Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments

Dunne moves in circles that I scarely knew existed anymore. Well, I knew they were around of course, just not in my world. He exists often in a world that the Society pages in our newspapers once fawned over. Those days, as Joe Epstein argues in "Snobbery" are largely gone. However, Dunne moves in what is left of it. But, what sets him apart (makes him far more than a name dropper that some ridicule him for being) is his compassion for victims. His own loss is moving. He is funny, warm, honest, and never pulls his punches. He is elegant and real. This book of essays is well worth your time.

This is a collection of articles that appeared in Vanity Fair on some of the biggest crime stories of the rich and famous. This is not a series of "whodonits.." Instead Dunne weaves the tales of the people and personalities involved in each case. From the Menendez Brothers, to OJ, Claus Van Bulow, and Michael Skakel, we see the people behind the facades. Very, very entertaining pieces.

Much of the book centers on the OJ Simpson trial. I am sick of the OJ trail, but I found these articles interesting. Especially worth reading is how Dunne describes the culture of Los Angeles and its elite through these revealing articles. So even if you're tired of OJ, you'll likely find these pieces relevant and interesting.

After listening to Dunne on Larry King Live, I was very interested in his chronicles of some of the high profile murders of recent times.

Dunne is a good writer, entertaining, and worth reading. However, there was nothing new in this book. The man does get around socially and subsequently, he gets his story. While Dominick Dunne speaks with an honest voice, he's still singing the same old tune. Maybe I'm tired of hearing about OJ? I remain baffled about the title because Justice was certainly never accomplished for many of the rich and famous of which he writes. Ho Hum...

Dunne's approach is to size up each person he encounters and either vouch for that person's good character or to engage in broad-gauge character assassination. He either likes you or he doesn't. Dunne never met a cop or prosecutor he didn't like, and Dunne never considers the possibility that inept cops arrested the wrong guy.

The glaring exception to Dunne's principle that the defendant is always guilty is the Safra murder in Monaco, where the defendant was an American male nurse who, in Dunne's opinion, was railroaded by incompetent or corrupt Monegasque cops and prosecutors. Yet in the February 2003 issue of Vanity Fair magazine, published after this book, Dunne does a 180-degree turn and talks about how, once the trial began, it was obvious that the male nurse was guilty. One might hope that Dunne would get a dose of humility from this experience, but it's not likely. Dunne is always 100% sure he is right and everyone else is wrong.

Dunne's unquestioning support of all cops, good and bad, is most apparent in his unwavering friendship with Mark Fuhrman, the detective who played the pivotal role in the O.J. Simpson trial, and who was found to have perjured himself regarding whether he had ever used the 'n-word.' Granted, lying about such a thing is not equal to murder, but Dunne doesn't grasp how damaging Fuhrman's perjury was to the prosecution's case. When a detective lies about a small thing, it is logical that he should not be trusted about larger things. Dunne just doesn't get it. That Fuhrman would lie about something under oath on national TV, knowing that he had an ex-lover with a tape recording proving the contrary, suggests that Fuhrman is not quite the genius that Dunne portrays him as being.

The book is mainly a reprinting of Vanity Fair columns, of which 10 (of 18) chapters are about the Simpson trail. The most moving chapter is the first, where he recounts the murder trial of his own daughter. The author is correct in his theme that the criminal justice system is a mess, but anyone looking for a thoughtful analysis will be disappointed. At times, Dunne shows a gift for narrative flow; at other times, he comes across as little more than a self-important gossip columnist and name-dropper.

Truman Capote he's not, but with his insider status on the periphery of the worlds of the rich and/or famous, Dunne serves up his observations from the various murder trials involving people with last names like Bloomingdale, DuPont, and Simpson, and with ties to families with names like Kennedy, in a dishy and slightly catty style that makes you feel like you're gossiping with your best friend over brunch. It's a fun, revealing read, especially if you haven't read much of Dunne's trial diaries for "Vanity Fair" magazine. If you have, then these stories will not be new to you as they were previously printed in the magazine. Oh, the book contains about 10, yes 10, chapters on the OJ Simpson trial and aftermath, and Dunne doesn't have any pretensions of journalistic objectivity about the guilt or innocence of the people whose trials he covers.

Perhaps what makes Dunne's diaries most interesting is not just that they offer a glimpse into the lives of the very famous, or those whose wealth is almost beyond the average person's imagining, but that the glimpse offered is often a "warts and all" portrait that shows not just the fabulous wealth that many of these people enjoy, but also their faliure, bad decisions and unhappy love lives. While Dunne provides satisfaction to our voyeuristic tendencies (and in a manner that is perhaps a bit classier than any of the "reality shows" that pollute the airwaves and that more people watch than might be willing to admit it) he also serves to humanize people who are otherwise larger than life figures, whose lives have taken on such mythological proportions that we forget that they are people who eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, get sick, get old, fall in love, stuggle with mental and emotional problems (as well as alcoholism and drug addition) and experience faliure just like the rest of us.

The final portrait is one of the rich as like us and at the same time not like us. After all, they may suffer many of the same misfortunes as mere mortals and make the same bad decisions, but wealth often cushions the consuences, and sometimes cancels them altogether - even in the case of murder. After all, a DuPont whose a crack addict is, at the end of the day, still a DuPont, with a trust fund that will give him access to treatment that may elude not-so-wealthy addicts. And a murderer who has enough money to afford the best defense, and enough celebrity to generate some public sympathy, can get away with a murder that would inevitably send a poorer person to prison for a long, long time.