Without a Doubt

by Marcia Clark

Hate is not an emotion that a prosecutor can afford. Hate clouds your thinking and distorts your priorities.

Seemed to me he wanted to be close enough to his client to make sure he was in the photos.

There wasn’t one shred of remorse there; not enough real soul for him to need to unburden it by telling the truth. Some killers have a need to confess, at least to themselves. But I don’t think he ever did.

His new role was the O.J. You Know and Love, Falsely Accused. And no Shakespearean actor would play this one better.

I’d never seen so much left at a crime scene. This murder was obviously the work of an amateur.

Because what you had, basically, were a set of incompatibly grandiose egos—

Lance was certainly no bright star.

Lance always struck me as an overgrown adolescent. He was the only judge I knew who wore running shoes under his robes.

The ex-prosecutor judge is usually so eager to show that he has no lingering loyalties to the D.A.‘s office that he’ll kiss the toes of the defense.

Lance, I was beginning to see, was so indecisive, so fearful generally of the “big guns” at the defense table, that he didn’t dare give us a decision without handing the defense something in return.

I have never seen a man with so little spine.

Lance’s attitude toward me had a lot to do with his own ego. As an ex-prosecutor, he felt compelled to show us, “I used to do what you do and I did it better.” Whenever Johnnie rose to speak, however, Lance’s whole demeanor changed. He was beneficent. He was indulgent. It seemed to me Lance Ito just loved the idea of being Johnnie’s friend.

But how can you expect a clown to stop a circus?

Lance appeared to be having the time of his life. He was ordering deputies around and conferring imperiously with the troops.

Chris predicted that this would not sit well with the Little Prince, his pet name for Ito.

Kato was driving me to an early grave.

The entire time Scheck slashed away at him in his nasal, nails-on-chalkboard voice

Not only did I find Scheck’s performance intellectually dishonest, I considered him by far the most obnoxious lawyer in that courtroom. And that’s saying a lot. Scheck’s treatment of Dennis Fung was deplorable. Even Lee Bailey had displayed a fundamental courtesy to Mark Fuhrman while dueling to the death with him on cross.

We lost because American justice is distorted by race. We lost because American justice is corrupted by celebrity. Any lawyer willing to exploit those weaknesses can convince a jury predisposed to acquittal of just about anything.

Kato Kaelin, who has apparently learned to speak in complete sentences,

Thank God for a judge with backbone.

There were ample laws on the books to keep Lance Ito from allowing the N-word into People v. Orenthal James Simpson. But he did it anyway. He caved to the bullying of the defense, and in committing that single egregious error, he assured a hung jury, if not

acquittal.