Without a Doubt - [63]

On the flight home, I gave serious thought to withdrawing from the case. I am not a quitter by nature, but, I thought, if my style, my gender, or my race could actually subvert the process of justice, I should offer Gil the chance to dump me gracefully. So I asked for a meeting with Gil and Don Vinson.

Now, I should say here that in the months since the verdict, Don Vinson has been quoted more than once as saying that his research showed that black women would be too turned off by me to render a fair and impartial verdict. He’s claimed to have counseled our office to downplay the domestic violence issue on the grounds that black women didn’t consider it any big deal-and that I resisted him, clinging to the delusion that I could make them care.

Reality check. By the time I returned from Phoenix, I knew perfectly well what I was up against. And if reaching jurors meant emphasizing physical evidence over DV, I was perfectly willing to do it. The domestic violence aspect of the case had gone largely undeveloped. It wasn’t that we’d neglected investigating the essential leads. Early on, we’d been in touch with the City Attorney’s office, which had handled the 1989 battery incident. We’d collected files of documents generated by that case as well as those from the 911 call from 1983. Throughout the fall I would conduct extensive interviews with prosecutors and cops who had spoken to Nicole on both occasions. But I hadn’t been able to get beyond the basic facts or to talk to domestic violence experts who might help us to interpret those facts.

I hadn’t a spare moment to deal with it. My concentration and energy had been centered upon blood and other physical evidence. I was also experiencing some emotional resistance within myself-which I was hard-pressed to explain, though the reasons for it would become plainer to me as time wore on. The idea that I was on some wild-eyed feminist jag is one of Vinson’s self-serving fantasies.

Vinson’s misrepresentations of me, when I later read them in print, seemed all the more fantastic in light of the little speech he actually delivered to me in the very presence of Gil Garcetti.

“Marcia,” he assured me unctuously, “those responses are nothing to worry about. When you’re in the courtroom, they’ll get to know and like you. I know they will. No question about it.”

I looked to Gil. He paused for a moment, then said, “I agree with Don.”

Gil Garcetti could have bailed on me, and he didn’t. I will always be grateful to him for acting so honorably. I think he wanted to send a message that neither race nor gender should disqualify a good prosecutor. Gil also realized, as a purely practical matter, that anyone he chose was likely to meet resistance from jurors like those who’d branded me a bitch. A white man would be written off as a representative of the power establishment. A black man would be reviled as an Uncle Tom. A black woman? Black female jurors would fucking lynch her. Bottom line, if we drew a panel of jurors who were determined to acquit O. J. Simpson, they were going to kill the messenger.

For several weeks, the mock-jury results were a hot topic of gossip. The “bitch” comment took on a life of its own. I could hear tongues wagging: Clark’s a bitch. Clark’s a hothead. Is it any wonder she doesn’t get along with the judge?

By now the Barry and Lisa Show had given way to the Lance and Marcia Show. Lance and I probably didn’t do nearly as much wrangling as it seemed from the headlines. But whenever there was a flareup, the five scrappiest seconds would make the ten o’clock news. In fact, Ito and I spent a lot of calm, normal moments together doing business-as-usual courtroom stuff. Sometimes we got along well; other times, not. We didn’t have great chemistry, but if we’d been left alone we probably could have arrived at a wobbly truce.

But that was never going to happen. Lance was just too sensitive to his own press notices. He saw that the media had set up the two of us as sparring partners and he wanted to make damned sure the public knew, the reporters knew, and I knew who was running the courtroom. Whenever I raised my voice to make a point, he scowled or dressed me down. While he always spoke respectfully to the defense, referring to them as “Mr. Cochran” and “Mr. Shapiro,” I was usually “Marcia.” I felt that I had to draw the line early and break him of the habit of condescending to me before this case came to trial. If a jury picked up his cues, they’d tune me out before I could finish my opening statement.

Gil had been watching all this from the sidelines. A week or two after the “bitch” episode, he called me into his office for a heart-to-heart.

“Why don’t you try laying back?” he suggested. “Don’t be so tough.”

I was flabbergasted. What the hell did he want me to do? Go in there with a pinafore and pigtails and threaten to hold my breath if Lance didn’t treat me better? I had a job to do, and if I was to represent the People properly, I had to show a little strength. Either that or be an empty chair.