LAPD Criticized for Leniency in Handling Case

It was no secret: O.J. Simpson was in trouble, facing evidence that mounted daily. He was the prime suspect--apparently the only suspect--in a violent double murder that galvanized world attention.

Yet law enforcement agents, who at one point had put him in handcuffs, lost him for more than six hours on Friday. The legendary running back, known for elusive moves during a record-breaking football career, made the move of all moves Friday after receiving an extraordinary degree of freedom from police investigators because of his worldwide fame, veteran prosecutors and legal scholars said.

It was only after a lengthy pursuit, joined after police traced the cellular phone in the sports utility vehicle he was using, that Simpson finally was arrested at his Brentwood home Friday night.

The 46-year-old Simpson, who had been expected to surrender to authorities on charges that he killed his ex-wife and a male friend last Sunday night, was not even under police surveillance when he disappeared Friday morning.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti later told reporters that Simpson would have been arrested if authorities had known his whereabouts. But Garcetti, whose office is responsible for prosecuting Simpson, conceded that “many of us, perhaps, had empathy to some extent.”

“We saw, perhaps, the falling of an American hero,” Garcetti said. “But let’s remember. We have two innocent people who have been brutally killed.”

Even Simpson’s surrender--engineered after he sat in the vehicle with a gun for almost an hour--seemed unusual. The friend who had been driving Simpson apparently served as a go-between, walking back and forth several times between the vehicle and the house, where police officers were stationed in the doorway.

Simpson’s disappearance shocked not only the police but also many experts on the justice system, who say they cannot remember a double-murder suspect ever being allowed to surrender himself.

Why he was given such freedom was probably a policy decision based on a number of factors--including his celebrity status, the reputation of his attorney, Robert Shapiro, and the belief that a voluntary surrender lessens the risk of a struggle, legal experts said.

“It cuts down on costs (and) it’s less embarrassing to the suspect, who’s not convicted yet,” said veteran criminal defense attorney Milton Grimes, best known for representing beaten motorist Rodney G. King. “If you have a person who’s an unknown . . . you have one set of circumstances; and if you have someone who’s well-known, and the person has strong ties to the community, then you’re going to have another set of circumstances.

“There are no hard and fast rules.”

Grimes pointed out that the day after the slayings Simpson returned voluntarily from Chicago at the request of police.

Several veteran criminal lawyers said they have negotiated similar voluntary surrenders, although never in a murder case. But among some experts, there seemed no question that Simpson was afforded courtesies far beyond those of any other homicide suspect in recent memory.

Had Simpson been just another poor, anonymous murder suspect in South-Central Los Angeles, for example, he would have been handcuffed and forcibly hauled into custody, and perhaps much earlier in the investigation, said public defender Jeff Brown of San Francisco.

“He would have been in the can so goddamn fast it would have made your head spin, to put it mildly,” Brown said.

Other critics expressed similar viewpoints, including members of the LAPD who spoke on the condition that they remain anonymous.

“There is a level of embarrassment, obviously,” said one veteran detective, who said the evidence-gathering procedures used to investigate Simpson were typical of those used in other cases. “The difference is that, in other cases, we get a warrant and an arrest. (A voluntary surrender) is not the general practice.”

Former LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates said he would have hated to arrest the superstar, but he would have done so.

“He should have been picked up a long time ago,” Gates said. “You can blame the district attorney a little bit and you can blame the Police Department a lot.

“You have a brutal, brutal murder,” he said. “I know they had probable cause.”

A member of the district attorney’s office, who declined to be named, said: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a case where there was a double homicide, where the defense was allowed to surrender their client. The cops go out and get the guy.

“You’ve got a guy charged with a double homicide,” said the prosecutor, who has extensive experience in murder cases. “Don’t you think it’s naive to assume he’ll just turn himself in?”

Robert Shapiro, Simpson’s attorney, said that earlier this week, he had met with officers from the LAPD’s robbery-homicide division and agreed to make his client available for an interview or, if necessary, surrender. The lawyer said he received a call from police at 8:30 a.m. Friday and agreed to surrender his client.

Garcetti told reporters that authorities did not know Simpson’s exact location on Friday before his scheduled surrender at 11 a.m.

“If, in fact, we had known where Mr. Simpson was, he would have been arrested,” Garcetti said. “We would not have asked for him to surrender. . . . We would have arrested him immediately if we had known where he was.”

However, a number of law enforcement experts who had been closely following the case questioned why Simpson was allowed so much freedom to come and go even as the evidence against him grew. On Thursday, for example, Simpson attended the funeral of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, while the news media reported around the world that blood was found in O.J. Simpson’s car, on his driveway and on a glove recovered from his Brentwood home.

Private investigator Don Crutchfield, who was en route Friday to the murder scene to continue his own work on the case, said police had good reason to take Simpson into custody even while he was in Chicago, the day after the bodies were found.

“You’re not talking about a white-collar crime, where somebody embezzled some money,” Crutchfield said. “You’ve got a brutal double murder. This is highly unusual. They say he’s never been afforded any special treatment but . . . I don’t remember anybody ever being treated like this, whether they’re a celebrity or not a celebrity. It’s unbelievable what they’ve done here.”

Stan Goldman, a professor of law at Loyola University in Los Angeles, agreed there was probably sufficient evidence to arrest Simpson much earlier.

“Under those circumstances, Goldman said, “either you go and get him right away or you keep him under very tight surveillance.

“I think his celebrity status may have had something to do with their not arresting him earlier. And . . . it’s apparent that they didn’t watch him very carefully.”

Goldman said that a series of unsuccessful trial verdicts in Los Angeles--among them the prosecution of Eric and Lyle Menendez, the initial trial of the attackers of Rodney G. King, and others--may have caused authorities to take a more cautious approach to the Simpson investigation.

“That gave him days and days to prepare to leave before they brought him in,” Goldman said.

To some, that careful treatment appeared to represent a pattern. There have been numerous complaints that Simpson received unusually lenient treatment even in 1989, when Nicole Simpson accused her then-husband of beating her, kicking her and threatening her life. She was hospitalized after that attack, and prosecutors requested that Simpson be sentenced to a month in jail.

After Simpson pleaded no contest to spousal battery charges, Municipal Judge Ronald Schoenberg allowed him to pick his own psychiatrist and receive counseling by phone.

“Counseling instead of jail time is not that unusual, but to have it done over the phine, I’ve never heard of that,” Goldman said.

However, the murder case is far removed from that earlier incident, a number of attorneys pointed out. Veteran criminal lawyer Barry Levin said the decision to allow Simpson to remain free while the evidence was collected was probably a deliberate tactical decision that enabled investigators to gather statements from him, on the premise that Simpson was only a witness.

“Those statements, if not true, will come back to haunt him,” Levin said. “That was a wonderful ploy, and they got him in there for 4 1/2 hours (of interviews). . . . These detectives are the best. They play every angle.”

On the other hand, Levin added, police should have realized that Simpson was a greater flight risk if he understood that he would probably not be freed on bail.

“There was probably no commitment (that Simpson could get bail), or they were told it was a no-bail case,” Levin said. “Perhaps law enforcement should have realized at the moment that it was going (to be) a no-bail case that he might not be so inclined to turn himself in.”

For as many times as celebrities have been implicated in criminal cases, outcries have followed that the system has given them special treatment because of their fame.

Women’s groups were outraged in the fall of 1991 when former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was allowed to surrender to face charges of raping an 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant--and then was planning to fight Evander Holyfield for the title anyway after posting bail. The fight ultimately was canceled.

Director Roman Polanski’s legal troubles became an international cause celebre after he fled to Europe in 1978 after he pleaded guilty to charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl. Even before he fled, the court had allowed Polanski to go to Tahiti to film a movie while awaiting sentencing.

Authorities found themselves red-faced after Marlon Brando’s daughter, Cheyenne, slipped out of Southern California in 1990 following the shooting death of her boyfriend by her brother, Christian. She was later apprehended in France and charged with complicity.

In 1921, allegations of favoritism arose after a murder charge against actor Roscoe (Fatty) Arbuckle was reduced to manslaughter in the death of an actress.

Times staff writers John Hurst, Greg Krikorian, Eric Lichtblau, Ted Rohrlich and Henry Weinstein contributed to this story.