Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments

A fascinating book into how high priced lawyers can convince any jury your Mother is worse than a serial killer. Essentially that is the conclusion I got from the book.

Some of the stories are too long and complicated with lots of names, so that is why I am giving it 4 instead of 5 stars. It also was not clear to me what exactly happened in some of the murders, particularly the last one on Safre.

Most of these pieces appeared in Vanity Fair, and the overlap in some of them about the O.J. Simpson trial is left in. About 10 minutes worth of editing could have solved that problem. Otherwise, this is a passionate account of Dunne's view of several of the high profile cases he's made a career of covering since exiting the movie business. The most interesting is the case of his own daughter's murderer, but the Menendez stories and the Michael Skakel case make fascinating prose. Definitely worth reading, even now, long after these trials ended.

Dominick Dunne received a lifeline from a Washington Post reporter seeking to report the story of David Begelman's forgery. Dunne felt he was a Hollywood failure, and so, he admits, the desire for revenge drove him to help the reporter get his story. In 1982 Dunne's daughter, Dominique, was murdered. He felt the trial of her killer was a travesty. The author's first magazine piece for VANITY FAIR concerned that trial. Dunne covered the retrial of Claus von Bulow. Trials can be boring, but people involved in them are not. He had gone to Hollywood to work on PLAYHOUSE 90 with Martin Manulis.

In writing about the trial focusing on Dominique's death, Dunne repeats the adage that the murder victim is always placed on trial. In trials, journalists jockey for position. Trial-going in Hollywood highlights dysfunctions in the criminal justice system. Where the fact-finder fails to be impartial, and/or where the lawyer-teams opposing each other are disproportionate in terms of resources, results are skewed. A trial, of course, is theater. The glare of publicity never seems to serve the ends of justice; but, of course, injustices may also take place in relative obscurity.

What Dominick Dunne brings to trial reportage is his experience as the parent of a murder victim and his knowledge of the customs of the entertainment industry. Dunne reports that in the trial of O.J. Simpson the public sent bouquets of flowers to the participants. Juries don't like female prosecutors but do like female defense attorneys. The author believes an effective defense attorney must possess a mean streak. Most of the book's chapters are devoted to the Simpson case. Monte Carlo has been described as a sunny place for shady people. Edmond Safer, a financier, died there in a fire. A Dunne fiction work, A SEASON IN PURGATORY, was based on the Martha Moxley murder case. When he wrote his novel, that case had not been solved, even after some twenty odd years.

I have never written a review like this before, and feel compelled to share my thoughts, honest and forward, to anyone considering reading this book.

I picked it up and could not put it down.
I wish I had never read it.

It is a book that is so terribly sad, especially with the story of the author's daughter's murder, and it is written with a skill that is not often seen: a combination of honesty, pithy expressions, pain, joy, and a constellation of emotions that all masterfully come together.

Why do I wish I had never read it?

If you have any connection to the court system, you already know that lying is so common place that it is frightening. People swear an oath and lie with impunity, but reading of the injustice, for instance, that this man suffered in his daughter's murder, or all the spin that OJ's "dream team" used, in short clips to reporters, feeding the public red herrings; deliberate lies, knowing that public influence will reach even a sequested jury, is just horrible to read. The glam of hollywood is sickening and reading about how terribly hated white people were by blacks supporting OJ...knowing that this woman, who was brutally murdered along with an innocent bystander, only to hear that a male black juror could say, "she got what she deserved" is sickening. It brought back all those terrible emotions as race relations in 1994 revealed a black on white hatred that I was, quite frankly, ignorant of its depth.

Reading of wealthy scoundrels like Johnnie Cochrin and others is very difficult. You wonder whether or not these talented men possessed a conscience. The only comforting thought it that in the afterlife, Providence will decree justice. The man with the long record of violence against women, of which record the judge (wink, wink to the defense attorney he was buddies with) would not allow to be admitted, served 2 1/2 years for the murder of a bright and wonderful young woman is almost more than the reader can bear. Dunne brings you into this pain; perhaps as close as a stranger can come to feeling the maddening frustration that he and his family felt during this trial. How Dunne was able to do this, is beyond me, but he did it. Don't read the book if you cannot bear to be that close to pain.

It reminds me of the story of Bob Dylan, giving an interview in 1974, after many years of not talking to the press. The woman interviewing him starts off with, "I just want to say that I really enjoy your new album, Blood on the Tracks". Dylan says, "I can't understand anyone enjoying that much pain" and gets up and walks out.

I wanted to stop reading, quite often, but continued.

Reader: proceed with caution. It is not about race, as people of decency, no matter what race, will be terribly upset by what they read.

Of all the commentators I trusted Dunne's insight because I believe it came from a person who knew Hollowood. While the book covers many other cases I believe he gave us more insight on O.J. and the kind of man he was. After reading his observations I have to wonder how Judge Ito allowed this circus to go on.