scamming the police. The San Francisco Examiner reported last week that he once confessed to killing New York mobster Paul Castellano (John Gotti, a rival boss, was convicted of the 1985 shooting). Chiuchiolo also told authorities he’d seen Polly Klaas, the 12-year-old girl killed after she was kidnapped from her Petaluma, Calif., home last year – another claim quickly discredited.
Chiuchiolo may have been exposed as a liar – but his claim nevertheless served the defense’s purpose, and demonstrates why prosecutors may have difficulty convicting Simpson. It allowed attorneys to deepen doubts about Simpson’s guilt, especially among potential jurors watching the elaborate pretrial proceedings. Much of the defense strategy involves exploiting the deep cynicism and mistrust among racial minorities about the Los Angeles police. The implication is that investigators are railroading Simpson by ignoring other, nonblack suspects. Last week a defense investigator told “Hard Copy” about a woman who claims she saw four Latino men running from Nicole Simpson’s town house on June 12. The woman, unidentified in the re-port, could not be located for comment.
Prosecutors recently discovered the barriers that race poses in obtaining a conviction. Newsweek has learned that San Francisco attorney John Martel, an expert in jury selection and witness preparation, is advising the state on the issue. According to a knowledgeable source in L.A., the prosecution set up multiracial focus groups of area residents to test its case, built largely on forensic and circumstantial evidence. The results were very disturbing: the groups split along racial lines. A spokesperson for the district attorney refused to discuss Martel’s role or that of the focus groups.
The Simpson team also hopes to exploit mistrust of the police by chipping away at a series of investigative shortcomings. Some are penny-ante violations of official procedure. Attorney Robert Shapiro, for example, will harp on poor written records, including crime-scene logs kept by investigators. Other foul-ups could pose serious problems for the prosecution. Shapiro will evoke for jurors the image of a chaotic scene in front of Nicole Simpson’s house, with police milling around and disturbing evidence long before forensic experts finished their work. Simpson’s white Ford Bronco, the source of several crucial blood samples, was never roped off by police as it sat outside Simpson’s Brentwood estate after the murder. He will also seize on mistakes by deputy medical examiner Irwin Golden, whose office mislabeled fluid samples from Nicole Simpson’s body (bile was placed in a container marked urine) and failed to examine the body for evidence of recent sexual activity.
Newsweek has also learned of previously undisclosed evidence that the defense hopes will weaken the state’s contention that Nicole Simpson died between 10:15 and 11 p.m. on June 12: a cup of ice cream. Witnesses say they saw Nicole Simpson and her children at a Ben & Jerry’s store after she dined with friends. Defense sources say police found the cup, with much of the ice cream still frozen, near the bodies sometime after 12:10 a.m. on June 13. Shapiro may try to argue – however implausibly – that this proves that she was alive later than 11 p.m. (when Simpson was en route to the airport) since the ice cream would have melted in the 60-degree temperature.
What do all the questions and discrepancies add up to? Taken individually, not a great deal. In sum, they could possibly push a jury toward a mistrial – especially a panel with members predisposed to mistrusting the police. But juries also take on a life of their own in criminal trials. Even in Los Angeles’s fractious racial environment, the defense may face a group of citizens who will require substantial proof, not just speculation and inference, that a derelict po-lice investigation compromised a notorious murder case.
PHOTOS: Missteps? The defense alleges that police kept poor records at crime scene (left) and that Deputy M.E. Golden (top) mishandled the autopsy of Nicole Simpson (above)
