F. Lee Bailey: Dog Walker Would Have Shown O.J. Simpson Wasn’t a Murderer
F. Lee Bailey is taking issue with a decision by the late lawyer Johnnie Cochran in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson.
Bailey, a disbarred lawyer, writes that Simpson was “in fact totally innocent of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman” and offers little-known evidence supporting his assertion. He makes the argument in a 46-page paper posted at the website of his consulting company, according to the Portland Press Herald and the New York Daily News.
Dog walker Tom Lang may have been the most important witness in the case, but his testimony was never used due to a decision by Johnnie Cochran, Bailey writes in the third portion (PDF) of his argument. Lang could have answered the question, “If Simpson didn’t do it, who did?” Bailey asserts.
Lang reports seeing a blonde woman arguing with a man near a white pickup—a Ford F-350, not the Bronco owned by Simpson—on the night of the murder. Another man nearby had a “menacing” posture, and he stood in a partially crouched position. Later Lang realized he had probably seen Nicole Brown Simpson. Bailey concedes, however, that Lang admitted he could not have identified either man in a lineup, and he couldn’t decisively say that neither was O.J. Simpson. Cochran was worried prosecutors would argue the pickup was indeed a Bronco, even though Lang had owned 11 Ford trucks and knew the models.
Bailey also makes these arguments, according to the New York Daily News account:
• Simpson “has no history of resorting to raging violence to solve his emotional problems.”
• Simpson’s suicide attempt was spurred by his distress over his wife’s death.
• The famous Bronco chase was actually a “high-tension escort” rather than a chase.
Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison for a botched robbery to recover his own sports memorabilia. “I am convinced that he sits in jail today,” Bailey writes, “because a jury in Nevada believed it was punishing him because he ‘beat the rap’ for these two murder charges.”
Bailey hopes to expand the document into a book. Maine’s Portland Press Herald published a profile of Bailey in December.
