Former Los Angeles District Attorney, Gil Garcetti, Talks O.J.: Made in America in Studio - 6/16/16"

gil

garcetti

the day oj went on a slow speed chase that we will never forget and was part of the third part of the five part documentary of the espn films 34 30 oj

made

in

america

and gil

garcetti

, the 40th

district

attorney

in the history of Los Angeles County right here in rich eyes and I'm glad to see it sir, thank you, what has watching this documentary been like for you? Well, I'm grateful to my son and the current mayor of Los Angeles, yes, the current mayor, hmm, for encouraging me to do it. It's because as you know I've been silent for almost 22 years about this case, once I left the

district

attorney

's office with the assistance of the voters I said I'm moving in a different direction and the only thing I talk about now It is in a criminal area.

The justice theme is the death penalty, but otherwise I've never talked about DO or anything, so watching this again and seeing how deep this particular movie is. It also opened my eyes in some ways. I was too close to my job and responsibility. It was simply: Do we have enough evidence to prove them beyond a reasonable doubt? to know that I didn't twist my arm right, I just mentioned that I was talking to Azra Edelman, the principal, the principal, my son had gone to school with Ezra's little brother and Eric, out of the blue, said you should do it.

Dad and I were stunned, I really was because you know he had taken me away from all that and he said you have facts and information that you have never shared with anyone, you have insights and knowledge. I think you can trust Ezra to do the kind of work he would be proud to be associated with, so when he says this is an eye-opener, he wasn't aware at the time of the depth of feeling in the African-American community about the injustice they felt toward the LAPD and vice versa. versa Mamie I grew up artnet I grew up I was born in a house less than a mile from where Oh Jay Simpson won his Heisman Trophy I grew up in a racially mixed neighborhood I have always been involved in the African American community and I understood the distrust they had toward the LAPD, but the depth of his feelings about the justice system, the injustice of the justice system, especially as it affects African Americans, I didn't fully appreciate that depth, so when the time came, let's start right here with the trial because that will be part of tonight, that is, tomorrow night, all the talk about it, did you at any point consider yourself the one who would prosecute the case?

I have 1,100 lawyers in my office, thousands of cases, first, people loved me. to try the Menendez brothers case and then maybe the Michael Jackson case, the Los Angeles District Attorney can't get involved in a particular case because there are thousands of important cases being handled, so I assigned Bill Hodgman , who I think was the perfect lawyer for this case to handle the case um and then Marcia Clark broke up with him because she took the bill that will essentially write yes, he was beyond sick turns out he had a congenital heart defect his judicial career is already over, but We're very close to the trial so Marcia, ooh, Bill had asked to come help and she's a great lawyer so you know she came and brought Chris Darden who she knew is also a great lawyer and the team followed forward, so when it arrived. downtime to get to the trial and even though OJ lived in Brentwood and the murders took place in Brentwood, the trial didn't take place in Brentwood, it went to downtown Los Angeles, right?

Were race relations taken into account when that was done what you are asking very indirectly, Rico said that if he had tried it in Santa Monica, what would have been the jurisdiction to try it, would he have had a white or whiter jury, so maybe a different verdict, well, first of all, that's incorrect if that were the case. If they had tried it in Santa Monica, I would have opened it to the same number of people in the entire county, not just in West Los Angeles and I quote the white people in quotes, but I

made

a political mistake and the political mistake was not moving it myself at the center, the case was always on. to be tried downtown, Presiding Judge Cecil Mills, who told me this case is going to be tried downtown, I can be tried in Santa Monica, they had an earthquake, they had problems there, we just finished building the eighth floor of this 18-story building. high security, high profile building is going to be downtown I should have let the judge make the announcement instead of me you guys all said you know okay I'm the guy who moved it downtown no They knew the judge. court and here we are 22 years later, I'm learning that right here because I always thought you were the one who made the decision to move this case downtown, at what point did you realize that any hard evidence you had was not going to be enough to convict OJ Simpson two issues two things one good 3 1 when we got the jury we got against the advice of our jury consultants that's not the jury to pick 2 when Mark Fuhrman turned out to be the racist he's on in front of the jury and then a meeting with President Carter ok, let's talk about that in the middle of the trial.

I'm trying to be a good CEO, you know, I have all these cases, but this one has my focus obviously, so I'm trying to decide well, as a good seal, I have to be prepared to handle any eventuality in a criminal case, they're just three, eventually it's a guilty verdict which I didn't expect, but I knew what to say if we got a guilty verdict. hung jury, which I expected, I knew what to say, but if we got an innocent kid, I didn't really know what to say because we looked at it as a racial verdict, it wouldn't just be horrible for, you know, the city of Los Angeles, my office but for the entire nation, so I decided what do I say, they came up with zero.

I called a group of about 30 black ministers, this was during the trial, yeah, the jury deliberations, you know, you know, okay, okay, my deliberation, so for the middle of the truck in the middle of the trial, you, Gil Garcetti, the Los Angeles district attorney brought all these people together, yeah, to talk about what my car is okay, between 30 black ministers, all respected individuals, I said, okay, I reviewed the scenarios now, if he's innocent , that. We said and they looked at me, each one of them said the same thing, always guilty, don't worry, they're going to find him guilty and I said, well, yes, that's fine, maybe that's the case, but what if they don't? to be bad for you, your community and bad for everyone, they could think of zero, then I heard President Carter was coming to town so I don't know him but here you little cunt I reached out to him so mr .

President, could I meet with you about the OJ Simpson case and he told me that he surely went to the city of Lynwood where he works at Habitat for Humanity? You know he had the carpenters build it mm-hmm. I go out and take it off. and we walk into the room alone and go over the scenarios with him and he looks at me and his stomach turns cold unexpectedly, it's guts, they come back innocent and I guess I must have looked shocked and shocked. He said well, of course he did it, everyone knows he did it, but he's not a street thug, he's not a danger to anyone else and you and I know that many innocent black men have been convicted in this country and some executed, this It's time to get revenge, there's nothing.

What can you say is going to make this easy there is nothing I can say it will take several years before whites and blacks really start talking to each other this is what President Jimmy Carter told you Jimmy Carter and what did you do with This information, you sit on it, you should share it with I was left with my mouth open for a long time, no, I told it to others and the only thing I could do was say: I hope he is wrong and you already know my statements after the verdict Me I got angry again, maybe I wasn't entirely surprised by the verdict at the time, but it really made me angry because they hadn't deliberated, they hadn't analyzed the evidence when you spend a couple of hours in a month-long trial with a mountain of evidence , the decision.

Most had already done so before they began deliberating, even before entering the room. Gil Garcetti, the district attorney at the time of the OJ Simpson trial. Here on the Rich Eisen Show, we're back at 66 o'clock. I want to ask you about the slow speed chase and, of course, obviously, the glove and some of the others that his lawyers did essentially during the trial of the century and that will be next here on the Rich Eisen show. Welcome back to Rich. Eisen shows gil garcetti, the

former

Los Angeles district attorney here on the Rich Eisen show, you just pointed to the mug right in front of you with the logo of my show running in my suit, go ahead and ask me the question what did you just do.

Yo, go ahead, have you ever worked to hurt yourself? No, that just happened. I figured that what the public knows is that it's me in the combine every hour I run in my suit, so last night, in the documentary part, the third part is the slow speed chase and it looked like you were sitting down getting out to be interviewed by Ted Koppel Ted Koppel and then you were watching the low speed chase and sitting in this chair is deadly, yes it did at any time you picked up the phone and called members of the police. to say what are you going on here?

I know I was, I didn't, I was baffled by the fact that I want you to stop this guy, stop him, but it may be others who made the decision. I can't answer no. I don't know who joined in until this day. You don't know who the law enforcement officer was. Who was leading the chase for OJ Simpson. It wasn't the most important area of ​​investigation for me that he was arrested, but yeah. It seemed like I don't know all the transcripts. I mean, I've read a lot about this. I've seen tons of documentaries about it, including this one.

It seems to me that this was mentioned at some point in the trial. quick chase that where he has his passport disguised cash in the car he just made his best friend read what sounds to me like a suicide note on the televisions our entire country thought he was guilty to the point where everyone was wondering if You might not even be able to get a fair jury of your peers. Was this ever mentioned at trial? I don't remember which parts were mentioned, but we know we tried to get a lot of evidence that the court didn't allow and this was one.

I don't remember them specifically, okay, because for me I just don't remember that this would be for me, this is his, I understand that there is blood and I understand that there was a trail of blood on the Bronco that led to Bundy and back to Rockingham, but to me, the whole country thought he was guilty at the time, 100% well, I wouldn't go that far, but there are a lot of people who thought he was guilty at the time, okay, and that's it. So right now you're sitting there watching the low speed chase and that made you now, what are you thinking once he finally stopped Gil?

At that moment, what were you putting together? How am I finally doing? I'm still upset about the whole situation that he hadn't given up the way he had. Arrangements were made with his lawyer in Shapiro, but it's okay, now we're going to go to work and that's where you have to be. accommodation in marcia clark and correct, what would you think if you could wave a wand and change the way your team handled the real case? What would be the only thing you would change? There are a lot of things that happened, I know by signature and being put on the stand the glove the selection of the jury anything else that I'm missing that you can probably the selection of the jury is the main point for me, but there is also another element of which We have never spoken, I don't think anyone else has ever spoken, please, and that is the moment of the accusation made by the defense.

I think it was the most brilliant and strategic decision that we didn't expect and that is that we are going to go to trial immediately, in other words, we are not going to quote give up time, which is legal jargon for giving up your constitutional right to a speedy trial and in a murder trial like this, if a year, two years passes before the case goes to trial, that's normal, but they knew what we knew, they knew that the sympathy, the disbelief that OJ could have Once this is done it will dissipate and sooner or later we will find more evidence, specifically evidence that he was actually wearing Bruno Molly's shoes, which were the shoe prints at the murder scene that claimed he had never had Bruno Molly's shoes.

We knew that eventually there would be evidence to prove that he had them and then the videos broadcast from the sidelines, that's right, we are shown where he had the correct rest and the gloves that he was wearing. Yeah, sure, yeah, I shake my head sometimes and what, and we've even been collarless on the show. I don't think I could have physically done it yesterday someone here in Los Angeles said that on the show. Well said, okay, we are a big country, there will be many people who will have minority opinions. Is this still an open case?

Gil, seriously, excuse me for laughing, but I don't know. Oh J. Simpson is guilty ofbrutally murder Ron Goldman and Nicole. Exclamation point from Brown Simpson's final period, so there is no active search, not even two, we know who committed the murders because it would obviously be a double jeopardy if something went right, you can't try, did you see that there is the knife that it was found? supposedly yes, back in the day or saved by someone after OJ's house in Rockingham was raised, what did you think when you heard I ruled it out because it just doesn't make sense I mean? that place was searched so thoroughly who knows how it came up where was but there's no way it could have been determined that he wasn't part of all that oh, do you believe that?

Where do you think that knife is right now? It's as good as mine, I have no idea, but you must have some theorist working, you know, that makes no difference to me, I know he committed the crime, I don't have to go beyond that, what would the word be? you, besides murderer, that you associate with OJ Simpson, guilty, besides guilty or murderer, what would you call him in one word, I don't know, if I could think of a word, he just got away with it, murder with murders, hmm , that's not justice. word that I'm seeing when watching this sociopath documentary, he seems like a sociopath to me, just someone who includes even just the part of the documentary that he does to rock him, oh no, I can see his mother well and he is and I guess the SWAT.

One member of the team was telling stories about how he realized how he was going to get him out of the car, just tell him about himself and also how a Jays criminal defense team swapped all the photographs and put up African American art in his house. he. This whole thing strikes me, it was always about him, it was never about Harry Edwards, I even admitted that when we were on the show yesterday it was always about him, but why are you just focusing on Oh Jay? This is how America treats young children. who show this huge potential to be great athletes, they tell them like you're a little kid and I'm an agent who comes out and says rich man, you really have it, you're really great and then you start hearing this every day for years I'm great, I'm great, I'm great, now you're on a pedestal and maybe you're a great athlete, but you also think you're good enough to get away with it and how many of our athletes don't just OJ of our great athletes seem to get away with it? pretty much anything they want, but no one has ever committed a double murder, although as far as I know I wouldn't tell anyone.

Obviously, there is an Oscar Pistorius in South Africa who has been convicted of shooting his girlfriend, yes, and apparently he had some kind of domestic violence, but sit down, that was easy. I was going to make the point that a lot of this is rooted and domestic violence is the real route, that's where it starts and when you become an athlete, a male athlete. and they tell you how great you are and that you can get away with anything and all these, you know, young women, especially, I'm raining on you, you know I'm going to spend a night with you, whatever it is, whatever, okay, here?

It doesn't comfort me that O'Jays is in prison for something else. Sir, I don't feel sorry for him because he is in prison, but this may surprise you because there was no justice when he was acquitted. I don't think there is real justice in the case either. The 33-year sentence he received, what do you mean by that? Well, you can say it was revenge, but for what he actually did, the crimes he committed and for his criminal tryst of the last 33 years were exaggerated in my opinion, so in other words: do you think Joe J. Simpson has been wronged, but you are, you can put it that way.

I said I'm not sorry for sure, but in terms of the justice system that I was a part of for 32 years and 33 years. sentencing for that type of crime is not the balance of what we are talking about what you are saying correct Gail thanks for coming, you are welcome. I appreciate it and I appreciate you sharing the stories here and it's someone who you are. I know I lived the case and I saw it and I'm delighted that you decided to listen to your son and sit down and tell his stories because I mean, it's important, it's important, it's important, it's important, it's important, it's part of the story of Los Angeles and the nation when Anna and I hope that justice is done regardless of race, color or creed, that's what we want, that's what this country is about, okay, he looks like a man, we all blend in, but it's not the only time it will.

There are probably other places, but there is no perfect justice system anywhere in the world, but ours in the United States is still the best. Gil, thank you for coming, it's my pleasure, thank you, that's Gil Garcetti, the Rich Eisen Show Monday through Friday at noon ET in the audience.