Without a Doubt Quotes

“Misery spreads out from a murder in ripples, blighting everything it touches.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“Just as all politics is local, all good history is personal.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“By virtue of his celebrity, he would be coddled by worshipful cops, pumped up by star-fucking attorneys, indulged by a spineless judge, and adored by jurors every bit as addled by racial hatred as their counterparts on the Rodney King jury. O. J. Simpson slaughtered two innocent people, and he walked free—right past the most massive and compelling body of physical evidence ever assembled against a criminal defendant. I am not bitter. I am angry.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“Work offers a defensible escape from a private life on the skids. Working myself to the point of exhaustion left me feeling purified. Exhilarated. I think it also gave me a sense that I was cheating mortality.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“CAR TAPE. October 1994. I’d like to see us abolish the jury system. Why leave the fate of our nation in the hands of these moon rocks?”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“Denial is sometimes the only comfort you can offer yourself. Because once you let yourself feel, the misery is endless.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“For several weeks now, the team had been pulling together a montage, a sort of visual history of this crime. Over the images, we’d decided that we would play the 911 tapes. Although I’d seen bits and pieces of this opus as it was coming together, I didn’t feel the full power of it until this morning, when Jonathan hit the “play” button. You heard “Emergency 911,” then the static confusion on the caller’s end. The thumps of blows landing on flesh. Then, the more frantic pleas of the 1993 call. “He’s O. J. Simpson. I think you know his record. He’s fucking going nuts.” All the while, on the large screen, we showed the photo of Nicole taken after the beating of 1989. She was lifting her hair to reveal the full extent of the damage to her face. Her eyes were downcast, as if in shame. Then, the photo of her smeared with mud. Cut to the Bundy trail, the knit cap, a close-up of Ron’s shirt. Behind those images, O. J. Simpson’s voice rose to a peak of rage. Suddenly, the audio stopped, and all that was left was a picture of Nicole’s body curled in a pool of blood. We held on that image for thirty seconds in complete silence. There was sobbing throughout the courtroom. But all I could think was, It’s over.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“The killing was personal,” he told the jury. “You look at the domestic violence, the manner of the killing, the physical evidence, the history of abuse and their relationship, the intimidation, the stalking. You look at it and it all points to him. It all points to him.” Once again, he traced the violence between the Simpsons from 1985 through 1989, and likened it to a burning fuse. “We submit to you that the hand that left [an] imprint [on Nicole’s] neck five years ago is the same hand that cut that same throat… on June twelfth, 1994. It was the defendant. It was the defendant then. It’s the defendant now.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“By the end, we had over 150 entries pointing to guilt. It was too much for a summation, so we boiled it down to eight key pieces of evidence—each of which had an irrefutable connection to O. J. Simpson: The knit cap. Ron Goldman’s shirt. The shoe prints up the Bundy walk. The droplets of blood leading from Bundy. The blood in the Bronco. The Rockingham blood trail. The Rockingham glove. The socks found at the foot of Simpson’s bed. We’d originally included the Bundy glove as well, but it had less significant blood, hair, and fibers. Ultimately, we left it out. It didn’t add to proof of guilt.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“As I’ve said, the prosecution never needs to prove that the defendant had motive, only intent. It is usually useful, however, to suggest to a jury why the defendant might have gone so far as to slit another human being’s throat. The motive for this particular murder was sexual rage. And I felt that now, in our final moments, we were compelled to pull this jury’s nose flat up against the truth. O. J. Simpson was a sadist who’d terrorized his wife for years—until she’d finally stood up to him and paid for it with her life.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“The elements of that argument were threefold: opportunity; identity; motive. Opportunity presented no problem. Here was O. J. Simpson, a man whose face was recognized everywhere he went, who had no one to document his whereabouts for what we now computed as seventy-seven minutes, the exact period during which Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman were murdered. Identity was also a lock. We had identified O. J. Simpson six ways from Sunday as the man whose blood was at the murder scene—and in the Bronco and on the bloody Rockingham glove, where it was mixed with the blood of his victims.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“Ito was irritated. But for once, his irritation didn’t seem to be directed my way. He apparently realized—even Johnnie seemed to realize—that this report business had caught me by surprise. Besides, Ito seemed honestly fascinated by the hair and trace evidence and annoyed by having to exclude it. Once again, we got half a loaf. He would allow us to introduce the fibers. We could tell the jury that Simpson’s Bronco fibers were “consistent” with those found on the Bundy cap and the Bundy glove, but not that they were so incredibly rare.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“•Nicole’s hair—“forcibly removed hairs”—on the Rockingham glove. •Ron’s hair on the Rockingham glove.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“Just as there had been blood where blood shouldn’t be, there was hair where hair shouldn’t be. •Simpson’s hair on the knit cap, Ron’s shirt, the Rockingham glove.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“Richard testified that the gloves in their original condition would “easily” go over hands the size of Mr. Simpson’s. When gloves have been exposed to repeated dampness and extremes of heat and cold, however, they can shrink as much as 15 percent. While Chris continued his questioning, I went over to the phone on the bailiff’s desk to call Brian. “It looks like a ‘go’ to me,” I told him. “Tell him to do it,” Brian said. I passed a note to Chris, who stalled. I could see his confidence faltering. “Come on, Chris. Do it,” I whispered. “It’s going to work this time.” And it did. This time, when Simpson tried on the gloves, they fit, you should pardon the expression, like a glove.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“I looked down at the bloody, weathered leather, and I said to myself, That’s it. We just lost the case.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“When the demonstration was finally over, Simpson casually snapped the gloves off. And I thought to myself, If they were so hard to get on, why are they so easy to get off, Sparky? At that point, he looked directly at me, as though he expected me to take them from him. I didn’t move a muscle. I met his gaze without blinking. After a few seconds, he dropped the gloves on the table in front of me and moved on.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“Simpson smiled broadly and displayed his mitts to the jury—and to the camera—as though he were holding up the ball at the goal line. Can you believe this? Here is Simpson wearing gloves splattered with his murdered ex-wife’s blood and he’s grinning ear to ear. Any normal person in these circumstances would cringe. I felt like dying. But the last thing I wanted was for the jury to see my distress. There was a rule I’d learned as a baby prosecutor: when they’re sticking it to you, act like you couldn’t care less. I felt my expression harden into a mask of indifference.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“As I turned to leave the podium, I caught Simpson out of the corner of my eye. He was shifting in his seat, his face contorted with—what was it? Rage? Frustration? Disbelief? His lawyers had probably told him that he had a good shot at making bail. And here I’d gone bringing up all that Bronco business. Being at the mercy of a woman had to be O. J. Simpson’s personal idea of hell. That gave me at least a moment of satisfaction. But as so often happened in TFC, even my smallest triumphs were short-lived. Johnnie did an end run around me, announcing that his client wanted to “address the court.” If the defendant has counsel there to speak for him, he shouldn’t be allowed to speak directly to the court unless he’s prepared to take the witness stand. I started to object, but it was too late. Lance had granted the request. “How do you feel?” he inquired amiably of Simpson, who now stood, hands clasped in front of him, the very picture of wounded virtue. How did he feel? “Well,” he complained, “I feel I’ve been attacked here today.” Attacked? Does he not get it that he’s the defendant in a double homicide? “I’m an innocent man,” he continued. “I want to get to the jury… . I want to get it over with as soon as I can. I have two young kids out there. That’s my only concern… . I’ve got two young kids out there that don’t have a mother… .” It disgusted me to the point of nausea to hear this man use his children this way. And then Simpson turned toward me. I didn’t meet his eyes—not because I was intimidated by him; I just didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he had my attention.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“CAR TAPE. October 1994. I don’t see how we can ever get a decent jury on this case. Every misstep in the world that could be made is being made, because all the judge and the defense attorneys care about is looking good in the press. I’m really appalled at what’s going on, at the deepest level. I really fear for our system of justice. I don’t know how the jury system can continue without some serious revamping. It’s hopeless—we cannot rest easy with the knowledge that a jury will use its common sense and follow the law and the evidence to come to the right verdict. If popular opinion and celebrity and fame and the politically correct view is going to be what really sways the jury, if the jury will disregard the law, disregard the evidence, and everyone expects it to happen, then why bother? Have you ever had a dream where you try to run but your feet are weights? That was what voir dire was like. Jogging through molasses. Lance had hoped to get through twenty jurors on the first day. We managed only four. We tried to move faster, but Lance, Johnnie, me, everybody seemed to have fallen under some kind of malaise.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“My approach to domestic violence cases over the years was one of extreme caution. I’ve never gotten up on a pulpit to spout a feminist line. I never rushed in and charged spousal battery without a full set of facts in hand. The Simpson case was no exception. From the beginning I’d hung back on the DV. I felt there was too much we didn’t know. As of July 1994, the personal history of the Simpsons was still too murky. From a strictly legal standpoint, we would never have needed to address their history of marital violence. True, the fact that a man has beaten his wife over the years may go to motive if he is accused of murdering her. But the state isn’t required to establish why one person killed another, only that he intended to do it. It is perfectly possible to get a conviction strictly on the physical evidence. And in the Simpson case, the physical evidence was so amazingly strong, I felt that we could probably put him away relying on that alone.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“The racial divide did not come as any great shock to us. As early as the second week of the investigation our grand jury adviser, Terry White, had come to us warning that a couple of black female jurors seemed protective of Simpson. They’d gone so far as to say that Nicole “got what she’d deserved.” What was disturbing to me was how the popular media had permeated the thinking of the mock jury. Not a soul among them seemed capable of critical thinking. If it was on TV, it must be true. Of course, many of the reports they’d seen were based upon nothing more substantial than a loose comment dropped in the hallway outside of court, but they had entered the canon as God’s own truth. The jury hung, five to five.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“Reluctantly, they agreed to try again. Within two minutes they were off and gossiping on another subject not mentioned on the tape—the Bronco chase. Black jurors believed Simpson had only wanted to visit Nicole’s grave. When one of the more neutral jurors suggested that it might—just might—have been the escape attempt of a guilty man, one of the female blacks shot back with a defense of Simpson, referring to him as “my man O.J.” “My man?” I thought to myself. The only way he’d be your man is if you were white, twenty-five, and built like a centerfold.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“When Ito took the bench I asked permission to address the court. He granted it curtly. This is not the time to stand on your dignity, I told myself. Fall on your damned sword. So, on behalf of the People, I apologized profusely for any slight His Honor might have suffered during Tuesday’s hearings, and I implored him to consider the letter we’d submitted. I begged him not to cripple the People’s case by keeping out evidence when the testing delays were really no one’s fault.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“Under California law, with rare exception, you are entitled to challenge a search or warrant only once. Shapiro and Gerald Uelmen had taken their shot before Judge Kennedy-Powell during the prelim, and she’d denied their motion. But now the defense wanted to mount a new assault upon that search in Superior Court. Their grounds? “New evidence” had come to light involving police misconduct. They petitioned Ito to reopen debate on the warrantless search. He wasn’t, apparently, impressed with their showing and denied the motion. The defense then attacked the warrant, saying it was faulty and misleading.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“I’ve wondered over and over again if I should have taken him on so boldly so early in the game. But every time I replay this scene in my mind, I come to the same conclusion. No good attorney would sit by and watch a judge throw away evidence. Meanwhile, the message was clear—Lance Ito lacked good judgment. If he’d strayed afield on such an obvious no-brainer, what could we expect on the complicated rulings? We’d soon find out. The defense had committed what I considered a serious tactical blunder by challenging the warrantless search during the preliminary hearing.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“I leaned over to Lisa Kahn, the deputy who was handling DNA for our side, and whispered, “Did he say what I think he said?” Lisa just shook her head in disbelief. “Your Honor.” I jumped up, interrupting Ito in midsentence. “May I ask the court to take some further evidence?” Ito fixed me with an icy glare. “I think that perhaps defense counsel has misled the court as to the nature of the testing that is going to be performed. You’re depriving us of ever conducting the poly-marker test completely by giving that ten percent to the defense… . You are taking evidence out of our hands forever.” Ito seemed embarrassed and angry. I’d put him on the spot. On national TV no less. He must have realized that he could not safely ignore my objection. What if I was right? What if this screwy order wound up trashing all the blood evidence? So he ordered a hearing during which experts from both sides would testify as to how much evidence we had and what we could afford to give up.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“What I proposed was to give Dr. Blake the entire sample. Let him do all the testing—provided the defense would share his results with us. If the Dream Team was sincere about getting an honest result, they’d go for my compromise. The only possible reason for turning me down was if they knew the results would hang their client. My counter-motion, in essence, would call their bluff. Get it, judge? They don’t want the truth; they want to hide evidence. Sure enough, the defense flatly rejected my proposal. That figured. What surprised the hell out of me was the subsequent ruling from Ito. He granted the defense’s ridiculous request: 10 percent, he decreed, would be “available to the defense for their own testing.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“doubted that Cochran would risk his reputation as a pillar of the community for the likes of O. J. Simpson. The defendant was not some brother who’d been shaken down by cops for driving in a white neighborhood. O. J. Simpson could have jogged nude through Bel Air without being arrested. He hobnobbed with white golfing buddies, married a white woman, lived in a mansion, and had effectively turned his back on the black community. He had, moreover, committed two murders of horrific savagery.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt

“watched Simpson as the deputies led him out of the courtroom. He gave the crowd a thumbs-up. Beneath that three-thousand-dollar suit he’s just one more sadistic punk, I told myself. You’ve put a lot of those away. He’s no different. But, of course, he was. By my estimate, O. J. Simpson had already sunk more than a million dollars into his defense, and the case was barely six weeks old. Shapiro alone must be pulling down a retainer well into six figures. Possibly seven. With each passing week, the defense team seemed to be doubling in size. There were at least three private investigators we knew of working for the team, with scores more P.I.s on the freelance pad. Their names kept turning up in the press—as did those of defense attorneys around town looking to get some ink. One of those was Johnnie Cochran.”
― Marcia Clark, Without a Doubt