Without a Doubt - [23]

Having gone on record with that noble sentiment, let me say that I reserve the right to consider Orenthal Simpson unregenerate, low-life scum.

Prosecutors do not think much of defendants as a class. I’m no exception. I enjoyed a brief and unrewarding career as a criminal defense attorney. After I graduated from Southwestern University School of Law in 1979, I was taken on as an associate by a criminal defense firm, where I was assigned primarily to represent drug dealers. I was okay defending the dopers. After all, I was a child of the sixties. “Skip a little rope; smoke a little dope”-that was my motto. I’d wrap myself in the flag and declaim self-righteously about the Fourth Amendment, how it protected us all against unlawful searches and seizures. I sprang some dubious clients and had few qualms about it.

But after a few months, I started drawing the violent crimes. Now my clients, for the most part, were defendants whose greed or stupidity had wrecked not only their own lives but the lives of everyone around them. For me, the thrill of victory was no longer enough, because every time I scored an acquittal, I had to reckon with the possibility that I might have released another rabid dog onto the streets.

The moment of truth came while I was assigned to help defend a man charged with multiple murders. They were vicious crimes, but the D.A.‘s office didn’t have the evidence.

To a defense attorney, that’s very good news. My assignment was to draft a motion to dismiss. And I did one hell of a job; several days later, my boss, Jeff Brody, came in to tell me my motion had been granted. Instead of feeling jubilant, though, all I could think of was that I might have helped spring a murderer.

My face must have betrayed my conflict. “Don’t worry, Marcia,” Jeff reassured me. “The prosecution will refile.” (Indeed, they did.) And then he gave me a piece of solid advice.

I think you’d feel more comfortable as a prosecutor.”

He was right about that. Every defendant is entitled to competent counsel-but it didn’t have to be me. So I got myself over to the CCB for an interview with John Van de Kamp, who was then the D.A. of Los Angeles County. I threw myself on his mercy. “I can’t do criminal defense,” I told him. “I won’t do civil. This is the only job I want.”

Van de Kamp hired me and I took the prosecutor’s oath to represent the People. Now, that was an idea I could get behind. The People-especially those who have been victimized by brutal crimes-have just as strong a right to advocacy as defendants do. Prosecution was a fierce calling, and one I felt I could pursue with dignity.

I never worried that I’d do my job so well that an innocent man would go to jail. There were too many checks against such abuses. The grand jury wouldn’t return an indictment. A judge would throw out the case. And even if those system checks went haywire, there was a fail-safe: my own conscience. I could never throw myself into the pitched battle of a major criminal trial unless I believed in my head, heart, and soul that the defendant was guilty. When the Simpson case fell into my lap, I had been on the job for fourteen years. I had prosecuted literally thousands of defendants. I could feel a clench in my gut when I realized we had the right man.

By the time O. J. Simpson finally surrendered at his home the night of June 17, 1994, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that he was the one. That familiar twist in my stomach confirmed it. Even before the blood, we had a strong case. But the blood clinched it. His blood was on Nicole’s walk. Nicole’s blood and that of Ron Goldman were on the glove from Rockingham. My God, the trail of blood literally led to Simpson’s bedroom. From where I was sitting, it was dead-bang.

Somebody, probably Suzanne, had given me the tape of Robert Kardashian reading Simpson’s so-called suicide letter, a travesty I’d managed to catch for only a few seconds when it was broadcast live. I took it home and, on the Saturday after the chase, I ejected a Disney tape from the VCR in my living room, parked myself on the couch, and watched the whole sorry performance.

“Please don’t feel sorry for me… I’ve had a great life, made great friends. Please think of the real O.J. and not this lost person.”

He sent his “love and thanks” to all his friends. He started ticking off golfing buddies. Golfing buddies!

Are you fucking kidding? Your children are left motherless and all you can talk about is yourself, the media, and your golfing buddies?

The only pain he could feel was his own. That kind of total preoccupation with self is the mark of a sociopath. I’d seen it before. These guys commit unspeakable acts and yet somehow things get twisted around in their heads so that they are the victims. Simpson’s behavior hardly surprised me.

The question being kicked around our office by the end of the week was whether or not Shapiro would try some kind of mental defense. Would he try to claim a temporary insanity that absolved Simpson of responsibility-switching the penalty from life in prison to an indeterminate spell in a mental hospital? Gil was convinced that Simpson would do this by asserting some Menendez-type plea; at the very least he would argue it was a crime of passion. Over the weekend, on