Without a Doubt

by Marcia Clark

Months later, of course, this hunch would prove correct. In a deposition given at the civil trial, Paula would testify that she had left a “Dear John” message on Simpson’s machine the afternoon before the murders. It was clearly the emotional trigger. We certainly could have used it at the criminal trial. Thanks loads, Paula. After that night of conversation, the domestic violence advocates finally won me over. I felt they should be allowed to take their best shot. So I gave them my blessing to draft a motion asking the court to allow into evidence all the incidents of domestic violence they had worked so hard to unearth. The Dream Team, of course, fought tooth and nail to keep that motion under seal. Up to that point, they’d more or less succeeded in advancing the fiction that Simpson was a decent guy who had just hit a rough patch in his marriage. Now, he was about to be unmasked as a sadist. The defense managed to get the hearing delayed for a month, until the jurors were safely sequestered at the Inter-Continental Hotel. For now, domestic violence was temporarily on hold.