[In her home, Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark receives a phone call]
PVDetective Philip Vannatter
Marcia, Phil Vannatter, you got a sec? I need your opinion on a double homicide.
[In the background, Marcia’s kids call for her]
[to her kids] Boys, please go get your stuff. [to Vannatter] What have you got?
PVDetective Philip Vannatter
We’ve got two victims in Brentwood, on Bundy Drive. It’s pretty brutal.
Brentwood? Nobody gets killed in Brentwood.
PVDetective Philip Vannatter
Well, one of the victims is the ex-wife of O.J. Simpson.
PVDetective Philip Vannatter
Marcia, O.J. Simpson. You know, the football player.
Yeah, I have no idea who you’re talking about.
PVDetective Philip Vannatter
Marcia, O.J… The Juice? He’s a movie star. You know, he’s in The Naked Gun movie. He’s the guy in the, uh, the, uh, Hertz commercial.
Oh yeah, that guy. Huh. Well, will you just tell me what happened, please? [To her kid] Come here. Let me tie your shoe.
PVDetective Philip Vannatter
Well, there’s a lot of blood at the murders. And here at O.J.’s house there appears to be blood on one of his vehicles. And we can see drops of blood leading into the house. There are also two bloody gloves, one at each location, that appear to match.
[now giving the phone her full attention] Wow. What were you doing at Simpson’s?
PVDetective Philip Vannatter
We were here notifying a family member. We just didn’t realise he turned out to be a suspect.
Well, it sounds like you have enough to arrest him. This is major.
PVDetective Philip Vannatter
No, no, no, one step at a time. Right now, I just want a search warrant. Just wanted a prosecutor’s opinion, that’s all.
Well, this prosecutor says “Go get him.” [Hangs up] Boys, in the car, now!
Come on, I had your job. I know the drill. The police commission determined the officer acted in self-defence. The officers were scared. There were seven of them with guns up against one mentally ill woman with a knife.
Johnnie, I tried. You know all they had to claim was that their lives were in danger.
Danger. They shot her in the back. You know, it’s remarkable to me how many black folks get shot in the backside, while they… [mimes] attacking. Like they’re going backwards and forwards at the same time.
[Reading Nicole's file, looking visibly angry at the contents] This is outrageous. Eight 911 calls, the police were called there eight times. Nicole had a bruised face, black eye, bleeding lip, O.J. broke a windshield with a baseball bat! God, the system failed her.
MSMarcia's Colleague
You can't get so upset.
You know what really pisses me off? This went on for years. All that battering before he was even arrested!
[conducting a TV interview] Yes, it’s a complex situation. But we must remember that he is a person not used to being arrested. He’s fragile, confused. Whenever I see a black man being chased by armed officers, my guard goes up.
IInterviewer
With all due respect, this is a… a possible killer who fled from the police.
Innocent until proven guilty. If the LAPD is involved, we should let history be our guiding principle. Time after time, the police shoot first and offer sloppy apologies afterwards. 30 years ago, a young man named Leonard Deadwyler was driving his pregnant wife to the hospital. She was about to give birth to their child. And that very same LAPD saw a black man driving too fast, and they did what they do. They shot and killed him. I represented Leonard’s family. It was one of my very first cases. Unfortunately, the first of many. It was a terrible thing. Leonard’s only crime: the colour of his skin.
ADAlan Dershowitz
So, then, the first week culminates with Simpson deciding to make a run for it, while under your supervision…
ADAlan Dershowitz
… Leaving behind a letter that sounds like an admission of guilt, that you guys, for some mistifying reason, read aloud on television…
Bob thought it was a good idea.
No, no, no, wait. Why did you say that? You don’t know what it was like that day. You weren’t there.
’Alan Dershowitz: Of course. And I’m here to help, not to judge.
Oh, you are here to judge. What was that? What was all that?
ADAlan Dershowitz
Bob, you have to move fast. Your client, his goodwill, all of his popularity and accomplishments, it’s a depreciating asset.
ADAlan Dershowitz
Right now, he’s sort of like this handsome, gifted Greek God laid low. It’s a tragedy. But he’s still a Greek God. The longer he sits in that cell, the more the public see him in a jumpsuit and cuffs, the more mortal he becomes. That’s the clock we’re fighting.
So let’s hit the ground running. Okay, first question. Who thinks O.J. did it? [Everybody freezes and looks at him in shocked disbelief.] Me neither.
[Awkward silence]
Uh, thank you, Bob. Why don’t we talk big picture strategy? I’d say our priority at this juncture is the jury.
ADAlan Dershowitz
Yes. We know we have a downtown jury, which means a heavy concentration of African Americans.
Indeed. Black men obviously are our allies. Mr. Simpson, a hero in the community. And I’m confident that people will assume he couldn’t have committed such a ghastly crime. But black women, on the other hand, might be a problem. They don’t like their men marrying white girls.
Why’re you looking at me?
[Shawn laughs at his discomfort]
But I believe the generalization is accurate. Black women resent successful black men marrying outside the community. We need to limit that group.
That analysis is smart. The prosecution thinks they have the upper hand, but they don’t. Because we have you. And you know how these people think.
[Johnnie gives him another disbelieving look. Lee and Dershowitz visibly cringe with embarrassment, and Barry Scheck buries his face in his hands. Cochran’s team merely looks amused]
“These people?” Bob, let me give you a helpful piece of advice. On this case, you need to choose your vernacular very, very carefully.
[raising his palms] Mea culpa.
[to O.J.] Have you forgotten who you are? These walls around you don’t change that. You know what you mean to people? [O.J. does not answer] Okay. Well, then let me tell you what you were once to me. 1978, I just left private practice, gone back to the LA D.A. Gonna be the first black assistant attorney in office. Gonna change things from the inside. Shit… That wasn’t happening. Same old shit, same rigged system. Feeling powerless for the first time in my life. And then my first marriage blows up in my face. My children won’t talk to me. I’m a failure at work. I’m a failure at home. I was down, brother. I was way down. Sunday, sitting on my bed, surrounded by dead-end paperwork and divorce lawyer bills, drinking beer – all right, maybe a little too much beer – feeling sorry for myself, watching a football game, all alone. Crappy TV. 49ers vs the Falcons. What I saw you do on that field, that day, somehow, as I was watching, it became as if you were running for me. Driving up that field, crowded with adversity and obstacles, getting knocked on your ass, and then popping right back up again! See, that’s what I wanted to do out there on them streets, back home with my troubles there but couldn’t. But you, you, you… You willed what you needed to do into being, with nothing but grace.
I scored a touchdown that day.
You did. And when they cut away to the commercial, there you were again, leaping through the airport for Hertz, breaking another barrier with charisma, humor, intelligence. A black man as the public face for one of the world’s biggest corporations.
I don’t remember that. I remember everything about that game, but not that, because it didn’t have nothing to do with what touched me. And when the game was over, I got the hell up off that bed, and jogged the six blocks back to my office, and got right back to work, and haven’t stopped and wallowed in self-pity since that day. You did that for me. Just like you’ve done for so many others. Because you are O.J. Simpson. You are O.J. Simpson, and you are an inspiration.
[Marcia Clark is meeting with Kim and Fred Goldman, Ron Goldman’s sister and father]
I’m glad you were both able to find time to come down. It’s good for us to get to know each other. I know what you’re going through –
FGFred Goldman
[sharply] DO YOU!? Do you have a son who was murdered!? Ron is dead! And it’s like no-one even cares! I turn on the TV, and it’s just O.J. and Nicole, O.J. and Nicole. It’s like Ron is a footnote… to his own murder! And if they talk about him, they make him seem like some kind of joke! It’s all so superficial. He was a male model, he was a nightclub promoter, he ran a tanning salon. It’s like they’re trying to tarnish him! Like… [sobbing] he… he was asking for it. [pauses to regain his composure] You know what he did in his spare time? He volunteered at a clinic for children with cerebral palsy. He was a good person! He didn’t drink, he didn’t do drugs. He should be celebrated! Not… this! When the police called and… they said Ron had been killed… I assumed it was a car accident. Never, in my worst nightmare could I have imagined the truth. What this… this monster did to him. Do you have children?
[nods solemnly, fighting back tears herself] Two boys.
FGFred Goldman
[softly, leaning in close] I pray that you never have to read an autopsy report for your own child. My son’s last moments were filled with such horror… and such… pain. He… He was stabbed so many times. He was stabbed in his chest… his neck… his face… his head… his hands, his stomach… [sobs] his thigh. He was even stabbed… after he was dead.
[taking his hand] We are gonna get him.
FGFred Goldman
[nods] You better.
