Or post it on our facebook page, facebook. Com booktv. Id like to give a special thank you to all of the festival sponsors. Social media plug, the theme for this years festival is whatss your story, and we encourage everyone to share the stories you hear this weekend on twitter, ins glam and Facebook Instagram and facebook using the hashtag16. Plrf16. You can keep the spirit of the lit fest going year round by downloading the printers row apu which gives you all the Chicago Tribunes premium books contents, free and discounted ebooks for subscribers. If you download today, you can get a free ebook and 5 off lit fest merchandise. Todays program is being broadcast live on cspan2s booktv. If theres time at the end for a q a session, well ask all ofss you to line up here to your right and use the microphone so that the home viewing audience can hear your question. Before we begin, the last thing i ask is for you to silence your phones, turn off the flash on any cameras that you have. With that, lets please welcome Chicago Tribune reporter David Huntsman with marcia clark. [applause] good morning, everybody. Thank you very much for being here, for waiting in line. Were excited to see so many people in the seats. Several weeks ago, probably a couple months ago, the planners of printers row asked me if id be interested in interviewingcl marsha clark here, and i had just finished watching the f x miniseries, the people v. O. J. Simpson. And my Immediate Reaction was,s, god, this is great, i have so many questions im going to be able to can is her. [laughter] how many people saw that miniseries . Many people have. And well talk a little bit about that. I know i talked to marcia earlier this week, and she had some thoughts on that. But for me, it started to, you know, when you became a public or a household name 20 some years ago, you were defined in a very certain kind of way thatta would not have been your choosing. Ha and this series, for me, it started to redefine you, you. Know, a lot of the series really focused on your character and probably defined you in a little bit more of a way that you would like to be seen, whether there were qualms with the portrayal of the whole story or not. But just can you talk a little bit about that experience of being just, you know, a career prosecutor in an office and suddenly becoming, you know, famous in that way and yourev eventual path to here we are today 20 years later, and youre a novelist. [laughter] so just tell us a little bit about that evolving career for you. G is this on . Oh, its on. Yeah. Thanks for throwing me a softball. [laughter] tell us about your life, all of it, every bit of it and how did you feel at every minute. [laughter] okay. T every really i became a prosecutor, ii had been a criminal defense lawyer first and then decided ih wanted to stand up for the victims and became a prosecutor and expected to do that for thet rest of my life. Thats all, that was my plan. W that was my big game plan. And then, you know, the simpson case happened. And suddenly everything about the trial, everything about that i had been doing for 14, 15 years at that point, trying cases was turned upside down, and it became this incredibly insane circus presided over by a judge who handed the reins over to the defense and courted celebrities. And it was a bizarre world. It was really, like, a comic book thing. And i didnt even, i was kind of in denial about the whole celebrity business and about how we all had become public figures, and that kind of worked well for me until it didnt. And it stopped working well for me when it was before jury selection, it was a couple months in, and the case had become so hot, so fast that it was like i want to say so the murders happened in june, by august there was nowhere that is could go without being recognized. And the first time that became a problem i was in, i was shoppins with my kids, and they were little. They were, like, two and a half and five. And little boys are like electrons, you know what i mean . [laughter]r] im alone and running after them, and this girl comes up to me and says give me your autograph, and i just why . [laughter] you know, i just didnt have any, you know, why would you want my autograph . Thats a weird and she got mad. And she said youre famous. Give me your autograph, jeez. [laughter] i was like, you know what . This girl could wind up in my jury pool, give her the damn autograph. [laughter] scrawled my name, ran after my kids x thats when i realized that things had changed, and i r dont know if theyre ever doing bo to be going to be the same again. So that, it became worse and more so and more so to the point where going out to dinner became no longer an option or if we dip go out to dinner, youd have to get, you know, figure out how to do it in a secure way. Had to be careful about going out with the kids, where i went with the kids. Fortunately, though, people did take videos and photographs of me with the kids, the news media blocked out the kids faces which is one of the very few things i can thank them for. [laughter] so, and then the, you know, the trial happened, and it was a nightmare that didnt end, you know . From day one there was something exploding and going wrong, an insane thing going wrong with it. And everyone seemed to forget that there are two innocent people who were brutally murdered, this is a double homicide trial. It is not the dancing itos, it is not a side show. Everyone seemed to forget. And i cannot even i dont know if i can ever even express the pain of seeing justice subverted every single day not matter what i did, objecting to it every day, feeling like i was screaming into a hurricane. You know, it just didnt matter x. Is so when that was over, i was really spent. I was really disillusioned and and disheartened, and i had had it. I walked out of the courthouse on the day of the verdict, is and i never went back. And just thought i dont know what else im going to do, but im not doing that. I did recover. It took a while. Took a while to figure out how to be, who to be. I wound up being a correspondent, Legal Correspondent for entertainment tonight. [laughter] i did a lot of really weird things, but that was the fun nest because hardhitting news agency that it was right. So i go and i cover [laughter] i cover the Michael Jackson trial, i covered robert blake. I go running out, so they argued this motion about no, marcia, no, what was he wearing . [laughter] oh, well. [laughter] so how did it feel though to become, to, you know, be put through the wringer in that public way and then more your next act to have those be the best opportunities for you totu kind of stay in the public eye . I didnt want to. Yeah. It was a real serious consideration. They came after me to write a book about the trial. I thought, you know what . I do want to write a book about the trial, because i do want to tell everybody the truth. I was on the inside of it from the day the bodies were found to the very, very end, and i can tell you about not only theut investigation, but also the trial in a way that no one else can, and i want to do it now and while i remember it all so that i dont have to keep remembering it myself. And itll be will. If you want to know, there it is, you know . But if i did that, then id have to be in the public eye again, and it was so hot after the e trial i couldnt go anywhere without being followed. The National Inquirer had a newspaper had a photographer sitting on my front doorstep practically. Theres nothing like walking out the front door and seeing a camera lens trained on the front door especially with children. So i really thought maybe i shouldnt do this. My agent said, you know what . Its going to be like in anyway for you, you may as well write the book. L th and then that just kind of came like this is the way it is. He said, you know what . It will die down, and it did. Right. It did. W and it was really cool. And now its really fine. You know, people they dont recognize me that much, the benefit of age. [laughter] it can be a good thing. [laughter] who knew . I recognized you right away walking down the street. You did . [laughter] oh, well. So this book starts up, blood defense starts up, the very first scene is a young defense lawyer, and shes doing a cnn bit because thats what you dous if youre in l. A. And you have to get your name out there. Its just part of the game, right . Yeah. Thats what, you know yeah. You know well how that goes. It really after the simpson trial, this became a cottage industry. Covering trials became a new form of entertainment and lawyers, especially the younger ones who need to get their name out there and pump up the practice be, go on these cable talk shows. So in blood defense, the lead is a criminal defense lawyer named samantha brinkman. She incorporates so much of my Life Experience as a defense lawyer. And im doing criminal dependence now on appeal. I handle courtappointed appeals for the indigent. So i get to incorporate all of the wild characters that i get to meet in it. And talk also about the way world is for a lawyer now. Rl so shes sitting in the very beginning of the book, shes sitting in a studio tweeting, you know . Come see me, im on live, come check he out. And then the responses she gets on her twitter feed which arent always as friendly as they might be. And how he handles that she handles that. So i incorporate everyday life, todays world, in the world of legal practice. Yeah. And so you draw on she is a younger defense lawyer. Tell us a little bit about your experiences as a young defense lawyer or, you know, that informed this book. She is on social media, and shes on tv a lot, but shes still living a little bit hand to mouth. I just because youre doing all this media tough doesnt mean youre necessarily rolling in dough. Thats a great point, david, thats such a great point, and its true. People see you on tv x they think you, therefore, must be rich. Its this equation we all make, but its not true, and a lot of the people that you see talking on tv are just living regular lives. Or in samanthas case, not even quite as good as regular. Shes sitting there with, youu know, scuffedup shoes, and her skirt held together with a safety pin, but you cant see that because the camera goes to her. Er she has hair and makeup with her to make her look fantastic, anda she looks like a million bucks which she needs to in order to acquire clients. Because clients dont want to go to a lawyer or whos down at the heels. Uhhuh. So when she, she also has a back story of a not great youth and some abuse, and it gives her some, i guess, sympathy for her clients maybe that can you talk a little bit about having been a defense lawyer, then becoming a prosecutor and thousand be back doing de andd now back doing defense work, how you view, how you changed your view sort of criminal element and how that evolved or goes back and forth depending on which side you find yourself on . So i was really glad a that i started as a criminal defense lawyer because you it demystifies the defense side of things, the defense perspective. You realize very quickly that the majority of your clients are just goofballs. [laughter] really most of them have had impulse control, they just dont have great judgment, they act in the moment, they dont think about consequences and then, you know, they get bit by that. Very, you know, there arent quite as much fewer of them are actually evil, are actually out to do people harm for the fun of it. Thats a pretty rare percentage. Then you have others. Theres a mix there, but the balance really is on the goofball side of things. And then you also, i also really understood the defense perspective, and this is something that i think most people dont get. A Defense Attorneys job is to protect the clients interest, advance the clients interest as best they can. They are not concerned with a fair trial. They are not concerned with following the rule of law. That is not their problem. And is so i tell you an that mindset from samanthas point of view because it is a very distinct and different mindset than the prosecutor. So when i went over to the side of the prosecution, i really understood where Defense Attorneys were coming from. There was only so much i expected of them. So i know youre going to try and get everything you can for your client. My job to object. The judges job is to sustain my objection. [laughter] and if you run into lance ito, you might let him know. [laughter] better late than never. [laughter] [applause] so its one of the [applause] one of the powers you seize as a novelist is you get to write the ening. I love that part. [laughter] the ability to control the outcome. In everything ive seen the in you talking about the o. J. Trial what you have just said was from day one it was this steamroller and was just out of control, and you had no ability to exercise the kind of control that a prosecutor more usually gets to exercise. Or well, you know, a prosecutor no lawyer gets to exercise control. Its up to the judge. Right. The judge has the control. Now, if he hands the reins over to one side or the other, thats always a mistake. It doesnt matter which side. That should never happen. The judge is supposed to be sitting in the middle and be the referee that holds down the rules, and if that doesnt happen, you have chaos. And you have a miscarriage of justice on east side. Somebody should get convicted who shouldnt or somebody doesnt get convicted who should. Thats where the power lies. Thats why when people say, oh, you know, being a prosecutor, being a trial lawyer is kind of like staging a play or filling a movie, you know, you get to call shots. No, you set it up in a certain way, and we definitely do it for dramatic impact. Doesnt matter which side, we all do it to manipulate the jury. So at the end of a day, on friday afternoon when i know you going to go home over the weekend and think about what you just heard, im going to try to make my last witness of the day be a blow your mind, knock your socks off witness as best i can. However, if the defense objects to something and it should be overruled and the defense and instead the judge says sustained and my witness gets cut off at the knees, it doesnt work. So its kind of like what really is more like is you are somebody whos working on a film, and the director gets to say cut. Whenever they say cut, you dont have that control. So you have the control that you do, you et it up as best you can, but if somebodyson constantly throwing the spoke in the wheels, you know yeah. So talking about controlling a narrative, in this book two friends are murdered brutally with a knife, one is famous, one not. [laughter]no and the conduct of the police is called into question. So where do you get ideas like that . [laughter] i dont know, because no one would buy it. [laughter] actually, it does have that kind of superficial similarity. Yes, it does. [laughter] except the defendant is an lapd detective, and the actress that theres an actress and her roommate that are murdered, and he was dating the actress. So the theory is he is arrested for having murdered her, and the roommate because the roommate was a witness. Amano and samantha doesnt want to take the case even though itll butch up her practice, itll bump up her practice be, itll be really good, and she hasnt p paid the books in two months which is why her paralegal and best friend says youre going tt take this case. She does wind up take egg it,ps and taking it, and she resists it because she really, really, really hates cops for a reason with her own childhood where police were definitely not there for her and should have been. She reluctantly does take the case, and it winds up revealing a personal secret in her life that complete hi turns her world upside down. Ns i dont want to give too much of the plot away, but theres a question in this book of whichch victim matters and which one doesnt because one of them is famous. And thats, obviously, its something that was a huge theme for you both in prosecuting o. J. , but also in dealing with the goldman family. Exactly. I just couldnt resist. I had to. I had to. I do use my novel to say, to make observations about the world and things that have happened and that ive seen. I think all authors do that. But, of course, i had the perspective of that particular trial. And it was a painful thing to see every day that ron goldman got forgotten. An n it was and its not that i dont think nicole was important, theyre just both important. T. So i did, i did observe that same kind of dynamic happening in blood defense where paige, who was the actress and shee, had been a child star who fell on bad times, wound up falling down the tunnel with drugs and then pulled herself up into a role that was really going to make her a star again. And in that moment was murdered. And everybody was we love you, paige, we love you, paige, and excuse me, we love you, chloe. And she was the one who everybody was caring about and e putting teddy bears on the sidewalk, and her roommate was completely forgotten. And that, and i remember when this mini series came out, once again ron goldmans sister was out there, and it just this has got to be so painful to have this. I think everybody probably has had different experiences, everybody who was involved has had different experiences with reliving this and for that family to have it go around again where theyre once again not really the focus of anything yeah. And its terrible. Kim and i exchanged emails when the miniseries was just about to air or when it was airing, and shes like how are you doing . I said, this really sucks, how are you doing . Do we were both being torn up all over again because it does re it does rip the scabs off the wounds that were, you know, inflicted during that trial and the pain of loss. We all reexperience it, for them, for the families i cant even imagine what they went through. Right. But it had to be kind of a mixed bagging for you a little bit, because i really did feel like the woman who played you in the miniseries was really good, and it was a much more nuanced narrative about what you went through. And for whatever the flaws were of the miniseries, we got a completely different picture of who you were and what you were experiencing at least, you know, somebodys telling of what you were experiencing while all those really house things were happening to you the first time around. So what was that like . You know, that was amazing. Yeah. I do believe that all of us got turned into cartoons. All of us. I did, johnny did, chris did. I and thats something thats going to happen because the media delivers sound bites. They cant they can deliver a full story gavel to gavel, if you watch it gale to gavel. Yo who has time or interest . You pick up what you do on the evening news or the morning news be, whatever, but youre not going to get a full picture of who you mean you got turned into cartoons back then or back then. I may still be a cartoon, i dont know. [laughter] thats okay. So i think that this miniseries yeah. Brought out who we were as people and let the audience see that our humanity. Uhhuh. And that is due in large part to incredible genius of the actors that we were gifted to have play us. Sarah pallton, who paulson, who ive been a fan girl of hers forever, so when i heard she was going to play me, i was miserable about this series, honestly. When i heard she was going to be playing me, well, you know [laughter] thats pretty cool, you know . Did you talk to her much . I never talked to her at all. They did not let any of them consult with us. But i did wind up meeting her when it was practically already shot. She had been wanting to meet with me the whole time, they wouldnt let her. N so she wrote me this really sweet email, and we had dipperw dipper dinner, and we had multiple drinks. Blanco tequila with just freshsqueezed lime juice straight up with a little bit of ice like a martini . Fantastic. [laughter] we drank em all night. We got so plastered. Thats a drink that that depends haley on the quality of the heavily on the quality of the tequila, i think. The tequila and the lime. Was she nervous about what you would think . Her portrayal . Have you talked to her since . Shes a very sensitive person, and she said i really believe ryan murphy thesi director, hes responsible for getting this on the air, hes also, i think, the one responsible for pulling out the sexism involved in the trial which no one else had ever paid attention to or mentioned, and never thought anyone would. So i was really surprised by that. And she was concerned that all of us be happy with the way we were portrayed because she felt that none of us got a fair shake during the trial. And, you know, i was pleased to be able to let her know through these interviews that, you know, i thought she was wonderful. Somehow without ever talking to me she managed to show how i was feeling inside, what it was really like. This is how i really felt. And i dont know how she did that, but shes a brilliant shes just a genius. Yeah. So the show spent a lot of time on the intimacies on your working and personal relationship with chris darden. I mean, tell us a little bit was it accurate in that way . Laugh there was a lot of screaming and a lot of laying blame. Ng he definitely got the blame for the gloves, and in you know, it was a big fight that we had. Yeah. Our biggest fight. It was one of those impulsive lets do this, you know . In sympathy, i know that chris felt that what actually happened was we had the glove expert on the stand, and we had to go to sidebar for another frigging thing. Those sidebars drove us so crazy and they went on for so long that for a certain portion of the trial, johnny and i agreed wed look at each other and go stand at the back of the lawyers area and try to resolve it ourselves so we wouldnt have to go to sidebar. Wow. Yeah. And then lance put a stop to that. [laughter] it was working kind of well, which it never should, you know . Thats how out of control things were. So we wound up at sidebar, and lance i,to said he should try on the gloves, and i objected. Its an improper experiment. Legally speaking, if you cannot be duplicate the conditions almost exactly, then its not legally proper to do the experiment because, of course, its not relevant. You have to have the same conditions or the experiment means nothing. So i objected to it. Chris said i want to do it, and i said could we have a minute . [laughter] and we stepped aside and had a big fight. E and and then i actually called upstairs to bill and brian and the rest of the team, and i said, look, do you guys see any reason why bawz because im not seeing it, i think this is a really bad idea. Ad they all agreed, this dont do i think he felt we needed a big, dramatic moment. Every litigator ive ever interviewed as a reporter has at some point said never ask a question you dont know the answer to which is kind of cliche, but its true, right . Exactly. Its different than this kind of situation, you to a demonstration with a defendantet who has no motive to help you make it work. Right . Try putting gloves on somebody who doesnt want to put them on, youll see what i mean. Its very easy, very easy. And, of course, he had to wear latex gloves underneath. That alone would have been problematic if hed been cooperative. W and then, of course, the gloves had been frozen and unfrozen so they shrunk because theyd been tested a million times. Nothing about this was designed to work. Right. So, no, i mean, clearly it was that was a big mistake. But on the other side of things, we i knew also that we were going to have the glove with expert explain all of that, everything i just told you. And i know a lot of you have already thought of that. You knew. What can you expect when all of these conditions occur . Ec in addition to that, i knew that we were going to have anwe identical pair of gloves that had not been frozen and unfrozen, same size just like the ones nicole bought for him which, by the way, she bought him those gloves and we proved that she did with receipts from bloomingdaless. 300 limited editions gloves were made, she bought him two. And then we did put those gloves on him, and he didnt have to wear latex, and they fit perfect limit so but nobody picked up on that. And the media didnt make a bigm deal of it, nobody else did either, that was that. So we countered all of it, but it didnt matter. Didnt matter. Yeah. One of the things i was thinking about, illinois was, has been reluctant to put cameras inn courtrooms, and, you know, my first experiences covering courts, you know, even murder trials, theyre pretty they can be kind of dry and awkward silences, and lawyers flipping through notes and stuff takes forever. R. And i just wondered, do you think this case would have been any different if america had to absorb it through the coverage of the l. A. Times and the Associated Press and the New York Times rather than turning it on every day and seeing a fixed camera, you know, on your picking up your every facial expression and, you know, everything that happened, you know, all day long . I think do you think the jury was in the room, obviously, still but do you think the whole thing would have been different if it had not all have been televised . So it would have been different in the sense that when you put a camera in the courtroom, it galvanizes the players to perform for the camera. And if you have a judge who loves celebrity and loves the limelight, thats a problem. You have lawyers that love to strut in front of the camera, thats a problem. Motions go on forever that really never should be made, and then the worst problem of all is that you have witnesses who make up stories to make themselves relevant because they want face be time or, worse yet, witnesses who dont want the face time and refuse to come forward with important evidence. So in that way, it certainly did have an impact. As far as having an impact on that jury, i dont think it did. Yeah. I, i remember the first time i was in a courtroom with cameras, it was a Court Hearing in detroit, and the judge kept the camera was in the back in like this little jury box thing, and the judge wasnt making eye contact with anybody, any of the lawyers, and he kept looking over. [laughter] and he was looking at the camera. And he wasnt really payingn attention to people, he was sort of performing for the camera. And i know one of things about this case that, the miniseries that i thought was not, didnt jibe with my recollections was the treatment of lance ito. He gets off pretty well. And it was one of the first when we talked earlier this week, it was one of the first things you said. So why, where did that come from . Why did he not because you said he was really the greatest source of misogyny in that trial you thought, right . True. E. Absolutely true. I dont know why they didnt. And youd have to ask them. Yeah. It may be because its so hard to deliver dramaticallys what a judge is doing wrong, you know . That comes down to rulings, and it comes down to nuance. A they did show him making a comment about my hair. Yeah. H. And they did show him brag about getting an autographed picture of arsenio hall. [laughter] what they didnt show and i thought they could have shown was that there was a steady stream of celebrities in and out of chambers every single day. Periodically, wed get called boo chambers because they wantee to meet us. Im actually trying a lawsuit, you know . And theyre like, oh, you can talk to witnesses. I dont really need to meet jimmy dean, you know . I love your sausage, sir. [laughter] it was crazy. Judge ito, he sat down for a sixpart interview about his life with a Television News reporter in the beginning of the trial. Of what, what, why would you do this . . Ul you know, thats what i mean by, you know, distorting, a distorting influence. Its one thing too, i think cameras in the courtroom can be a fine thing. But in order for them to to work, you have to have a judge with spine to hold them in chece and make sure things dont spin out of control and not be like h that judge in your media moment. So that means the cameras cant be in the courtroom when the jurys not there that way they have no chance of seeing onpp television what they were never supposed to see. And you can have print reporters there, thats cool, but you have to seek out print. A Television Camera you can get bombarded by images when you walk past a bar, when you go to a friends house. Its easy to even if you want to obey your duty not to look, it can be hard to hold to that line because its everywhere. So if you do it right, if its handled correctly, it can really be something good. I wish they had shown more of what judge ito did wrong because i think it would be a teachableo moment for not just all of us, but for judges. But, and yet, got that tell you, i think judges did go to school on him because ive not seen that kind of circus since. Yeah. Early on in the book, we mentioned this earlier, that samantha is she cant afford clothes, and she is talking about, shes preparing for the next day, and shes going through this whole thought process of how shes going to be judged by the tv cameras based on how she looks. When did you realize in that process, in that trial this is really happening this isnt just a crazy media case, but im being judged by how i look . Ed anyway, im just curious what, you you know, that process was like for you in the midst of trying to prepare for a giant murderr trial, suddenly this is something youre worried about. Right. But youre always worried about that. Yeah. Thats for trial lawyers all the time, you are concerned with what the jury sees. Because what you wear has to do with your credible, and we all have what we call believe me suits. Usually a navy suit. [laughter]be and, you you know, a conservatie color and all that stuff. And thats, in that way samantha also knows, i mean, if youre on camera or not, the point shes making is my jury pool is watching, and i need to create an image of a successful lawyer and also a strong lawyer and a credible lawyer so, you know, its all about dressing for success in that way. Do you think the standards are different for men and women lawyers . Er of course. Yeah. I mean, to a certain degree thats always true. But men have to do it too. The male lawyers also have to dress appropriately and for credibility just like the women do. N women get judged more harshly in terms of their appearance on, from a beauty factor, not a credibility factor, and thats always a tough thing to deal with. So, you know, in the context of the simpson trial, my hair and my makeup and everything, i mean, and i had [laughter] back then the media was everywhere. Usually now theyre not allowed, the cameras are not even allowed in the hallways, they have to be outside. And if theres a camera in the courtroom, its a pool feed through the wall. Back then they had the anchors standing outside the courtroom doors with their make beup and hair people and all the rest of it rah. [laughter] and almost every day a makeup person would run after me and say let me just get concealer under your eyes, please [laughter] h so that had to be a giant distraction, i would think. Just one more thing to tune out . I tuned them off. You know, i probably should have let them, in hindsight [laughter] but it was kind of like taking a stand, you know . Im pretty sure that jury doesnt care where they can see the whether they can see the dark circles and bags under my eyes. R im pretty sure theyre focused on something else, and thats my audience, thats who i care about. Im not here doing a beauty contest, obviously. So, you know, it was like a line in the sand that i drew, justnd leave me alone. I made light earlier of the idea that you get to control the narrative when you write books, but its true. Yeah. Has than been sort of therapeutic for you as you recovered from what happened to you . Im not sure that was. S. I enjoy the creative process. Ro its really, really fun, and i wanted to be a novelist when i was a kid. I was addicted to crime from the time i was, like, 4 years old which i know is weird because i was a weird kid. [laughter] and i wanted to write crime fiction, i wanted to write crime stories. I loved nancy drew, i was just addicted to all that stuff, and i just never thought that i could make a living at it until i went to law school. For me now its like coming fulg circle and realizing a childhood dream. Yeah. So how do you organize your time now . Like, when do you write, and how much of your working life is devoted to writing . You said you still do some appellate work, so how do you divvy that all up . Its really hard [laughter] because appellate work is really demanding. Right. I have this mosaic in my life where i do, ill handle, finish a couple of cases, write some opening briefs, and then ive got to go ask and work on the book, and i have to come up with the ideas, the outline, the chapter breakdown, ill do that for a few days and go back to the brief. You know, i havent had a vacation in, like, six years. Yeah. So i dont think im, so i just kind of work all the time. Right. Okay. We have about fiveleft. Ou does anybody want to ask five minutes left. Does anybody have any questions . Can you come on up to the microphone . Did you think o. J. Was guilty [laughter] and whats your percentage of certainty . I am not answering that question one more time. [laughter] hi. I always wondered why his escape attempt in the white bronco was never brought into the trial. Was it something that wasnt allowed and how . It was allowed, heres why it wasnt. First of all, the car they escaped in was al coulings car, and the duffel bag that had theh moustache, the duffel bag, the money, we couldnt prove who put them in there. I didnt know whether al had packed it up for him or someone else. And once we put in the evidence of that bronco chase, then the defense gets to counter with all the phone calls he made saying i didnt do it, loved her i loved her, i didnt do it. So i have dicey piece of evidence that doesnt necessarily show he was planning to run, because i cant prove who packed up that car and packed up that duffel bag, and he gets to put on all of his denials. So the downside far outweighed the upside. Denials yes. After the jury selection did you really think you had a chance oi getting a guilty verdictsome. Not much. Not much. Or a hung jury rather than a hung jury was i thought the best we could really hope for, and i felt that way when i read the jury questionnaires. I mean, i didnt have to goid through jury selection to know what was going to happen. But the final selection certainly did confirm my fierce because we had an audience that was, we had a jury pool that was packed with, basically, people very favorable towards simpson. And the jury, you know, what i should say first, jury selection is really jury deselection. I dont get to go outen to the street out on the street and say i want you, you, yo i, i dont get to do that. They bring in a pool, and i can try and weed out the jurors that are most worst for us. But les a limit to that. I only have so many challenges. And so you work with what you have. Did you have a choice of any other venue . We never did. I know that story floated aroune that we could try it in santa monica. Yes. We never could. And it wasnt even a question at that time. The santa monica courthouse was earthquake damaged, it was a security risk, not to mention also this was going to be what they call a long cause trial, it was going to go longer than a month for sure, and they push those downtown. P they put us on a security floor downtown because thats really the only place they couldco physically try the case. Thank you. Given the state of the lapd then, had you had other not media cases blow up because of Bad Police Work . And when this started, did you have concerns of, god, i hope theres not, you know, something, you know, something the cops did that is going to cause us problems . Well, we think that in every case. [laughter], we t oh, man, please dont screw this up. But the we were confronting the issue of the racial divide and the mistrust with which the black community in particular viewed the lapd for many years yeah. H. Many years in los angeles, and particularly in the Downtown Los Angeles courthouse where id been practicing for ten yearsra before simpson case. T so that there would be an issue with the black jurors was never in question. The question was, to what degree, and the question was how do i reach them, how do i assure them that he didnt plant the glove, its not contaminated, how do i present that . And there just really was never an answer to that, because when youre talking about a whole different set of issues that have nothing to do with your evidence, evidence wont answer the problem. So that was just, that was just something that had been true for so many years in los angeles and, of course, in this case too. Okay. Maam . Yes, i heard you on wgn radie yesterday, and you commented on the case of the young woman who had been raped in california, and you gave such impassioned comments about her. Would you repeat or give your thoughts on that now . I dont think i can repeat them, but i can give my thoughts. This is the stanford case . Were talking about the stanford case. I dont know if you all know about that. This young woman was at a party, drank too much, passed out. This guy got her out of the house and raped her on the ground behind a dumpster while she was unconscious. Two young men bicycling by saw what was going on and called the police, pulled him off. Ll one of those young men who rescued her was crying so uncontrollably at what hed seen that he couldnt even give a statement for a while. It was that bad. He was arrested. There was a jury trial. He was convicted, and the judge sentenced him to six months. And made a statement about why saying he thought longer than that would be damaging for his future be, right . Right. Damaging to his future, would have ap adverse consequence on his life. Gee, ya think it might have an adverse consequence on her life . I mean, shell never be the same. Shell never be the same. And she wrote an incredibly moving letter to the judge, to the court to talk about what he had done to her and how her life had been trashed and how she will never be the same again and how she suffers for it. And that sentence, that six month sentence was because he was a very famous, he was a swimmer who was supposedly an olympic hopeful and all of that. He was given this, basically, this pass. And i have to say i felt two ways about it. I felt, number one, six months . For rape of an unconscious girl . Thats an outrage in and of itself. Number two, be this had been if this had been a young africanamerican man, you think he would have gotten six months . I dont think so. I think that, in fact, in a comparable not a comparableat case but another rape case, the young man got 15 years. So, which is what this one should have gotten. I just hope, ive been hearing that the judge getting a lot of flak, and im glad. He cant get enough flak. Im really glad that people are speaking out, im really glad cnn is down a town hall. Ashley banfield read her whole letter which took a half an hour, and she cried at various parts. So id do i. Did i. Its progress that were talking about this. E its progress that people are speaking out. Its progress that the judge is getting the heat that hes getting for giving this guy a pass, and i really hope that parents Pay Attention to the fact that this mans father said, well, anything more than six months would be an awful harsh sentence given it was onla 20 minutes of action. You know . They come from somewhere, and it has to do with the way we raise our children. You know . Tora you have got to teach em young and teach them once and for all if everybodys drinking, no one says yes. Be. Okay. [applause] if anybody hasnt read her statement, its a pretty extraordinary document. You should probably seek it out. Go ahead. I wanted to your opinion of barry schleck and his evidence that obscured the dna and that blood evidence. Yeah. [laughter]lood barry. You know, i had my biggest problem with him johnny and i got along, carl and i always got along. I had a big problem with barry scheck because i knew he straight up lied. She just straight up lied. He knew dna inside and out very well. He founded the Innocence Project which is a very importantpr project that uses dna to exonerate people who are wrongly convicted. Ive sent a couple of clients to them. But what he did in that courtroom was unconscionable. Again, we were objecting, the judge was overruling. So, you know, i can only take it so far with what i think of barry scheck because, you know, the defense does what they do. But the thing thats funny to me and i kept pointing it out but no one seemed to care, was that his theories were conflicting. At one point he would say, oh,ai they planted the blood trail, then at another point it got contaminated in the lab, and let me just say one thing about that. There are ad ojs blood and sprinkled i would between bundy and rockingham is insane for one reason. The blood trail was from was discovered that led from bundy all the way into rockingham,