GARCETTI SIZES IT UP

By Elaine Lafferty/Los Angeles

Gil Garcetti, the Los Angeles district attorney with the deep tan and the chiseled face, is widely perceived to have micromanaged all the major moves in the Simpson case, from the early decision to file the charges in downtown Los Angeles rather than nearby Santa Monica, thus ensuring a mostly minority jury, to the decision not to seek the death penalty. It's a perception he denies, lavishly praising his prosecutors' strategic calls. But in an interview with Time late Friday, Garcetti took full responsibility for the state's presentation: "I can't promise the results of a case. I can promise you'll be proud of the prosecutorial effort. And I've delivered on that promise."

Sources in the D.A.'s office say that having a racially mixed jury was important to Garcetti, politically and morally, in the aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King verdict that led to the L.A. riots, in which thousands were injured and entire neighborhoods were destroyed. Garcetti will say only that "I hope this case is a turning point. There is a perception in minority communities that people of color are treated more harshly. If a racially mixed jury goes back to the community and says, 'Hey, we had an obligation to follow the evidence and the law. We had to, and the evidence was overwhelming,' I think it will go a long way to restoring confidence in our criminal-justice system." At the same time, Garcetti agrees that race can be a factor in jury deliberations. He cites a recent murder case in which one black juror held out, saying he would not send another black man to prison. The other jurors eventually brought him around.

Garcetti will not concede that opening the case on domestic violence may have undercut the impact of later evidence. "I've been analogizing where we are today on domestic violence to where we were 15 years ago on driving under the influence of alcohol. That behavior was tolerated back then just as domestic violence is too often tolerated today. I don't think we were too far out ahead of the curve on this issue. It was relevant.'' Garcetti acknowledges the criticism, about the vast resources poured into the Simpson case. "How can you justify 13 full-time prosecutors on Simpson when you are prosecuting 70,000 other cases? It's a good question,'' he says. "But we were forced to put 13 on this case. We had 90 days to get to trial."

He is worried, though, that the media scrutiny of Marcia Clark and her team may scare prosecutors off other high-profile cases. "We expected a magazine profile or two, but do you expect to see topless photos from an ex-mother-in-law?" he says, referring to a tabloid story about Clark. "Most people who work for this office are not making a lot of money. They have the luxury of doing the right thing. They may think from now on, 'Sure, I'd like to test myself on this big case, but it's not worth it to myself or my family.'"