I arranged my day around the sentencing of O.J. Simpson in Las Vegas. Over the 13 years I was involved with him, he never ceased to fascinate me. Actually, I felt nervous when I flew out to Las Vegas about how we would react to each other.
I am usually the first person in court in the morning at all the trials I’ve covered. I read The New York Times until the people started to drift in 20 minutes later. What I discovered during the recent trial is that O.J. is an early bird too. We were the only two there. He finally said, “Mr. Dunne.” I replied, “Mr. Simpson.” We did not shake hands. I asked him about his two sisters, Shirley and Carmelita. He was astonished that I remembered their names. When my son Griffin Dunne came with me to court one day, I heard O.J. say to his sister, “I never knew Griffin Dunne was Dominick’s son.”
We never discussed the case. He wanted to tell me about his children. His daughter is graduating from Boston University this year and has been on the honor roll in her class. I must admit I was touched, as I’m always touched by father/daughter stories. As much as I feared the wrath of Fred Goldman, I felt I was beginning to like the guy. Worse, I remembered the awful photographs of the nearly severed head of Nicole Brown-Simpson while his daughter and son were sleeping upstairs.
For me, the harshness of the sentence for a relatively unimportant crime doesn’t matter. If it is an atonement for the murders he got away with 13 years ago, I think he deserves his punishment.
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