March 2, 1995
SHOW: Nightline (ABC 11:30 pm ET)
SECTION: News; Domestic
ANNOUNCER: March 2nd, 1995.
ROSA LOPEZ: My bedroom is there, I don’t know, I can hear only voice, I don’t know what they talk or nothing, because I can hear nothing very well.
Pero [But], I know he’s very nice guy.
TED KOPPEL: [voice-over] The defense had hoped she’d provide them with an alibi.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN, Prosecutor: Do you have a hard time remembering times?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] If I don’t- if I don’t have it written down, how can I remember?
TED KOPPEL: [voice-over] Instead, she’s providing them with contradictions.
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] All I said was that it was after 10:00.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: So you don’t know how long after 10:00?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] No, sir.
TED KOPPEL: [voice-over] Tonight, The State v. O.J. Simpson: the housekeeper on the stand.
ANNOUNCER: This is ABC News Nightline. Reporting from Washington, Ted Koppel.
TED KOPPEL: Last night on this program I told you that we would be joined this evening by Mike Knox, the man who was excused from the O.J. Simpson jury by Judge Ito yesterday. Mr. Knox and I spoke yesterday afternoon, and he agreed to appear on Nightline today. That, however, was before Mr. Knox had spoken to his lawyer, who advised him today that it would not be in his interest just now to appear on television.
Meanwhile, the trial, which seems to be falling a little further behind with each passing day, continued with the cross-examination of Rosa Lopez. Her testi-mony, you may recall, is being videotaped. Ms. Lopez wants to return to her home country of El Salvador as soon as possible. Since the prosecution is in the mid-dle of presenting its case against Mr. Simpson, the jury would have heard the testimony of Ms. Lopez, who is a defense witness, out of sequence. Judge Ito agreed with the prosecution that this might be confusing to the jury and damag-ing to the state’s case, so if and when the jury ever hears what went on in court today, they’ll see and hear it on tape.
After what happened today, the defense may yet choose not to introduce the Lopez testimony. Here’s an update from Judy Muller.
JUDY MULLER, ABC News: [voice-over] Rosa Lopez, who worked as a maid in the home next door to O.J. Simpson’s estate, is a critical alibi witness for the defense. According to her testimony earlier this week, she saw Simpson’s white Bronco parked on Rockingham about the same time the prosecution claims Simpson had driven it to Nicole Brown’s condo to commit murder. Lopez said she noted the time on her bedstand clock as 10:00 P.M., just minutes before she took the dog out to the front yard.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: And what cars did you see parked out there, if any?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] The Bronco.
JUDY MULLER: [voice-over] If Lopez saw that Bronco at approximately 10:15 P.M., as the defense claims, it would seriously undermine the prosecution’s time line for the murders. But after Lopez gave that testimony on Monday, the defense ad-mitted it had failed to turn over some evidence about this witness to the prose-cutors. That evidence included a tape-recorded interview by defense investigator Bill Pavelic. When cross-examination finally began today, prosecutor Chris Dar-den used that interview in an attempt to shake Lopez’s testimony. He implied that investigator Pavelic had basically asked Lopez a series of leading ques-tions to which she merely answered yes.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Mr. Pavelic is the one that first suggested 10:15 or 10:20, correct?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] If that’s what he’s saying, that’s fine.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Okay. But what you told Mr. Pavelic was that you saw the Bronco sometime after 10:00 P.M., and you don’t know how long after 10:00 P.M.
ROSA LOPEZ: Yes, sir.
JUDY MULLER: That vagueness about time undercuts the defense alibi, since Nicole Brown’s condo is only a few minutes’ drive from the Simpson estate, and the de-fendant himself was not seen by anyone between approximately 9:45 P.M. and 11:00 P.M. Another bit of information that surfaced in the material handed over by the defense was the mention by Rosa of a friend named Sylvia Guerra, also a maid who worked in the area and who allegedly had been with Rosa that night.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: The night of the murders, Sylvia came to your house for a cup of coffee?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] Yes, sir.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: The truth is that Sylvia’s never been to the Salingers, cor-rect?
JUDY MULLER: [voice-over] Darden’s clear implication? That Sylvia will be avail-able as a rebuttal witness to impeach Lopez’s videotaped testimony when and if it’s played for the jury, and he implied others would be called to do the same thing. Lopez has testified that Mark Fuhrman was the only detective who ques-tioned her, and that despite Fuhrman’s promise the LAPD would be back, no offi-cers ever returned. Darden asked Lopez if she recognized a picture of LAPD De-tective Otis Marlow.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: So you never spoke to this man before, correct?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] No, sir.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: So if this detective were to testify that you did, he would be lying, correct?
JUDY MULLER: [voice-over] Time after time, Darden caught Lopez in contradic-tions. In earlier testimony, Lopez had said she had not filled out an applica-tion for unemployment insurance. Under cross-examination, Darden confronted her with her completed and signed application, in which she claims she had been fired by her employers, when it appears she may have quit voluntarily. She also gave what appeared to be a false address.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Whose address is that?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] It is my son’s address, sir.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: You weren’t living with your son, were you?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] No.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: So when you filled out the form, you put false information on the form?
JUDY MULLER: [voice-over] Often when Lopez was confronted with inconsistencies in her statements, she would reply that she could not remember.
It became almost a mantra, repeated more than 50 times today, as in this case, when she was asked about her interview by Pavelic.
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] Sir, it’s been a long time since this hap-pened, and I don’t remember.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: What month was this?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] I don’t remember, sir.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Was it in August?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] I don’t remember, sir.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Was it during the summer?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] I don’t remember, sir.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: What year was it?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] I just know that it was in ‘94.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Okay. Do you have a hard time remembering times?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] If I don’t- if I don’t have it written down, how can I remember?
JUDY MULLER: Her ability to remember times is crucial, since that is her only value as an alibi witness for the night of the murders. Darden also painted Lo-pez as a witness who had been coached and coddled by the defense. Darden even asked Lopez if she had been coached during this morning’s 15-minute break.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Well, you had a talk with all of these lawyers back there in the jury room, correct?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] With Mr. Cochran, sir.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Okay. And did you talk about your testimony?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] No, sir.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: What did you talk about?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] We talked about my always telling the truth, sir-
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Hah!
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] -and that’s what I’m saying now, sir.
Judge LANCE ITO: Mr. Darden-
JUDY MULLER: [voice-over] After Judge Ito admonished Darden for laughing out loud at the witness, he ordered the reaction stricken from the videotape record. Throughout the day, Rosa Lopez appeared increasing impatient, as Darden hammered away at her lapses in memory on crucial points.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: You’re not very time-conscious, correct?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] Yes, I am conscious about the time that I waste here.
JUDY MULLER: [voice-over] So, if this is a waste of time, why was Lopez willing to testify for the defense in the first place? Darden raised two possible mo-tives, first, that Lopez disliked her former neighbor, Nicole Simpson. The rea-son? Nicole had allegedly slapped her maid, Michelle, and Michelle was a friend of Rosa.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: And so you were angry at Nicole for having slapped Michelle, correct?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] No. She didn’t hit me. Because if- I would have hit her back.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Did you ever tell anyone that you hated Nicole?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] I didn’t say that I hated her. I said that I didn’t like her.
JUDY MULLER: [voice-over] Darden also suggested another motive for Lopez’s tes-timony: profit. He asked Lopez if she’d been offered money from any of the tab-loids for her story.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: You never discussed receiving $5,000 from the National En-quirer or the Star?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] I wouldn’t be here anymore, sir. With $5,000, I would no longer be here, sir.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Ms. Lopez, isn’t it true that you told Sylvia Guerra that you were going to be paid to testify in this case?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] No, sir.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: And isn’t it true that you told Sylvia Guerra that if she would say that she saw the Bronco, that she could also get paid $5,000?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] I don’t remember having said that, sir.
JUDY MULLER: [voice-over] Darden implied that Sylvia was ready to testify to all of that, and more.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: Did you tell Sylvia that the lawyers would give her $5,000 if she testified? We’ll get there.
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] No, sir.
JUDY MULLER: [voice-over] Later, Johnnie Cochran called that suggestion of a bribe an outrage. In the last exchange of the day, Darden even questioned whether Lopez had lied about her age on her driver’s license or unemployment in-surance application.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN: What year were you born?
ROSA LOPEZ: [through interpreter] Do I have to tell the whole world my age? I wouldn’t like that. All of us women lie about our age, because we don’t like to admit it.
JUDY MULLER: Whether or not Rosa Lopez lied about her age may not seem a criti-cal point, but it comes atop a mountain of contradictions and inconsistencies in her story. She returns tomorrow for more of this grueling cross-examination, af-ter which the defense will try to salvage the credibility of this most crucial witness. Ted?
TED KOPPEL: Thank you, Judy, very much.
When we come back, we’ll be joined by our two legal experts, in just a moment.
[Commercial break]
TED KOPPEL: Joining us now live from our Los Angeles studios, our two ABC News legal consultants, defense lawyer Leslie Abramson and former Los Angeles dis-trict attorney Robert Philibosian.
Leslie, you’re the defense lawyer, so let me ask you. At this point, having seen what you have seen, put yourself in the position of the defense lawyers in the O.J. Simpson case. Do they put this- do they put this testimony on?
LESLIE ABRAMSON, Defense Attorney: Well, you know, Ted, it depends on what are their choices. They don’t seem to have a plethora of alibi witnesses floating around, and you know, we have an expression, you don’t make your witnesses, you don’t create the facts. I don’t know that they don’t have any choice but to put her on. After all, the core story about seeing the Bronco, hearing voices, has not been shaken as yet by Mr. Darden’s cross-examination.
TED KOPPEL: It’s been nicked a little bit, hasn’t it?
LESLIE ABRAMSON: Well, not the core story, because even on direct, what was in-teresting was she never said 10:15, 10:20, which really would have given O.J. Simpson an alibi. She doesn’t give him a complete alibi. And that hurts, osten-sibly, but it also helps a little, because it contradicts the notion that she’s a bought-and-paid-for and coached defense witness. If that were true, she would swear on that stack of Bibles that she had seen the Bronco there at 10:20 P.M. That gives him an alibi. So even though she doesn’t seem to be entirely truthful about every aspect of her life, I don’t know that the Simpson defense has much choice but to use her. I mean, she’s really all they have.
TED KOPPEL: Is it- is it, Bob, entirely up to the defense team? In other words, it is only the defense team that determines whether or not to put her on the stand, on tape or any other way, and if they don’t put on her on the stand, then the prosecution does not have the option of playing anything, right?
ROBERT PHILIBOSIAN, former Los Angeles District Attorney: Ted, that’s absolutely true. If the defense, at the end of this videotaped examination of Rosa Lopez decides they don’t want to use her, they don’t want to put on this videotape in the course of their case, their defense, then it’s gone, and the prosecution can’t bring it in whatsoever. If, however, they do decide to put her on, then they’re going to be confronted with trying to explain all of these inconsisten-cies in her testimony. And the fact that maybe the core story, as Leslie said, may be undisturbed, it’s more than nicked, it is slashed around the edges.
TED KOPPEL: Now, what we have here is sort of a mind-bending situation where this is on tape, but the prosecution has already alluded to a detective and this other housekeeper who may be brought in later on - if, indeed, the defense does decide to put this testimony on the record - to undermine the testimony. So the defense has issued the warning here, and it’s up to the- I mean, the prosecution has issued the warning, and now, Leslie, it’s up to the defense to- to say, ‘Oh-oh, if we put her on, there may be a couple of live witnesses coming on after who say that’s all nonsense.’
LESLIE ABRAMSON: Well, there’s actually more than a couple, there’s really four people that were alluded to in Mr. Darden’s cross-examination. But you should understand, Ted, the defense knows what the prosecution has. F. Lee Bailey was heard, in a press conference this afternoon, talking about Sylvia Guerra’s tape, the taped interview with the police, I take it. So they already know what those witnesses have to say, and they’re still saying that they will go with Rose Lo-pez because she proves that O.J. Simpson couldn’t have committed the murders. That’s what they say. And
indeed, they may go ahead and do that, but all we know right now about these so-called impeaching witnesses is what Mr. Darden has al-luded to in his questioning. Mr. Bailey says that Sylvia Guerra said in her tape, while busy trashing Rosa Lopez, she nevertheless admits that Rosa has al-ways insisted that she saw the Bronco parked outside Mr. Simpson’s estate.
TED KOPPEL: All right. We’re going to take a break. We’ll be back with both of our defense and prosecution specialists in just a moment.
[Commercial break]
TED KOPPEL: And we are back once again with Bob Philibosian and Leslie Abramson.
Bob, not so much by design, but over the past three weeks these Thursday night sessions have sort of become our recap for the previous week in the O.J. Simpson case. Bring us up to date. What have we missed?
ROBERT PHILIBOSIAN: Well, we’ve missed a lot of argument among the lawyers. And I think what we have missed is what the jury has missed. The jury has not seen anything, obviously, because they are sequestered, and I think we have to keep in mind that these jurors now have gone some four or five days without having seen anything, and they’re probably wondering what’s going on. And in terms of what have we missed, we haven’t missed a heck of a lot at this point in time.
TED KOPPEL: Leslie, what about the- what about the impact on the judge and his attitude toward the defense? There was, once again, an item, a piece of audio-tape, which the defense neglected or deliberately did not pass on to the prose-cution, which they are required by California law to do. Did the judge, in any way, punish them for that?
LESLIE ABRAMSON: Not yet, and- I suspect that he will. He seemed to be very un-sympathetic to their arguments of inadvertence and negligence and oversight. And indeed, at this point, I think, frankly, he should be, because even if it is negligence, he had ordered them to carefully go through their files. So I think that they have lessened credibility with him, but above and beyond that, he is going to fashion some kind of punishment to make them more careful in the fu-ture.
TED KOPPEL: What is it with this group of lawyers? I mean, they have been re-ferred to, not by themselves, but by others as the ‘dream team,’ a lot of high-powered lawyers. Why is it that they have been- I mean, let’s take them at their own word, that this was inadvertent, they didn’t intend to do it. In that case, it is a form of incompetence. Why?
ROBERT PHILIBOSIAN: Ted, it can’t be incompetence, and it can’t be inadvertent. As Leslie pointed out, Rosa Lopez is one of their most important witnesses. They don’t have any witnesses. They have Mary Anne Gerchas, who they probably won’t put on the stand now because of all of her problems. Remember, she’s the one who said she saw four men leaving the vicinity of Nicole Brown’s condominium that night. She’s also one who’s now been arrested and charged with fraud. They have Mary Anne Gerchas and Rosa Lopez, and Rosa Lopez is not doing very well. But Rosa Lopez was a key witness, so when the investigator interviewed her in July, and he had that tape, I cannot believe that he didn’t gleefully turn that tape over to Mr. Shapiro, who put it in his safe to keep it, because it was very im-portant. How could they say they didn’t get it?
TED KOPPEL: Well, very seriously now, you’re talking to a lot of people around the country who say to themselves, ‘If lawyers intentionally lie to the court, there has to be some consequence for that, doesn’t there?’
ROBERT PHILIBOSIAN: We don’t know if they intentionally lied to the court.
TED KOPPEL: Well, you’re saying it wasn’t by inadvertence, and it’s not ineffi-ciency. I don’t know what other options there are. The only one that leaps to my mind is, they did it deliberately, in which case they lied to the court.
ROBERT PHILIBOSIAN: Well, Mr. Shapiro has offered to take responsibility for not disclosing the evidence. In fact, Mr. Uelmen came into court yesterday and said, ‘We’re here in sackcloth and ashes to make apologies.’ Of course, Marcia Clark, I think, had the best remark of the day when she said, ‘I don’t care if Mr. Uel-men shows up in a dress, it doesn’t make any difference.’ And she accused them of lying to the court. If they did lie to the court, the sanctions can be very, very serious, including action by the state bar.
TED KOPPEL: Now-
LESLIE ABRAMSON: Ted, can I suggest- can I suggest something here, just a sec-ond?
TED KOPPEL: Sure.
LESLIE ABRAMSON: I know all of these lawyers, but I have to tell you that this is not a team that’s put together the way a defense team ordinarily is. In my humble opinion, there are too many cooks, too many generals, and- and too much work was delegated to the little soldiers in the field.
There is a sense that we all get, we who do this, who are professionals in this field, that this is an unusually disorganized group. I know all these lawyers. I don’t believe that any of them were deliberately hiding evidence or lying to the court. But I have long- for a long time have had the feeling that things are not exactly under control on the defense. They went to trial too quickly, they were a team that was assembled by the choice and desire and taste of the client, and not neces-sarily by their own desire of who they want to work with. The power in this team shifted from Mr. Shapiro to Mr. Cochran, the files shifted from Mr. Shapiro’s office to Mr. Cochran, and I think an awful lot of stuff got lost, misplaced, and overlooked in the shuffle.
TED KOPPEL: We-
LESLIE ABRAMSON: I don’t think it’s deliberate.
TED KOPPEL: -we’ve got only a few seconds left, Bob. You said they’ve really only got two witnesses. They’ve got one other thing going for them, and that is the case against the LAPD. They’re going to be getting back to that one of these days, aren’t they?
ROBERT PHILIBOSIAN: Oh, yes. They are going to try, and they have tried to in-dict the Los Angeles Police Department. But they have to present something from their side, and they don’t have much to present from their side. If all they have to go on is trashing the LAPD, and attempting to trash the DNA evidence, that’s not going to be good enough.
TED KOPPEL: All right.
ROBERT PHILIBOSIAN: That’s not going to be enough to raise their reasonable doubt.
TED KOPPEL: Bob Philibosian, Leslie Abramson, again, thanks very much. I’ll be back in just a moment.
[Commercial break]
TED KOPPEL: Tomorrow, on 20/20, he’s the man who shot and killed a graffiti van-dal, and then went free. Was the shooter a hero or a villain? That story on 20/20 tomorrow, on this ABC station.
And that’s our report for tonight. I’m Ted Koppel in Washington. For all of us here at ABC News, good night.
The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distri-bution and transmission deadlines, it has not yet been proofread against video-tape.
