[TV static]
[ominous music playing]
[man] When it became clear that there was gonna be a ton of DNA evidence
in the Simpson case,
who you gonna call? They called me.
The first DNA tests started being done in like 1988, 1989.
In 1994, it was quite new.
I began writing early on about DNA evidence
when it was first introduced in the legal system,
so I became known as kind of a "DNA expert."
…figure out that somebody who's been sent to prison for 25 years
is likely to be innocent.
I jumped at the chance.
I thought there was far more DNA evidence against Simpson
than I had ever seen in any other case.
Most cases, there are one, two, three samples.
This case, there were well over 50 samples.
It was Barry Scheck who started thinking about the case a different way
and started asking what I think of as the magic question.
How can we explain this evidence in a way that's consistent with innocence?
What story can we tell?
It was very clear that it had to involve the planting of evidence
and possibly also would have involved contamination of evidence.
I was initially skeptical of some of what Scheck was arguing.
Is it possible they could have planted this, you know?
Would somebody have done this?
I think Shapiro thought if we went to trial, we would lose,
and so let's just make the best bargain for O.J.
That was his initial impression.
I think Cochran's impression is, "Damn it, let's try this thing."
[Douglas] Johnnie never had a conversation about O.J. pleading,
"The DNA is too tough. We can't win."
Never. That wasn't Johnnie's makeup.
[Thompson] Cochran found Scheck's theory completely believable.
Cochran was saying, "I've been practicing in this jurisdiction for all these years,
this kind of shit happens all the time."
"Of course they did this."
This is LA, man. We're in Chinatown now.
Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.
Part of what you need for a story,
if people are doing bad things, there needs to be a motive.
And so, enter Fuhrman.
[tense, dramatic music playing]
We begin with Jeff Toobin. He's a lawyer and former prosecutor.
[Toobin] I graduated from Harvard Law School in 1986.
For six years, I was a federal prosecutor.
And in 1993, I joined the staff of The New Yorker,
a year before the O.J. case started.
There are hundreds of journalists there. What could I possibly add?
But I did know Alan Dershowitz.
Alan Dershowitz was my criminal law professor at Harvard Law School,
and he was part of the defense team.
So I called Alan and I said, "What's interesting about this case?"
And Alan said, "Well, you know, this Mark Fuhrman,
he's a bad guy, this detective."
[tense music playing]
The credibility of the witnesses is always central.
Fuhrman had recovered a central piece of evidence.
The glove at Rockingham.
I thought, "Well, if he is in fact a bad cop,
maybe there are lawsuits against him."
But that's not what I found.
I found a case where Mark Fuhrman was the plaintiff.
And I saw that he had filed a lawsuit
asking for a pension from the city of LA
on the grounds that he was such a racist
that he was incapable of functioning as an appropriate police officer.
He felt feelings of rage and anger
at the minority communities in which he had been assigned.
And he used the N-word.
And he used it several times.
It is basically Fuhrman saying that he felt the urge to kill people.
If the lead detective talks about feelings that he has against African Americans,
that is an issue that is relevant.
[Fuhrman] There was a period in my life.
I talked about minorities in derogatory terms.
I was…
I was kind of lost. And I was angry.
I didn't know how it played into the facts of the case.
So I was determined to try to find Robert Shapiro.
We're getting ready to prepare for trial.
[Toobin] I snuck into his office, and I said to him,
"I saw this incredible thing about Mark Fuhrman."
And before too long, he said, "If you think that's bad,
we think he planted the bloody glove at O.J.'s house."
[music intensifies]
And that's when I knew I really had a story.
[Darden] The Fuhrman article comes out.
Now that became a huge, huge problem.
Everybody wanted to use the case to tell their own story.
What Shapiro thought was the best strategy
was to filter everything through a racist lens.
They're coming after me.
- I can feel it. - [music stops]
I am now walking around with a target on my back.
[tense music playing]
Because of Mark Fuhrman and his background,
race had to be front and center
because the circumstances dictated that way.
The murder took place in West Los Angeles.
And as a result, you could have filed that case
in the Santa Monica Los Angeles County Courthouse
and it would have been a more white jury.
This case, were it not for the publicity, would have been held in west Los Angeles.
The man who will decide on how to go about prosecuting O.J. Simpson
is the Los Angeles District Attorney, Gil Garcetti.
Our concern here truly is that you have 12 jurors, whoever they may be,
gender, race, doesn't make any difference,
that are truly fair.
Gil Garcetti had just gone through the Rodney King trial.
Changing the venue from Los Angeles to Simi Valley
was the greatest reason for that atrocious verdict.
[man] Not guilty of the crime of assault.
And Gil was hypersensitive to that claim of unfairness.
[indistinct shouting]
[sirens wail]
We think it's absolutely essential that O.J. Simpson be tried by a jury
that's representative of the immense diversity of this city,
including African Americans.
Gil wanted to believe that a fair verdict could be everywhere.
Black people convict Black people of murder
every day in downtown Los Angeles.
[dramatic music playing]
[Darden] It wasn't my case at that time, so it wasn't my call.
But we as prosecutors should not say,
"We won't move the case to Downtown LA,
because there will be a lot of Black jurors."
That's discrimination. That's racist.
At the same time, this is not a jury pool that you want.
[tense music playing]
[Toobin] It is often said by trial lawyers
that cases are won and lost in jury selection.
Do you honestly feel that you can get
12 people who can put everything they've seen and read about this case
outside the courtroom door and consider only the evidence?
I'm hopeful that we can, yes, very hopeful.
[Darden] Marcia Clark was an experienced lawyer,
experienced at picking juries in that courthouse.
Marcia knew that if you take your time and do it right,
picking the right jurors can make a huge difference,
huge difference in the outcome of the case.
These are such racially-charged times in this racially-charged city.
You want to be careful,
and you want to select jurors who are open-minded enough
to be receptive to the prosecution's case.
[woman] I received a jury summons.
It wasn't until I got to the criminal courthouse
I realized it was gonna be the O.J. Simpson trial.
We were given a questionnaire, and it was 79 pages.
They were trying to see if we could be unbiased,
if we had any feelings towards police.
At the time, I had plenty of friends that were police officers,
and actually I had a friend who was a police officer who was murdered,
and for that reason alone, I didn't think I was going to be selected.
[Douglas] We found from our research
that Black women were the best jurors for O.J. Simpson.
And that was counterintuitive
because O.J. wasn't connected with the Black community.
O.J. had left his Black wife for this young white woman.
Historically, Marcia had done well in her practice with Black women jurors.
They connected.
She got convictions of Black defendants with Black women.
But Black women understood, uniquely, the unfairness and the distrust
of African American men and the police in Los Angeles.
The jury consultant that the prosecution retained said,
"Black women are your worst jurors."
But Marcia just didn't buy it, and she trusted her instincts.
[Douglas] She was a fierce competitor.
She didn't care what nobody said.
She was going to do whatever she thought was right.
[O.J. Simpson] The most interesting thing about this entire process…
and I never, ever, in my life looked at race.
When I sit in that jury room, I'm counting the Blacks in the room.
I never knew how many Blacks was in a room.
Now I'm counting the Blacks in the room. I'm counting the Asians in the room.
The system has forced me to look at things racially.
Two months for jury selection
and 250 people interviewed is an eternity.
[female reporter 1] The lengthy process of picking a jury for the O.J. Simpson trial
moves into its second day.
[female reporter 2] The jury pool is very diverse
in ethnic and racial background.
[male reporter] A grueling day of chess-like moves…
I didn't think I had a chance of getting on the case,
and to my shock, they turned around and said they accepted the jury.
Lawyers settled on a panel composed of eight Blacks,
one white, one Hispanic, and two people of mixed race.
We were thrilled.
Because so many of our favorable jurors were included.
[Darden] Picking eight Black jurors ain't the problem.
Picking the wrong eight Black jurors, that might be a problem.
I remember me and Johnnie and Shapiro were walking back
and O.J. looked back at this jury
and said, "Jeesh, if this jury convicts me, maybe I did do it."
[dramatic music playing]
[male reporter 1] Naming the trial judge
in this explosive case,
that judge is vital to both sides.
I'm assigning the case to Judge Lance Ito.
Lance Ito was picked because
they thought he was the best person
to handle what was going to be a bit of a circus.
[male reporter 2] Both defense and prosecution welcomed Ito,
a former prosecutor well-regarded as smart, tough, and fair.
[indistinct chatter and shouting]
[Crawford] All of the news that was surrounding the trial, it was everywhere,
and the judge began to mention that he was thinking about sequestration.
We were locked up into a hotel.
We had the whole floor of that hotel blocked off
where no one had access.
No family or friends could visit.
It was very hard.
[ominous music playing]
When I became a deputy DA in March of 1981,
I thought there were 800, 900 prosecutors in the office.
If there were ten that were Black, I would be surprised.
By the time O.J. Simpson came up, I'd been in the office about 15 years.
I'm sitting there and I get a phone call.
I was told that Bill Hodgman had a medical event involving his heart.
Bill Hodgman was one of the more senior lawyers in the office,
and he and Marcia were brought on to try the case originally.
And when that happened, my immediate concern wasn't,
"Well, who's going to join Marcia Clark at the counsel table?"
I just hoped Bill was going to be all right.
[male reporter] The 41-year-old prosecutor was stricken by chest pains.
After that, I was asked to officially join the prosecution team,
but my first inclination was, "There's no way in hell."
[camera clicks]
But, at the same time,
part of me felt that he deserved my attention like all the others.
So, I read the file. I believed he was guilty as hell.
I remember going up north to talk to my old man about it.
The agreement was that I would keep my head down.
I would stay out of trouble.
I wouldn't bring unnecessary attention to myself, right?
I would just do the job, get in and get out.
Didn't work out that way, though, did it?
Any questions for Chris?
Come on, man. Come on. Look at this guy. Come on. We have to drag him over.
You had Christopher Darden, who O.J. called "Token."
Chris's selection was a racial token.
Hate to say it. Nice guy.
I thought it was bullshit.
The fact that he was Black
was the greatest reason why he was brought in.
Lo and behold, he shows up here.
Why is that, after we have eight African Americans? I don't know.
We've been concerned about it.
[Darden] What was being said by the defense, I found offensive as hell.
No, the reason I was put on that case is because I was good.
I had never lost a felony trial, 15 years.
He might have been a good lawyer too,
but there were better white lawyers in the office.
I'm sure Johnnie's race was the reason
O.J. thought it's best to have a Black lawyer in this case.
- I'm cool with that. - [TV static]
[Garcetti] The media continues to buy on to any defense mention of race.
They want to continue to play that card.
Chris Darden is on the case, plain and simple,
because he is a fabulous trial lawyer.
[Darden] I was a killer. I was a beast.
I got to a point where I felt like I could convict anybody.
[tense music playing]
[Douglas] Trial lawyers have great egos.
I always say the most dangerous spot to be
is in between a trial lawyer and a camera that's running.
In 1994,
Bob Shapiro would walk down the Forum to a Laker game,
and they would show his face on the teletron as he's taking his seat.
It's difficult now to understand how all-encompassing it was.
We're looking at everything, uh,
and I can't comment on the evidence with regard to that.
We lawyers thrive on that attention
and that celebrity,
and we love it, and we want it to continue forever.
[music intensifies]
[Gilbert] Shapiro thought he would always be in charge.
But Johnnie was a trial attorney.
He was a person that worked in front of a jury.
Shapiro did, of course, not want to take the back seat.
[Thompson] There were some issues about control of the case.
It was ultimately Simpson's decision to turn over more control to Cochran.
- [camera clicks] - So Cochran and his team took over.
No comments on that. No comments on that.
When the acknowledgement was that Johnnie was the lead
and Bob was no longer the lead,
it had to create tensions with Bob that he tried to suppress.
We're trying to play it off so that it's not visible on the cameras.
The key question for the judge in the O.J. Simpson murder trial today was
whether to bar cameras and microphones from the courtroom.
Having cameras in the courtroom allows everyone to see how a trial proceeds.
They see the actual evidence as it's being brought out,
and that's a good thing.
TV cameras can really have an impact on what happens in the courtroom.
That was a wrong decision.
People play to the cameras.
It has been said that no American so prominent has been charged with murder.
It will be a legal spectacle.
Now the whole world finally gets to see
what we have been waiting seven months to see.
- [light cheering] - [indistinct chatter]
[man] Juice! Juice!
It's kind of hard to explain the first day of that trial.
There were helicopters that were overhead.
[man] What did O.J. say to you?
[woman] Tell him we love him! Tell him we love him!
The main stairway going into the courthouse was cordoned off.
[Rivera] As a lawyer myself, I can tell you that
there is an aspect of show business in every case, with or without cameras.
Except that when it is on camera, as it was in this case,
it was part of the universal experience.
There was no one in the country not affected.
[Darden] I'd never seen anything like it.
There were news trucks for a couple of blocks.
The media set up across the street.
They call it "Camp O.J." It's very distracting.
They're parked on the sidewalk.
"Wow, man, what a circus this whole thing is."
[solemn music playing]
The first time I walked in the courtroom,
a part of me was surprised at how small it was.
You know, I'd only seen it on TV, so to speak.
I stared at him as he walked in.
I just locked eyes, all the way until he sat down.
[music intensifies]
I needed him to know that I was there.
Are both sides prepared to go forward? Mr. Cochran?
- We are, Your Honor. - Mrs. Clark?
[Clark] Yes, Your Honor.
[Ito] Do the People wish to make an opening statement?
[Clark] Yes, we do, Your Honor.
[Ito] All right, you may proceed. Mr. Darden?
I made my first appearance at trial after the jurors were selected.
I think it's fair to say that I have the toughest job in town today.
On the first day, to see Christopher Darden,
that's when I said, "Why'd they bring him in?"
And that's where I thought that they were probably playing to the race.
And we're here today, obviously, to resolve an issue,
to settle a question,
a question that has been on the minds of people throughout the country
these last seven months.
Did O.J. Simpson really kill Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman?
I am here in front of you this morning… to answer that question.
It makes you a little bit nervous, you know?
When that camera's there.
I mean, it does change the way you do things.
We will expose to you in this trial the other side of O.J. Simpson,
a wife beater, an abuser.
He killed her to control her.
Control is a continuing theme.
The purpose of the opening statement was to hopefully make the jury more open
to receiving the evidence that this is a domestic murder.
[Darden] And I submit to you,
that as the trial proceeds on,
that motive will become clear.
We criminal lawyers are more gunslingers.
Johnnie Cochran had that connection.
He had the skill of 32 years of talking to jurors in Los Angeles.
Why did Mr. Darden spend all that time on domestic violence
if this is a murder case?
He's not charged with any domestic violence.
They're trying to dredge up some theory to give you a motive
because they don't have a motive.
The defense will talk to you about possibilities.
And they'll insinuate many sinister things based on those possibilities.
This case is about a rush to judgment.
An obsession to win at any cost and by any means necessary.
There were a couple of pictures of an officer leaning down, pointing
at the glove and the cap and everything.
That was Officer Fuhrman.
The prosecution never once mentioned his name yesterday.
It's like they just want to hide him.
But they can't hide him.
Two people have been brutally murdered.
And the evidence consistently will point to the guilt
of only one person as their murderer.
[Douglas] We had an obligation to our client
to spin things in a way that was positive,
that would continue to promote the quest for justice.
I guess Dr. Martin Luther King said it best when he said that,
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
And so we are now embarked upon this search for justice.
This search for truth.
This search for the facts.
One of the obstacles in prosecuting a guy like O.J.
is getting the jury to entertain the possibility
that he might do what he's accused of doing.
Because you have his public life, his public persona.
It's a great way to make new friends, right, fellas?
Which is all inconsistent with murdering his ex-wife.
[camera clicks]
We need people that knew him
and people who could give firsthand accounts
of the relationship O.J. and Nicole had.
But a lot of people didn't want to testify against O.J.
I didn't want to testify at first mainly because every Black person,
not just in this country, around, they're going to hate your guts.
It was O.J. Simpson.
I will always be remembered for being the first guy to go over 2,000 yards.
O.J. wouldn't do something like that. He's our hero.
[camera clicks]
[Darden] Ron Shipp was ex-LAPD.
His testimony could be important because he was a friend of O.J.'s.
He witnessed some of the abuse.
[Shipp] Chris called me and he said, "We need to talk to you."
And I sit down, he goes, "Hey, Ron, I'll be right back."
I look down.
[music intensifies]
There's the homicide book.
I open the thing up, there's the homicide scene.
She was chopped up.
And it was horrible.
You know, I think people just took for granted the viciousness of it all.
You see somebody that you love.
You know, it… It was horrible.
So… when Chris came and sat down, I said, "I'll do it."
And he said, "What?" I said, "I'll testify."
[dramatic music playing]
[Darden] The People call Ron Shipp to the stand. Ron?
[Shipp] That was probably one of the hardest things for me to do
when I testified because I loved O.J. Simpson.
I loved him. You know?
I almost broke down and cried.
[clears throat]
[voice breaking] Then Chris Darden asked me…
Um, "How do you feel about O.J.?"
And I said, "I don't know how he feels, but I still love him."
[Darden] Do you and the defendant remain friends today?
Well, I still love the guy, but, um… I don't know.
I mean, this is a weird situation I'm sitting here in.
But I felt that that's what I had to do.
[Darden] You had this conversation with Nicole Brown at the house.
Relay to us the content of that conversation, please.
Nicole had advised me that he had hit her.
There was some swelling about her head.
I remember she… It was covered up pretty good.
I looked at her, I saw bruises on her face and everything.
And she said to me, "Would you mind talking to him?"
And I said, "Hey, man, you hit her. She's got marks. You're a batterer."
And that's when he kind of agreed and said, "I guess you're right."
I examined one witness in the trial, Ron Shipp.
[Ito] Mr. Douglas, your cross-examination.
I think it was important to send a message to the prosecution.
You're not really this man's friend, are you, sir?
- You ever been golfing with him? - [Shipp] Never.
- Ever been to a Raider game with him? - Not one.
Everything I asked of Shipp,
O.J. told me what to ask.
He would always give me stage tips.
And I listened to him more than any other client,
because he had the bona fides.
- You drink a lot, don't you? - I used to.
Oh, gosh.
I hated that guy while he was cross-examining me.
[Douglas] Didn't you receive a discipline as a result of that conduct?
Yes, I did.
[Douglas] It is true, is it not, that when you are under the influence of alcohol,
your ability to recall facts and events is affected?
If you're drunk.
Whether or not Ron Shipp had an alcohol problem is totally irrelevant,
and everybody knows it. But they're trying to dirty him up.
There was nothing about my cross-examination
where an objection was sustained.
That gave me all that I needed to continue to do what I was doing.
You have, in the past, told Mr. Simpson's friend,
if Mr. Simpson weren't around,
you might have a shot at Nicole Brown-Simpson yourself?
[Shipp] I had to laugh at that.
You know, because it was such a big lie.
I didn't--
That's totally false, totally false.
Mr. Douglas, I hope you get your facts straight, okay?
[Ito] Hold on. Hold on.
- You're attacking me, let me answer. - [Ito] Hold on, Mr. Shipp.
[Shipp] This is sad, O.J.
Your Honor, I move to strike that.
[Ito] Ladies and gentlemen, you are to disregard
Mr. Shipp's direct comment to the defendant.
- Mr. Shipp, please. - [Shipp] I'm sorry.
You're instructed not to do that.
I would never think of hitting on O.J.'s wife.
[Darden] Ron Shipp was being skewered for telling the truth
and defending Ron and Nicole's right to live.
It takes courage, especially in this case and at that time,
to get up on the witness stand and tell the truth.
And say what you know.
It takes a lot of courage.
I mean, he told the truth in a double murder
where two innocent, helpless, defenseless people… were butchered.
How can you be mad at that?
How can anybody be mad at him for that?
But, you know, the fact of the matter is
that sometimes, you know, truth carries with it a penalty, a price.
You must have expected some kind of backlash, Ron.
And it's probably been a little bit more than I expected.
I was accused of going against the race.
There are people, Black people, that won't speak to me.
[Gilbert] Everyone vilified Ron for being the first friend of O.J.'s
that came out publicly,
not just against him, but decided to testify against him.
[Shipp] It was horrible. Everywhere that I went,
you know, the people that were pro-O.J., "Hey, you Uncle Tom."
I did not think that people would look at me that way.
He's due a lot of respect and admiration
because he did do something that was extremely difficult,
because he did love O.J.
Ron Shipp had what a lot of the other people in that inner circle didn't have,
and that was a conscience.
I'm doing this for my conscience and my peace of mind.
I will not have the blood of Nicole on Ron Shipp.
[tense music playing]
The sheer brutality of the killings, the way the killings occurred,
to me supports the notion that the person that committed the killing was angry,
and that the killing is personal.
Nicole's neck was injured so severely, people couldn't look at it.
She was nearly decapitated.
What we have here in the side of the head is a penetrating injury.
To the temporal bone…
[Darden] The coroner in this case showed the jury how he could kill two people
within a few minutes of each other.
[Sathyavagiswaran] These photographs clearly demonstrate the bloodflow pattern.
The movies have people stabbed once and they just go down.
That's not the case.
The neck is not as stable as it should be because the spine has also been cut.
I believe that Simpson stabbed her in the upper body area up by the shoulder.
[Sathyavagiswaran] One must keep in mind the dependent drainage of blood
from the chest cavity.
And when Goldman came in,
the evidence would suggest that he approached her
and actually cradled her head,
and I think this is where Simpson came out of the bushes
and grabbed him around the throat.
[Sathyavagiswaran] Four sharp force injuries to the neck…
Simpson now sees Nicole waking up.
The knife is used to cut her throat.
[Sathyavagiswaran] The neck stab wound Ms. Simpson suffered being the last wound.
You don't kill somebody with a knife,
and stab like they accused him of doing,
and then an hour later,
chill out and take a plane flight and be cool.
[ominous music playing]
I've seen O.J. cry more than you'd ever imagine.
O.J. Simpson crying? You kidding me?
Strong O.J.?
He couldn't look at blood. He's a scaredy-cat.
We'd have monitors on the desk. He would turn away.
You gotta be a… a sociopath
to be able to exact the level of violence
that happened on that day.
[tense music playing]
This thing about celebrity, especially in a place like Los Angeles
where celebrities are revered.
[crowd shouting] O.J.!
[Darden] Nobody wanted to believe that O.J. Simpson was an abuser,
that this is a domestic murder.
You have to drag him off that pedestal
and drag him down to Mother Earth with all the rest of us.
- [Darden] Good morning, sir. - [man] Good morning.
Sir, on January 1, 1989, did you receive a radio call?
[Edwards] It was around 3:30 in the morning.
The 911 operator could overhear the woman being beaten on the phone.
- [Darden] Was she hysterical? - Oh yes.
[Darden] With the court's permission, I'd like to play the 1989 911 tape.
[female operator] 911, emergency…
Hello?
[woman screams]
[Edwards] When I arrived, a woman came running out of the bushes to my left
and started yelling, "He's going to kill me."
I said, "Who is going to kill you?" She said, "O.J."
- She was beat-up. - [camera clicks]
Back then, we had had the big "What the fuck?" talk, yes.
We had a come-to-Jesus talk.
Because I said, "What the hell is this?"
You know, "What is going on?"
And he…
[sighs]
Oh, man, this is tough.
He said, "You know, Mike, you know how Nicole gets when she drinks?"
"I'm just holding on to her. She's swinging, and it got out of hand."
So he described it as her fault, that she was the aggressor,
and that's one of the things that, when I look back, um…
- [man] And you believed him? - I did.
[Toobin] Nicole had called 911 eight times.
O.J. had been prosecuted and pleaded guilty for domestic violence.
[Darden] I don't think we had records of all the calls
or all the responses, quite frankly.
My feeling, my sense, was that there had been many others.
They just didn't record them.
O.J. was always in denial
about anything domestic violence with him and Nicole Brown.
He was obsessed about his public persona.
The focus on domestic violence hurt his image.
So that was always a sensitive area.
We were all drinking and goofing around
and being loud and dancing and having a great time.
And then at one point, O.J. grabbed Nicole's crotch and said,
"This is where babies come from, and this belongs to me."
[Darden] Did you say something to the defendant?
- [Denise Brown] Yes, I did. - [Darden] What did you say to him?
I told him he took Nicole for granted.
And he blew up,
grabbed Nicole, threw her against a wall.
[Darden] What did the defendant say about your sister's weight
while she was pregnant?
He used to call her a fat pig.
[Denise breathing shakily]
[Darden] People need to recognize the process
that takes an abuser from being verbally and emotionally abusive
to a point where they
might kill or will kill.
[man] The next witness expected to take the stand
is Simpson houseguest Brian Kato Kaelin.
I'd never been in a courtroom before. My stomach was already in knots.
[tense music playing]
And I saw O.J., and he did smile at me.
I didn't smile back.
[Kaelin] I came in, and they were… There was an argument going on.
[Clark] And how angry was he that day, Mr. Kaelin?
Angry. He was yelling. The police came.
First of all, he broke the back door down to get in.
What is he doing? Is he threatening you?
He's going nuts. He's going to beat the shit out of me.
Wait a minute.
O.J… O.J… O.J…
Has this happened before, or no?
Many times.
Okay.
O.J. went psycho. He broke down the French doors.
And then Nicole explained to me that, uh…
that O.J. is a crazy man.
Here you have someone who is, in my mind, a sociopath.
That means he has no conscience.
He's capable of doing anything.
You can turn it on. You can turn it off.
"Just don't challenge me."
Nicole challenged O.J.
He didn't like that.
Six months before the murder,
she lived on one street west, Gretna Green.
We found a neighbor witness who saw someone prowling the house late one night.
[man] He seemed to be attempting to observe
something that may have been occurring within the house.
[Darden] And who was that man?
It was Mr. Simpson.
You have a photograph of her covered in dirt and mud
after she hid in the shrubbery.
You have the diary. You have police responding to the house.
You have him attacking her Mercedes.
You have all of this.
And it's your offer, Mr. Darden, that these came from a safe-deposit box
belonging to Nicole Brown Simpson?
That's correct, Your Honor.
Once you hear the 911 calls and take a look at her battered face,
you know, the photographs, that's all you have to do.
[Crawford] It was hard to look at, you know,
and I think for her to keep those photos, it meant something.
[Darden] It's our position that Ms. Brown left a trail of evidence
indicating that there had been a pattern,
a history of abuse between her and the defendant.
There isn't a huge difference between beating your wife multiple times
and then damn near cutting her head off.
It's a continuum, just going through the alphabet until you get to Z,
which is…
[Crawford] It showed there was a propensity for violence
by O.J. towards Nicole,
and it gave motive.
[dramatic music playing]
[Darden] This killing is planned.
All you can do in trying to figure out a timeline is to look at,
you know, what you know.
We know that there is this window of when she must have been killed.
A dance recital was held in Brentwood for the defendant's daughter, Sydney.
The entire Brown family went to the recital.
The defendant arrived a short time later.
[cheering]
- [Darden] Did he sit directly behind you? - Yes, he did.
[Darden] After a few minutes, he just abruptly got up and moved.
Nobody said anything to offend him.
Why is he so angry?
[Clark] And you saw him at about 6:00 or 6:30, after the recital? Right?
Yes.
O.J. brought up that he couldn't believe the dress Nicole picked to wear.
Nicole was wearing a black halter dress and a black blazer.
[Darden] She was rediscovering herself.
She showed up at that recital in a little black dress.
She was able to dress how she wanted
and just take control of her own life.
You know, be her own woman.
He had said that it was inappropriate for a woman of her age to wear it.
I think it was a sign of jealousy.
I was thinking, "What does he care what she wears? They're not together."
[Darden] The Brown family decided to go to the Mezzaluna restaurant for dinner.
They made it clear to the defendant that he was not invited.
That night, he was no longer part of her family.
O.J.'s motive was control.
He had a very bizarre look in his eyes.
It was a very faraway look.
He just seemed upset and kind of staring into space.
Back at Rockingham, Mr. Simpson told Kato he was going out to get something to eat.
Kato invited himself.
I said, "Can I get something to eat with you?"
I knew by the way he said "Sure," he did not want me to go.
The whole drive was like waiting for a conversation to happen,
for him to start a conversation.
So nothing's really said, it's just quiet.
He seemed like he was deep in thought,
and I knew he was in some kind of like… mood.
Something is weird about this night, I couldn't explain it.
[Clark] You got to McDonald's at approximately what time?
[Kaelin] 9:22.
We drive back to Rockingham.
I walk out of his car to the door,
like we're going to eat the rest of the food in the kitchen.
But I looked, and he was still at the door of his car.
[Clark] So you last saw the defendant standing by the Bentley at 9:35?
[Kaelin] About 9:35.
I think about the interaction,
that I was the last person that saw O.J. before the murders.
[ominous music playing]
[Clark] The defendant had an hour and ten minutes
in which his whereabouts are unaccounted for.
And then, at 10:15,
Pablo Fenjves, the neighbor,
hears what he calls "The plaintive wail of the dog."
I became aware of a barking.
[dog barking]
[Darden] Then we have the dog. Does it add to the timeline?
Hell yeah.
The timeline was based on the bark of a dog.
From that time, they then went backwards
and tried to figure out what was going on.
[Fenjves] And all of a sudden I heard two voices that said, "Hey, hey, hey!"
Ms. Clark kept telling you that she had fixed the time of death in this case
at about 10:15,
because she wants to give enough time for her theory about O.J. Simpson to work.
And then, at 11:05,
O.J. gets picked up at home by the driver.
A limo driver said he saw a large Black man going across the driveway.
[Lange] Now, how long does it take to get from Bundy to Rockingham on a Sunday night
at about 10:30 to 10:35?
My partner, Vannatter, and I drove the route.
Again, it's 10:15 p.m., September 25, 1994,
at the rear of 875 South Bundy, starting north in the alley to the rear.
[Lange] We drove it normally, stopping for stop signs, for stoplights.
[Vannatter] Arriving at the Rockingham Gate at 360 North Rockingham
and stopping at the curb.
It never took more than four and a half minutes.
Plenty of time for him to do everything.
Had a little window of time.
[Darden] He wanted to create an alibi by being in that limo.
No time lost making your flight.
And getting on that plane at the time the body is discovered.
[tense music playing]
[Douglas] O.J. and Nicole,
they always had very loud arguments
that the neighbors often heard.
So that was always a curious aspect
that there were no eyewitnesses to what happened.
If there was the encounter as the prosecution laid it out,
that no one heard any sort of noises or screams.
[video reversing]
[ominous music playing]
My part of the testimony was important to the timeline.
Just before 11:00, she saw a white Bronco coming northbound on Bundy.
It was O.J. Simpson.
It puts O.J. at the scene, leaving the scene.
Marcia could have used her as a corroborating witness.
[man] A world exclusive.
A key witness in the case against O.J. Simpson breaks her silence.
It was just a constant barrage of media at our door, my mom's door.
I remember trying to put my daughter to bed,
she was like four or five.
And they were peering into her bedroom window with a camera.
I had people offering me money.
And they said, "All the witnesses are doing it,
they're selling their stories." I could use the money.
So then I thought, "Okay."
I sold my story because I thought that it was okay.
We cannot police people once they leave our building.
We can't follow them around and say don't talk to the press.
Marcia kept yelling at me that I had blown her case.
I sold my story and cannot be called to testify.
Marcia thought that tainted any testimony that she might provide.
But for me, I believe that Jill Shively saw and experienced
what she said she saw and experienced.
I believed it then, I continue to believe it today.
The fact that she sold her story
lost all credibility in the mind of the prosecution.
I can understand that.
It doesn't mean she didn't see something.
[Darden] As prosecutors, we had rules of ethics and standards of conduct.
We weren't supposed to get our hands dirty.
Clearly, those are rules that should not have applied in this case,
because this was a dogfight.
Tom Lange, T-O-M L-A-N-G-E.
[Darden] With Vannatter and Lange,
you have two very accomplished, respected investigators.
So what time did you arrive at 875 South Bundy, sir?
4:05 in the morning.
I was satisfied, in my mind, that the crime scene was indeed secured
by what I saw, yes.
This was a very, very bloody crime scene.
You don't want to contaminate the area. The area has been secured.
This appeared to me to be an overkill or a rage killing.
One of the things that you do as a defense lawyer is
you try and anticipate what the prosecution was going to do
and how we best could put up barriers to stop them.
We wanted to take advantage of the distrust that jurors could have,
given the history of the LAPD in Los Angeles.
[Cochran] Did you ever, as the investigating officer in this case,
ever consider any other theory
than that O.J. Simpson was the only perpetrator in this case?
Any other theory?
[Cochran] Yes, any other theory, any other possibility?
I had absolutely no other evidence that would point me in any other direction.
[Douglas] We wanted to show that the LAPD,
they were honed in on O.J.,
it's only O.J.,
and that was all they looked at to the detriment or the exclusion
of any other alternative theories.
You don't want to rush to judgment in these things, do you?
[Lange] Certainly not.
So you want to gather all the facts you possibly can, is that correct?
[Lange] Yes.
These white people, excuse me,
but that's the way I feel about this here situation,
trying to set the brother up,
just for the simple fact that it was a white female that got killed.
So they're going to put it on the brother, you know?
[Cochran] Did you at any time ever investigate any relationships
Mr. Goldman may have had
to determine whether or not he had any enemies, anything of that nature?
[Darden] Objection.
[Ito] Overruled.
I did not.
They're trying to throw something out there,
the old spaghetti-against-the-wall.
[Cochran] Isn't it true that you, in your experience,
know about drug killings where knives have been used?
Isn't that correct?
I do have knowledge of knives being used, yes.
Now many suspect that drug use
may have played a role in the furious homicides.
[Kim Goldman] My brother was not a drug dealer, he was not a partygoer,
he barely drank, he didn't do drugs, so all of that is crap.
These are theories that aren't supported in any way, shape or form,
with the evidence.
And should not be put out.
They should not be allowed to put them out.
But they did.
The fact that the victim may have a friend who uses drugs,
and in light of no other evidence in that regard,
has very little consequence to me.
The fact that every bit of evidence that I have in this case
points towards the defendant has a lot more to do with this.
Is there any evidence of that?
Was there any evidence then of any of this BS? No.
[Cochran] So you would follow any particular lead,
and any such lead regarding possible drug involvement
would be important to you as an investigator, isn't that correct?
If I felt that this case involved drugs or drug dealers, it would.
The fact is, it doesn't.
[Cochran] Have you ever heard of a Colombian necktie?
A person's throat is slashed
and their tongue is pulled down through their neck area.
- You ever heard of that? - No.
Someone whose throat is slit,
the tongue goes through the opening in the throat.
That's called a Colombian necktie.
There was no evidence that this was a Colombian necktie,
or that this was a drug-related killing.
I'd never, ever heard of a Colombian necktie.
This is the same thing that Mr. Cochran's been doing throughout this trial.
This is another distortion. This is another deception.
Different jurors are going to latch on to different things,
and so you're just putting this stuff out there.
Johnnie Cochran had charisma, but that wasn't necessary.
I thought, "You're doing too much. You don't have to do that."
"Just present the case."
[Lange] It's the cameras.
All this crap because of the cameras.
You allow that camera in, and you create theater.
Hey, there's 50 million people watching.
It became a circus.
[man] The most compelling murder trial ever.
This is the most talked about murder case in American history.
This was a trial involving probably
the most famous celebrity ever charged with murder.
No matter where you turn,
it seems the trial of the century is popping up everywhere.
[emphatic music playing]
Circus is a very good way to describe what's going on.
It's just fantastic drama, and it's live, unscripted drama.
You want more O.J. coverage.
Circulation is up, ratings are up.
It wasn't O.J. No way was it O.J.
I don't think he did it.
He was there, and he did it.
[Kim Goldman] After court was over,
a two-hour drive home to turn on the news
and have the news recite a totally different version.
Cochran has done a terrific job, I think, with smoke and mirrors
and spinning a conspiracy theory.
In this case, these police officers left a lot of stones unturned.
What O.J. got was a presumption of guilt, not a presumption of innocence.
If you can't trust the police, you can't trust the case.
I would sit there for hours and watch it.
Except for the one case of wife beating, he's got an impeccable reputation.
I'd go to bed every night, "What the fuck just happened?"
So much misinformation went out initially, it was ridiculous.
We've got an investigative reporter with a story about a mystery car,
a possible accomplice.
Every tabloid's trying to paint a picture… and sort of prosecuting the case already.
[man 1] O.J. on the cover still guarantees 10 to 20% more tabloids sold.
This is the first time where journalism's hypocrisy
has really been shaken out of the bushes,
where the difference between The New York Times
and the National Enquirer has gone from this big to this big.
And it was about commercialism, making money.
[man 2] A root beer company promotes a DNA scratch-off contest.
Another firm markets the O.J. crime watch.
Time to create a new O.J. for the Hollywood Wax Museum.
Have you seen folks out there hawking T-shirts and bumper stickers?
I bought the Lance Ito Jell-O mold.
[woman 1] Ronald Goldman's father calls it a disgusting attempt at commercialism.
We made millions signing his name. He was signing autographs.
A few hundred footballs he signed.
Birthday cards.
"Hey, I hear it's your birthday."
"This is O.J. Simpson wishing you a happy birthday."
Swear to God.
[man 3] And sales of white Ford Broncos have doubled at some dealerships.
If you want one today, you should expect to pay full sticker price.
The Simpson trial was a totally immersive experience for everybody.
It was the comedy shows, like SNL.
Everybody look over there.
[audience laughing]
The first to hit the bookshelves will be Green Eggs and Ham and O.J. is Guilty.
Every joke on every nightly show, it was just everywhere.
My name is Kramer. You know who I am, damn it!
[Al Cowlings] You know who I am, goddamn it!
[woman 2] With so many reporters trying to scoop the rest of the reporters,
big stories often turn into feeding frenzies.
[woman 3] Mr. ******. Move away! Move!
Once the media focused its attention on me and my family,
now there are people who have discovered where I live
and they're coming to my house.
Now there are people who are mailing threats.
And against all of that backdrop, you have the tabloid media
and the media digging into my life, digging into my family.
- That's horrible. - [man 3] What would you pay for a story?
I'll give them my American Express card number, because there are no limits.
I was always followed. Paparazzi and news people.
Walking the street, I'd be spit in the face at least three times.
Media was perched out in front of our house.
I mean, trucks, lights, shining into our house on a nightly basis,
stopping us in the streets.
[Darden] We allowed it to come to that.
You know, it's unfortunate, because it happened at the expense
of these two innocent people.
[crowd chanting] Remember the victims! Remember the victims!
If O.J. Simpson had been on trial for killing his first wife,
none of us would care.
And all of us would have gone on with our lives
because she's Black, correct?
So, regrettably, race is still the third rail in America.
But with the racial dynamics stratified in Los Angeles,
coming as it did in that time of 1994,
after the Rodney King uprising…
[camera clicks]
…it was central to our defense
that we attack Fuhrman and his credibility.
It was inevitable that race would come into the case
because of Fuhrman's central role in the case
and his racist statements.
[tense music playing]
[Rivera] As the trial progressed,
the prosecution had to make a decision about Mark Fuhrman.
The first question is do you put Fuhrman on?
Mark Fuhrman played such an important role in gathering the evidence
that it would have been impossible to carry on that case without him.
[Darden] And it's a problem because
you have this allegation of him being a racist on the one hand,
and on the other hand,
Fuhrman is at Bundy pointing to a bloody glove.
And then Mark Fuhrman is at Rockingham, behind a bungalow,
and there's a bloody glove.
It's one of the most important items of evidence in this case,
maybe the most important.
I'm a problem child.
I had baggage. I got it.
Get rid of me.
But, Marcia Clark, she made me one of her key witnesses.
The fact of the matter is that he's a sworn police officer, a detective,
and he has recovered evidence in the crime scene.
And we need to present this evidence.
If they didn't call him,
the defense would call him and then say to the jury,
"Look who they were hiding from you."
So you're kind of fucked if you do and you're fucked if you don't.
All right, back on the record in the Simpson matter.
Mr. Darden. Good morning.
Good morning, Judge.
[Darden] I believe if we call Mark and the defense is allowed to get into race,
and things Fuhrman has said about race,
it's gonna be hard, if not impossible, to get back to the real reason we're here,
and that is to examine the evidence for what it is.
Detective Fuhrman is going to play a very, very small role in this case.
This wasn't his case.
He was not the investigating officer
or the lead investigating officer in this case.
He just happened to find a glove.
We're there arguing, questioning, whether or not Fuhrman's use of an epithet
is legally relevant.
Now when the man is called to the witness stand,
we're going to go 15 years back or 14 years back, and ask him
if he ever made a racial slur?
It is a dirty, filthy word.
It blinds people.
It'll blind the jury. It'll blind them to the truth.
Johnnie was offended by the words, by the argument.
I was offended.
There was just no place in the trial for the use of the N-word.
I know other people disagree, but I disagree with them.
We can't win.
No matter what.
Because now we're trying a race case.
We're not trying O.J. Simpson,
and we're not trying the issue of whether he killed two people on Bundy.
[Douglas] I remember Johnnie said, "Is he serious, talking this shit?"
"Or is he just saying it to make the point?"
I would be remiss were I not at this time
to take this opportunity to respond to my good friend, Mr. Chris Darden.
Johnnie had a unique way that when he was angry,
he was at his most articulate.
His remarks this morning
are perhaps the most incredible remarks I've heard in a court of law
in the 32 years I've been practicing law.
His remarks are demeaning to African Americans as a group.
And so I want to apologize to African Americans across this country.
Nobody wants to introduce race into this case, Your Honor.
But as Mr. Darden has pointed out,
race plays a part of everything in America.
He was being used by the white prosecution to carry their water.
What we're going to be talking about this afternoon, Your Honor,
is words out of the mouth of Mark Fuhrman.
And I am ashamed that Mr. Darden
would allow himself to become an apologist for this man.
[Darden] I did not expect things to get that personal.
When he called me an apologist for a racist,
I could've punched him in the face.
Shit, I'm not an apologist for Mark Fuhrman
or the Mark Fuhrmans of the world.
I was just trying to get, you know,
the justice the Brown family and the Goldman family deserve.
They're trying to connect an act inside of an investigation
with a motivation that's racial in nature.
There's not much preparation for that.
Some of this evidence can't possibly lie.
- [camera clicks] - It's DNA.
[Toobin] The day that Mark Fuhrman testified
was clearly one of the most dramatic days of the trial,
because he was not only a controversial figure,
he walked into the courtroom sort of like a movie star.
Everybody knew that the trial had reached a point
where you sure as hell had to pay attention.
I mean, I was kind of taken back.
I'm going in front of
all the TV cameras, on this big, important case.
I just tried to focus on the person asking me questions.
[Clark] Detective Fuhrman,
can you tell us how you feel about testifying today?
Nervous.
- Reluctant. - [Clark] Can you tell us why?
[Fuhrman] I've seen a lot of the evidence ignored
and a lot of personal issues come to the forefront.
It was a dooming feeling
that I was just going through the motions from that point on.
[Clark] In the early morning hours of June the 13th,
when you arrived at the location of 360 North Rockingham,
what happened next?
[Fuhrman] Walking down the path and I saw a dark object.
[Clark] Could you tell what that dark object was?
It looked similar to the glove on the Bundy scene.
I had no reason not to believe Mark Fuhrman
when he said he found the glove.
I took him for his word.
[camera clicks]
[Fuhrman] It appeared to be the same texture of leather, same color.
When I met Fuhrman, he seemed to be a very good investigator.
He seemed to be bright.
I didn't see any problem with him being a detective.
[Toobin] Mark Fuhrman was a good witness on direct examination,
but it's easy to be a good witness on direct examination,
because you can rehearse it
and you have someone asking you questions who wants you to be believed.
The test of a witness is how you do on cross.
[dramatic music playing]
F. Lee Bailey was doing an elaborate workup
of what he called, "The Fuhrman Funeral."
The prosecution has opened this door rather deliberately,
knowing full well that there would be questions
as to whether or not the someone, and there has to be someone,
who transported that glove to Rockingham could have been Detective Fuhrman.
F. Lee Bailey was maybe the most famous defense attorney in the United States.
This package
could easily have been kept in a man's sock, short or tall.
F. Lee Bailey was an expert cross-examiner,
and in Bailey's account, Fuhrman was the key to the case.
So he announced he's taking Fuhrman.
"I want this guy."
[tense music playing]
[Ito] Mr. Bailey, you may resume with your cross-examination.
[Bailey] Detective Fuhrman, did you believe
that you would be an essential witness
if you were the first to find an important piece of evidence?
I couldn't make that determination at that time.
I didn't even know what the implication of the glove was.
[Bailey] You told us the minute you saw it,
you thought it looked like the one on Bundy, didn't you?
Yes, sir.
You can't prepare for F. Lee Bailey.
He's very aggressive, very condescending, in your face.
He makes accusations without making an accusation, innuendos.
Was it not your purpose to be in the area along the south wall alone?
No, it wasn't.
It just worked out that way, is that it?
I didn't even know the south wall was accessible.
If you can imagine, 37 million people are watching,
my police chief, everybody on the department.
Sometimes you plan on day one something for day nine.
We had three or four other witnesses
who had experienced occasions
when Fuhrman had used the N-word pejoratively,
talking about Black people.
So Lee was laying the predicate for us
calling the other witnesses who we had lined up
that were going to contradict him.
[Bailey] Did you say, while in the recruiting station,
at any time during those years,
that when you see "a nigger driving with a white woman,"
you pull them over?
No.
[Darden] When they start going into race, I'm saying, "Marcia, object. Object."
And maybe the objection gets overruled, but she doesn't object.
And, you know, they go in on him.
[Bailey] Is it possible that you have forgotten that act on your part?
No, it's not possible.
[Bailey] Are you therefore saying that you have not used that word
in the past ten years, Detective Fuhrman?
Yes, that's what I'm saying.
[Douglas] When Bailey examined Mark Fuhrman,
we expected Mark Fuhrman to deny ever using the N-word.
[Bailey] So that anyone who comes to this court
and quotes you as using that word
in dealing with African Americans would be a liar, Detective Fuhrman?
Yes, they would.
- [Bailey] All of them, correct? - All of them.
If he's a liar about something else,
maybe he would lie about planting the glove.
[Bailey] All right, thank you.
We had caught him in a bald-faced lie.
He knows it.
Everyone on the prosecution knows it.
And there's nothing they can do to stop it.
I could defend a Klansman, I suppose,
as long as he admits he's a Klansman.
Don't lie about it.
If this is who you are, tell the jury who you are.
Yeah, they're going to hate you.
Yeah, they're going to question the integrity of our evidence.
But at least we're being honest.
[male reporter 1] The jurors sat transfixed at that exchange
and most certainly tonight have questions about Fuhrman.
[male reporter 2] Suddenly, Fuhrman is the most famous cop in America.
If he was the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan,
he couldn't have planted this glove.
I think he did set O.J. Simpson up. That's what I think.
I'm not saying he did, but it's a possibility.
It does not show anything more that he planted any evidence
against O.J. Simpson.
I mean, who hasn't uttered a racial statement before?
I have. Everybody has.
I was put in a position that, um…
I relive all the time.
If you say yes, I'll probably end up getting fired.
F. Lee Bailey made the ridiculous claim
that I planted the glove at Rockingham,
that I took it from Bundy.
Planting of evidence…
I'm sorry, it just didn't happen.
[Darden] I don't believe Fuhrman planted anything.
I don't believe that at all. And I think the science supports that.
Number one, Mark Fuhrman's DNA isn't on the glove.
Number two, the glove and its location
is consistent with what Kato Kaelin said he heard.
I heard a thumping noise.
Fifteen cops saw the one glove there before Fuhrman ever arrived.
So how did he pick up a glove that wasn't there
and took it to Rockingham and dumped it?
This was silly.
Whole thing was an illusion. They put Mark on the trial,
not O.J. Simpson at that point.
Now it's all about racism.
And it was a calamity of mistakes from top down.
There was evidence throughout the inside of the house, never made it to trial.
[tense, dramatic music playing]
It's like I said at the beginning of this.
"You don't need me."
"I found a few pieces of evidence."
"We've got 300."
"Move on."
I said to Marcia, "Did the fingerprint come back?"
She said, "No. Vannatter, Lange, they didn't read your notes."
[music intensifies]
LA print expert did go there, did the whole gate.
We've got pictures of them. There were four of them there.
They made 17 lifts in that whole area.
But guess what.
They didn't see one back there in that gate, and they printed it.
That, again, is BS.
Mark Fuhrman made his own bed.
He knew he had used the N-word before.
But he chose to lie in a murder case
to help convict someone whom he thought was guilty.
And he feared telling the truth might interfere with that.
And then over the summer, we get the tapes, and
everything changes.
[mysterious music playing]
I'm the key witness in the biggest case of the century.
And if I go down,
they lose the case.
The glove is everything.
Without the glove…
bye-bye.
[tense, dramatic music playing]
[music fades out]