Browns Plan On Legal Battle For Custody Of The Children -- Simpson Gave Them Guardianship Of Sydney, Justin Last Year

LOS ANGELES - They are the two smallest victims in the awful Simpson saga, the one bond still tenuously connecting the families of O.J. Simpson and his murdered ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson.

Now the young daughter and son Simpson had with Nicole Simpson could become the subjects of the next agonizing twist in the case.

With Simpson's acquittal of the murders of his ex-wife and her friend, Ronald Goldman, the Simpson and Brown families almost certainly will head into a fierce legal battle over custody of the children, Sydney, 9, and Justin, 7.

The calculated legal maneuvering already has begun. Simpson voluntarily surrendered temporary guardianship of the children to Nicole Simpson's parents in August 1994 because he was jailed on the murder charges.

But Simpson specifically reserved his right to seek restoration of custody of his children "upon his release from incarceration," according to court records.

The Brown family expects that Simpson quickly will reassert his parental rights, said family attorney John Quinlan Kelly. The Browns intend to fight him.

To lay the groundwork to fight a Simpson custody claim, Nicole Simpson's father, Lou Brown, acting as her executor, filed a "survivor's action" against the ex-football star seeking punitive damages for assault and battery.

Filing the lawsuit in the name of Nicole Simpson's estate spares the children from having to sue their father, legal experts note. And it might help bolster the Brown family's contention that Simpson, by virtue of evidence that he battered his wife, is unfit to have custody of the children.

But if bitterness and legal conflict lie ahead for the two families, on the surface, at least, they have strived to conceal it.

"The Browns are still part of our family and we're part of theirs. That's the way it will always be," Shirley Baker, Simpson's older sister, said last week as the trial was nearing its finish. "We have Sydney and Justin in common. We all have love and respect for each other that has not died, even in this situation."

The Browns believe that Simpson murdered Nicole Simpson. But Simpson's sisters, mother and two adult children steadfastly believe he is innocent. The stiff embraces between the two clans outside the courtroom vividly demonstrated that tension.

Once, Simpson's mother, Eunice, and Nicole Simpson's mother, Juditha Brown, exchanged warm smiles as they shared photographs of their grandchildren at a recent birthday party. But most of the time, the two families retreated to separate areas of the hallway outside the courtroom.

"We are all good people," Baker said.

Since Nicole Simpson's murder, the two children have lived with their maternal grandparents, Nicole Simpson's two sisters and two cousins in the Brown family's home in Orange County, south of Los Angeles.

The last time Sydney and Justin saw their father was at their mother's funeral more than 1 1/2 years ago. At Simpson's request, the two did not visit him in jail, because he did not want them to see him incarcerated.

Simpson's sisters, mother and his two adult children from a previous marriage, Arnelle and Jason, have visited freely with the children at the Brown household. Recently, Simpson's younger sister, Carmelita, took the children to an amusement park, Simpson family members said.

The "survivor's action" Lou Brown filed against Simpson takes advantage of a new California statute, passed by the state legislature in 1993, mandating that one parent's abuse of another parent should be considered as an important factor in custody disputes.

The law supersedes the long-established and widely held legal principle that spouse abusers are not automatically deemed unfit parents unless they directly hurt their children.

Crusaders against domestic violence pushed the new law, which embraces the concept that children suffer when one parent hurts another.

As the sole beneficiaries of their mother's estate, Nicole Simpson's children would receive any monetary award that might result from the lawsuit.