Defense.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Good morning.

OPENING STATEMENT

First of all, let me suggest to you that punitive damages is an element of damage that has been authorized by the legislature to punish wrong-doing and have the public be protected from future misconduct. The important question in punitive damages, and the question that you're going to be required to answer, is whether or not the amount you award is an amount that destroys the defendant. In other words, punitive damages are to punish, but they are not to destroy. So although the plaintiffs may assert to you that you should take away all his wealth, and we will present evidence by your award of Tuesday, Mr. Simpson has a negative net worth of over $9 million. And the evidence will be that he is without assets. He owes lawyers, he owes mortgage payments, he owes. If, in fact, they would come in and take all of his assets, he would owe multiple millions in taxes as well. So he is, in effect, without assets. He owes. He has no equity in his home. He has basically no savings. He has a pension plan, two pension plans, that he cannot access. He has basically an automobile and a residence that he gave his mother in 1969 when he was out of college. And that's, basically, his entire -- His entire net worth is made up of mostly bills including $188,000 that the Court has just ordered him to pay in the custody fight.

Objection, irrelevant to this action.

Overruled.

That the Orange County court has just ordered him to pay in Orange County. So he has assets that are exceeded by his liability to the tune, including the eight and a half million dollars that you awarded on Tuesday, he has a negative net worth of $9,356,000. And hence, since, as I suggested, you can't destroy Mr. Simpson, by basically your verdict of Tuesday, you have ensured that he has a significant net worth from which he can never recover. And hence, punitive damages are totally inappropriate in this case. That would be essentially piling on and attempting to destroy Mr. Simpson, which is not the idea or the rationale or the law relative to punitive damages. Second of all, you will hear that the punitive damages that you awarded have to bear some relation to the compensatory damages.

That's not the law, Your Honor. It's the harm involved, which is death in this case.

Overruled.

And the compensatory damages for the Brown family of $250, that's for the Brown -- the estate of Nicole Brown Simpson, that was the -- as you know, you didn't fill out any amount in your verdict form. So any punitive damages to be awarded vis-a-vis the estate of Nicole Brown Simpson has to bear a relationship to the $250 that was stipulated to be the amount of damages she sustained as a result -- that is, the estate sustained because of the clothing that she was wearing. So that award --

Excuse me. That is not exactly the law. I will instruct you what the law is as to how you may apply it. Thank you.

All of your awards have to take into account the financial condition of the defendant in this case. The next two witnesses that you hear are going to have to do with only his financial condition, and the financial condition relative to whether he has the ability to earn a living. You will hear evidence that because of the criminal trial, and because of this trial, he has no ability to earn a living, he has no ability to -- all of his contracts would be canceled relative to what he did before June 12, 1994. All of his ability to earn a living selling sports memorabilia is gone. He has no ability in that regard. And even though you'll hear evidence that he could earn 2 to 3 million a year selling sports memorabilia, I think that you know, I know, and the evidence will be, that he can make absolutely nothing selling autographs, selling his personality, appearing in movies; that those days are finished for Mr. Simpson forever. And so the plaintiffs will attempt to suggest to you that his future earnings, which they have someone who will testify that he can make 2 to 3 million a year, and then you take that for the next 25 years, which we will suggest to you is total speculation, total speculation. The fact is that he will make nothing. They then want to take that 2 to 3 million a year for the next 25 years, reduce that number to what they call present cash value, and put that on his balance sheet as part of his net worth. And we will suggest to you that that's a totally improper method, that that isn't part of his net worth. To say that he could earn 5 cents over the next 25 years selling memorabilia, or autographs, or anything else, is pure speculation, after the notoriety and the verdict that you rendered on Tuesday. So we will suggest to you that he has no wealth and that you can't simply manufacture, by speculating for 25 years, what the public will buy of Mr. Simpson. For example, you will hear testimony of one expert that he would have to sell 20,000 to 30,000 autographs at $50 a piece for the next 25 years, and that would net him a million to a million and a half a year. The problem, of course, is there are no buyers for any of those autographs, much less 20 to 30,000 a year, for the next 25 years. So I would suggest to you that you cannot, and the law is that you cannot, speculate as to what his wealth will be. I think we have a pretty good idea it's not going to be very significant, and it's not going to be -- his ability to earn is virtually nil. So we will ask you at the conclusion to award zero punitive damages. You've already, by your award, punished Mr. Simpson and have indeed made his net worth negative and made him without any assets, whatsoever. Thank you very much.