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Doug Gamble- Contributor

Doug Gamble is a former writer for President Ronald Reagan and resides in Carmel. [go to Gamble index]

First O.J., Now Scott Peterson
Once again, defense lawyers are running rings around feeble prosecutors...
[Doug Gamble] 6/24/04

Is there a California prosecutor who can win a high- profile murder case? Nine years after a botched prosecution helped O.J. Simpson get away with murder in a sensational trial that gripped the nation, the same result is on track in a similarly notorious case.

My reading of the Scott Peterson murder trial in Redwood City is that the prosecution is blowing it. If it's true that most jury members make up their minds about a defendant during opening statements, then the trial is already over, and Peterson, accused of murdering wife Laci and their unborn child, is going to walk. [...and yesterday's comments from the dismissed Juror #5 are a clear barometer of that. - Ed.]

It will be another victory for clever, high-powered lawyers over incompetent, outmaneuvered prosecutors. And it should make taxpayers wonder why we aren't better represented in trials where the credibility of the justice system suffers, as it did with Simpson, when the verdict is so at odds with common sense.

Based on the known facts of the Peterson case, it takes a suspension of disbelief to conclude that he is innocent. Certainly his obvious lying to everyone he encountered in the aftermath of his wife's disappearance, including the police, his neighbors and his in-laws, was hardly the behavior of someone with a clear conscience.

Prosecutor Rick Distaso laid an egg in the crucial opening statement by droning on for almost five hours and going into mind-numbing detail, violating the cardinal rule of communications - don't bore your audience. In contrast, Peterson attorney Mark Geragos had the jurors on the edge of their seats with a two-hour performance worthy of a skilled Hollywood actor.

Given today's media culture, jurors are going to be more receptive to an attorney who reminds them of the lawyers they see in TV dramas than to a prosecutor who comes across like a bureaucrat at the DMV. As the old saying goes, facts are stubborn things, but facts can be grievously wounded on the lips of a prosecutor who does not know how to communicate, including a flair for the dramatic, to seize a jury's attention and imagination.

As the trial has progressed, whatever points the prosecution has scored with the jury have been effectively trumped by Geragos' performance in cross-examination.

In addition to Distaso's shortcomings, the Peterson defense has come as close as possible to the jury it wants - one Geragos appears to have established a rapport with - thanks to veteran jury consultant Jo-Ellen Dimitrius, who helped pick the jury for the Simpson trial. While not a lawyer, she has a Ph.D. in criminology and an uncanny intuition for choosing jurors favorable to the defense.

Interviewed for CBS' "Sixty Minutes II," Dimitrius said about the Peterson case, "What I know will be an absolute surprise to an awful lot of people." She was probably referring to the results of a mock Peterson trial she conducted in which the prosecution and defense cases were presented to 12 volunteers acting as the jury. And what she undoubtedly knows is that Peterson will be acquitted.

As long as the accused are entitled to legal representation, and may it always be so, there will be attorneys defending high-profile clients they know in their hearts are guilty, as in the Simpson and Peterson cases. And there will be infamous defendants who enjoy the advantages of slick lawyers, private eyes and jury consultants.

But it would be refreshing one of these days, even if it takes a prosecutorial "Dream Team" to do it, if "the people's" advocates in a high- profile murder case possessed skills at least equal to if not better than their adversaries. Meanwhile, upon his release this fall, maybe Peterson can join Simpson in the hunt for the "real" killers CRO

California-based Doug Gamble contributed speech material to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and writes a twice-monthly column for the Orange County Register and CaliforniaRepublic.org.

Copyright 2004 Doug Gamble

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