Tougher domestic violence laws championed

Friday, March 14, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Feminist attorney Gloria Allred, a former lawyer for the family of Nicole Brown Simpson, argued during a speech in Las Vegas that tougher laws are needed to protect victims of domestic violence.

Speaking at a Thursday luncheon at the Monte Carlo hotel-casino, Allred said one such example in Nevada is Assembly Bill 170, sponsored by Assemblywoman Genie Ohrenschall, D-Las Vegas.

Allred told more than 200 women at the event sponsored by the women's division of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas that she intends to return to Nevada to testify for the bill. The Los Angeles-based attorney, host of a radio talk show, is nationally renowned as a champion of women's rights.

AB170 would require that a person convicted of domestic violence be imprisoned instead of receiving residential confinement unless it can be shown the perpetrator isn't a threat to the victim. Passage in the Assembly is a virtual certainty because all 41 of Ohrenschall's lower chamber colleagues have signed on as co-sponsors.

"You should send letters to legislators to get that passed in Nevada," Allred said.

Allred's support of the legislation was couched in her disgust with the not-guilty verdict for O.J. Simpson in the criminal trial involving the 1994 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. While praising the civil trial verdict that found the former football star liable for the murders, Allred said the criminal court system clearly failed Nicole Simpson.

"Is a pigskin on a football field more important than a wife's skin in her own house?" Allred said. "All that seemed to matter was that the accused was one of the old boys."

Allred said the legal system first failed Nicole Simpson when O.J. Simpson wasn't imprisoned for pleading no contest to battering her in 1989.

"It really exemplifies what's wrong in the system and why it treats women as having very little value and importance," she said.

The lawyer saved her harshest remarks for Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti, who she blamed for the prosecution's loss in the criminal case. Allred said Garcetti should have asked for the death penalty, and tried the case in Santa Monica rather than downtown Los Angeles to get jurors more favorable for the prosecution.

She accused Garcetti of making certain decisions on a political basis to reassure his re-election last year. He narrowly won re-election after heavily outspending his opponent.

Allred said Garcetti's decision not to seek the death penalty came after he tried to soothe Los Angeles' black community. She termed it "political pandering and kowtowing at its worst."

"His decision displayed a callous disregard of the value that should be placed on the life of Nicole Simpson," she said. "The system failed Nicole again in death as in life."

However, she said she was happy with the $33.5 million civil verdict handed down against O.J. Simpson last month.

"The message it sends is, 'Mr. Simpson, don't think you can get away with it,'" Allred said. "Everyone now knows the truth of what happened the night of the killings."