OJ professes love for his dead wife as lawyers squabble

TIM CORNWELL

Los Angeles

RUPERT CORNWELL

Washington

"People don't seem to understand that I loved that woman," were OJ Simpson's first words to the world yesterday after he was acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend Ronald Goldman. "I haven't really had a chance to grieve."

The former sports star only talked briefly about his first night of liberty to a producer at Cable News Network, which had covered most of his trial live. He said he was very happy, and acknowledged a festive atmosphere at his Brentwood, California estate. "But at the same time my kids don't have a mother."

The mostly black jurors in the case, who acquitted Mr Simpson after barely four hours of deliberations, also began speaking out yesterday. They insisted that the evidence, not race, was what made up their minds.

Juror Brenda Moran, sounding defensive and angry as reporters besieged her with questions in the face of polls showing that 50 per cent of Americans disagreed with the verdict, said: "Mr Simpson was not guilty. I didn't have enough evidence to convince me that he was guilty. I know OJ Simpson didn't do it."

She believed the defence's claim that senior detectives in the Los Angeles Police Department could have planted evidence. Asked if the defence had played the race card, she said: "We didn't even deal with that deck.''

As Los Angeles seemed to breathe a deep sigh of relief yesterday, a bizarre collection of Angelenos, from the crush of reporters to a jazz band, kept vigil outside the former football star's estate, struggling for a glimpse of him.

Mr Simpson's advisers have many reasons to be careful over how they orchestrate his return to the world after the verdict, returned by a jury in only four hours after a nine-month trial. He still faces civil law suits from the victims' families, and delicate negotiations with the parents of Nicole over the return of the couple's children, Justin, seven, and Sydney, nine.

The subject of the most widely watched trial in US history had not been at liberty five hours when his high-priced defence team began falling out.

Robert L Shapiro, the original leader of the defence, yesterday told ABC television: "I will not talk to F Lee Bailey again." He said he did not think the man who - at least until Johnny Cochran's advent on the scene - was the most famous trial lawyer in the country should even have been in court.

For Mr Cochran, who supplanted him as lead lawyer, Mr Shapiro also had harsh words, bitterly attacking his use of the race issue in closing arguments and his comparison of a key witness, the former detective Mark Fuhrman, to Adolf Hitler.

All along Mr Shapiro, who is Jewish, insisted that race was not a factor. "But not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck." As for the Hitler comparison, "I was deeply offended ... with Hitler came the Holocaust, and to compare this man in any way to a rogue cop was wrong."

Mr Cochran hit back, saying: "Bob Shapiro has a problem ... his ego has really gotten crushed in the course of this trial. I feel very sorry for him."

Although the daughter of one juror said her mother believed Mr Simpson was probably guilty, but refused to convict him because of the racism of Mark Fuhrman, the main police witness, a third, Lionel Cryer, agreed with Ms Moran that race had not been a factor. The first vote by jurors on Monday morning reached a 10 to 2 verdict in favour of acquittal, he said.

After rechecking the testimony of chauffeur Allan Park, they concluded there were discrepancies in his evidence, and a second vote was unanimous.

The aftermath, page 3

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