SINCE THE O.J. trial will be going on for such a long time, I decided to hire my own legal expert to sit in my living room and discuss the case with me. I did this because I don't trust any of the TV commentators, and it's nice to have your own lawyer to explain the intricacies of the trial.
John Kasper is one of the top criminal lawyers in the country. He usually charges $500 an hour but agreed to cut his fee to $450 because I was a pro bono case.
We were watching the defense cross-examine a male prosecution witness.
"Why are they asking him if he ever pushed his grandmother down the stairs in her wheelchair?"
"They have to destroy the person's credibility," John said, "and the only way they can do that is to put him on trial instead of O.J."
"That seems unfair," I told John. "All the witness is trying to do is be a good citizen and testify about what he found in O.J.'s car."
"As far as the defense is concerned, anyone who appears on behalf of the prosecution is a war criminal. That's why they ask questions such as how many quarts of alcohol he consumes on the job, where he buys his marijuana. The defense must persuade the jury that the witness is a pervert and a menace to society."
I said, "How do you think these tactics are playing with the jury?"
"I don't think that O.J.'s lawyers have persuaded them up until now. On the other hand, the defense has yet to bring up the witness' habit of wearing Victoria's Secret lingerie under his police uniform."
"Does he?"
"No. The judge will strike the question from the record, but that would be after the jury heard it."
"Is the prosecution equally determined to destroy someone's reputation for life?"
"Almost the same. In order to be successful, lawyers have to keep shooting the other side's witnesses in the groin."
I asked John if he ever felt bad when he threw so much mud at the other side's witnesses.
"Of course not. When witnesses agree to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, they're asking for trouble."
"How do you think the trial is really going?" I wanted to know.
John replied, "I believe that the defense is doing a good job of distracting the jury from the facts of the case. What they really want to do is get Judge Ito so mad that he'll say something to cause a mistrial. But that may not happen for a while."
Art Buchwald is a syndicated columnist.