Lawyer Alan Dershowitz-whose clients have included O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson, Claus von Bulow, Leona Helmsley and Patty Hearst-has written his first novel. In “The Advocate’s Devil” (Warner Books), an attorney, Abe Ringel, faces an ethical crisis when he believes his client-a famous basketball player charged with rape-is guilty. Hmmmmmmmmm. . .
Q-How close is Abe Ringel to you?
A-It’s no coincidence that Ringle is my mother’s family name and Abe is my Hebrew name. But it’s not autobiographical. I’m more skeptical than Abe.
Q-Is the case made up?
A-No, it’s based on a real case I had when I was a young lawyer. I got someone off whom I was convinced was a murderer. It made me feel just awful. I swore to myself if he ever committed another crime, I’d quit the profession. Thank God he never did, but it took an enormous toll on me.
Q-Abe agonizes over defending a guilty client. I thought once you decide to be a defense lawyer, the agonizing was over. You’re committed to getting your client off, period.
A-That’s the perception because that’s the face we present to the public. But if you’re a decent human being and you’ve been a victim of crime yourself and you have family members that have been victims of crime, you feel tremendous turmoil. We’re supposed to say, “It’s not our job to worry about society, and everyone is entitled to a defense.” That’s all true, at an intellectual level, but at an emotional level, this takes a terrible toll, which is why some lawyers don’t want to know if their clients are guilty.
Q-Do you?
A-I want to know, but I don’t want to know from my client. Clients lie all the time, even when they’re innocent. They lie about everything, because, remember, clients don’t just want you to win, they want you to love them, they want you to think they deserve the Nobel Prize, and they’re prepared to make up stories. But once a lawyer hears a story from a client, he’s locked in.
Q-So what do you do?
A-I say to the client, “What did the police do? What did they say to you? What is the best case you think they can make against you?” I have them tell it to me in a third-person way. For me, that’s better than saying, “Did you do it?” I’ve never had a client say to me, “I did it.” I don’t expect them to tell me the truth. I want to figure it out for myself.
Q-And if you figure out they did it, you can still allow them to plead not guilty?
A-I have to if that’s what they want. I’m just their representative, not their conscience. I would never do many of the things in my personal life that I have to do as a lawyer. I like to say, “I’m not a tough, mean person, I just play one in the courtroom.”
Q-Example?
A-Twenty-five years ago, if I were defending a man charged with rape, and I knew he was guilty, and the woman victim was a sexually liberated young woman, I would be obliged morally to question her about her sexual background, knowing the jury was going to say, “She had it coming.” I hated that. I have a daughter, I have a mother. That’s horrible, but I wouldn’t have had the right not to do that. Now, thank God, I’ve helped change the law, and defense attorneys can’t do that.
I have the same feeling about the abuse excuse. If I had represented the Menendez brothers or Lorena Bobbitt I would have had to raise that defense. But personally, I don’t believe in it. Lorena Bobbitt is Dirty Harry in a dress. Even if people have been abused, if they have the option of leaving, they don’t have the right to get a gun and kill their parents in cold blood. I want to change the law so I don’t have to do that.
Q-One of your characters says she thinks the Menendez brothers are guilty. Is she speaking for you?
A-Yes. I think they’re guilty as sin.
Q-You said you like to find out for yourself whether your clients did it. Do you know if O.J. did it?
A-I’ll go to my grave not knowing whether most of my clients were guilty or innocent, because in most cases there are gray areas. Claus von Bulow was a gray area. I don’t believe he injected his wife with insulin, but maybe he didn’t call the cops on time, maybe he didn’t do everything to prevent her from trying to kill herself.
Q-There aren’t any gray areas with O.J.
A-No. I’m keeping an open mind with him. I’ve seen the evidence, I’ve spoken to him, I’ve heard his side. I will make a decision at the appropriate time.
Q-What’s your role in his case?
A-I was brought in as a strategic trial consultant and I’m also an appellate planner. I’m the insurance policy, the parachute.
Q-Is there a tiny little part of you that hopes he’ll be found guilty so you can do the appeal?
A-Oh no, not at all. There’s a part of me that hopes he’s found guilty if he is guilty. That’s true in every case. I’m on the side of the victim. I don’t root for the criminal.
Q-Even if he’s your client?
A-There’s always a part of me that wants to see the son of a bitch get what he deserves.
Q-But you’ll still give him your best defense?
A-That’s the conflict. As a human being, you want the truth to come out; as an advocate, you want to win. That kind of cognitive dissonance is very hard for a moral person to deal with.
Q-Did you know (Simpson) before you were hired to defend him?
A-No. But I’ve gotten to know him very well. I’ve spent hours and hours with him. Everybody who meets him has the same reaction: It’s impossible to conceive that he could have done something as horrible and brutal as what happened to these two people.
Q-Is it possible to conceive that he could have done something as horrible and brutal as beat up his wife, throw her out of a car and terrorize her the way he did in that 911 call?
A-When you hear the whole 911 call, you hear what is unfortunately all too typical of domestic discord. There was no violence. What happened is she had come to his house, seen a picture of his girlfriend in a frame that used to hold a picture of her and she freaked out. She went home. He went after her. While he was flipping through her picture book, he found her boyfriend’s pictures and they got into a shouting match. How many American married and certainly divorced couples haven’t done as bad? The likelihood that that kind of act will result in murder is statistically insignificant. The vast, vast, majority, 99.99 percent of abusers and batterers, do not commit murder.
Q-Have you ever sat around with Johnnie Cochran and Robert Shapiro and F. Lee Bailey and said, “So, guys, what do we think? Did he do it?”
A-That’s not the way the discussion comes up. What we do is say, “Gee, how do you explain this evidence?” “How do you explain that evidence?” And then someone will say, “But he couldn’t have done it. Just look at him.”
Q-Oh, come on.
A-You may find it naive, but when you get to know someone-I’m making a psychological point, not a moral point-it’s hard to believe he could do something as brutal as this when you sit across the table from him and see tears in his eyes when he talks about his family.
Q-Maybe he’s crying because he’s really sorry he’s in so much trouble.
A-Wait until all the evidence comes in and then make up your mind. Remember you’ve only heard what the prosecution wants you to hear.
Q-Are there going to be any bombshells?
A-Every criminal trial has surprises.
Q-Will there be a defense, other than he didn’t do it?
A-Certainly the defense has no obligation to present one. This is not “Perry Mason.” No one is going to bring the real killer into the courtroom. That’s the job of the L.A.P.D.-a job they haven’t done well.
Q-Maybe they did it very well.
A-No, we know they didn’t. We know they didn’t pursue leads and that’s a part of our case. We know they made a decision on Day 1 who they thought did it, before they had any DNA results, before they had any of what they now believe is evidence. They made up their mind and shut down their investigation.
Q-But you had your own investigation going with an 800 number asking for information and offering a reward.
A-And we had lots and lots of calls and we pursued them, but we’re not the cops.
Q-If you had gotten a hot tip that exonerated your client you would have pursued it.
A-Do you know how many unsolved crimes there are in America? We can’t be expected to solve this murder. All we can be expected to do is present evidence that contradicts the state’s theory that he did it and he did it alone. They have to explain lots and lots of things before they can persuade a jury that that’s true beyond a reasonable doubt.
You know, we won the Von Bulow case, not because the jurors at the end were convinced he was innocent, but they were convinced he couldn’t have injected her with insulin. In other words, they rejected the state’s theory of the murder, and in this case, the state is going to have to prove that he did it and he did it alone. That is going to be difficult in light of the coroner’s own statement that he thought the knife wounds were consistent with two different knives. Where is the murder weapon? Where is the clothing? If there was so much blood, how come all they found were microscopic traces? I’m not going to give away our game plan here, but you’ve only heard part of the case.
Q-A lawyer won’t put his client on the witness stand if he knows he’s going to lie, so if O.J. testifies, can we assume it means at least his attorneys believe him?
A-That’s a fair assumption.
Q-And if he doesn’t take the stand?
A-The Constitution requires that you not assume anything. Most defendents, particularly those with a prior record, don’t take the stand.
Q-Does it help to be a celebrity if you’re in trouble with the law?
A-It cuts both ways. Patricia Hearst never would have been prosecuted if she were not the daughter of a famous person. You don’t get prosecuted when you’re kidnapped, raped, brainwashed and kept in a closet. I think that’s also true of Mike Tyson. And Leona Helmsley. Whoever heard of prosecuting someone who has a dispute with the government over one-tenth of 1 percent of their taxes? She was prosecuted largely because people thought she was a bitch, and that’s a very sexist concept, whether Mrs. Gingrich uses it or the court. But at the same time, celebrities have more money, they have more access to legal counsel, they can do investigations. If Claus von Bulow hadn’t been rich, he would be in jail today because there would have been no way he could have gotten Nobel quality scientists to re-examine the government’s entire case from the first trial and prove there was no insulin in his wife’s body.
Q-How is (von Bulow) these days?
A-I had dinner with him a few weeks ago in London. He invited me to a party, the fanciest gathering I’ve been to in my life. He travels in very classy social circles, and if I thought he did it, I’d be furious. I’d punch him in the nose because he would have pulled one over on me.
Q-If he remarried and his new wife wound up in a permanent coma under mysterious circumstances, how would you feel?
A-Horrible. A part of me would feel responsible, and I warn my clients, “If you ever, ever dare to get in trouble again, (A) I will, of course, not defend you and (B) I will turn against you viciously.” I don’t know if it has an impact on them, but I’ve never had a client who’s done it again.
Q-Do you stay in touch with your old clients?
A-I do, with all of them except Leona Helmsley.
Q-Why not her?
A-Well, would you stay in touch with Leona Helmsley?
Q-Do lawyers have groupies?
A-I don’t, except Danny Bonaduce told me he follows all my cases. I get lots of letters, but most of them are hate letters. I have a whole wall of my office filled with them.
Q-While Abe (in “The Advocate’s Devil”) is involved in this case, he has some sexual problems.
A-Totally fictional. I’m serious about that. I take very seriously the separation of my personal and professional life.
Q-Are they going to make your book into a movie?
A-Yes.
Q-Who would you like to play Abe?
A-Al Pacino.
Q-Can you be a mensch and a lawyer?
A-Maybe the answer is no.
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AN `ADVOCATE’S’ SAMPLING
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`Although one part of Abe wished that Campbell could have filed him, another part wanted desperately to continue as Campbell’s trial lawyer. Like every lawyer, Abe dreamed about that one great legal victory that would propel him into the casebooks that law students read and the popular TV talk shows that everyone watched. Few lawyers achieved that dream, but those who did-Abe thought to himself-had it made for life. They would always be known as “the lawyer who won the `X’ case.” F. Lee Bailey would always be known as the lawyer who won the Sheppard case; Howard Weitzman as the lawyer who won the De Lorean case; William Kunstler as the lawyer who won the Chicago 7 case; Roy Black as the lawyer who won the William Kennedy Smith case. And a part of Abe Ringel wanted to be known as the lawyer who won the Campbell case.” – From “The Advocate’s Devil,” by Alan Dershowitz.
