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CNN Special Reports
O.J. Trial: Drama of the Century. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired July 15, 2017 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Of the century. For now, I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. I'll be back tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Thanks for being here. Good night.
[21:00:00] TEXT: The following program contains graphic images and language. Viewer discretion is advised.
UNIDENTFIED MALE (voice-over): The following is a CNN special report.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The shocking crime.
FRED GOLDMAN: Ron and Nicole were butchered.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): the riveting car chase.
UNIDENTFIED MALE: 911, what are you reporting?
UNIDENTFIED MALE: This is (INAUDIBLE) I have O.J. in the car.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Now, O.J. Simpson on trial for murder.
UNIDENTFIED FEMALE: Stop domestic violence.
JIM MORET, CHIEF CORRESPONDENT, INSIDE EDITION: This was the perfect soap opera.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): The characters like Kato Kaelin.
PHILLIPS (on camera): So it seems like you feel like you were pretty much misunderstood for a really long time.
KATO KAELIN: One hundred percent misunderstood.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): The moments and mistakes.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: It was like a slow motion disaster movie for the prosecution.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): More than 20 years later.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, ATTORNEY FOR O.J. SIMPSON: It makes no sense. It doesn't fit. If doesn't fit, you must acquit.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): "The O.J. Trial, Drama Of The Century". It's minutes after midnight, June 13th, 1994. Los Angeles police arrive to a crime scene at Bundy Drive in upscale Brentwood. They find no witnesses, no murder weapon. Just two victims.
TOM LANGE, FORMER DETECTIVE, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT: Slashed, stabbed, everything else. Nicole was nearly decapitated. It was a very bloody scene.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Nicole is Nicole Brown Simpson. Lying dead beside her, 25-year-old Ron Goldman. The prime suspect, Nicole's ex- husband, football legend O.J. Simpson. Simpson promises to surrender and then disappears.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Los Angeles Police Department, right now, is actively searching for Mr. Simpson.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Simpson is soon spotted inside a white SUV.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Highway Patrol?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I think I just saw O.J. Simpson on the 5 Freeway and he's heading north.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): The famous low speed chase covered live for hours, rivets the nation and ends with Simpson's eventual surrender at his home on Rockingham Avenue. It was just the beginning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's what we know right now Lieutenant Duncan --
MORET: This was the perfect soap opera. The O.J. Simpson murder case was first true reality show for the country.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, let's go. Here we go.
MORET: This was the first wall-to-wall televised trial.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): July 22nd, 1994, a month after the murders, the legal proceedings against O.J. Simpson begin when he enters this defiant plea.
O.J. SIMPSON: Absolutely, 100 percent not guilty.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And to help him prove that, Simpson assembles a legal dream team.
TOOBIN: Each one of them was famous.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Jeffrey Toobin covered the trial for the New Yorker.
TOOBIN: There has never been in American history more prominent defense lawyers on a single trial than in O.J. Simpson case.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): There is Harvard Law professor, Alan Dershowitz.
TOOBIN: An ideal intermediary between the Ivory Tower and the gritty world of trial practice.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Famed criminal attorney, F. Lee Bailey.
TOOBIN: The person you go to when you are really in a lot of trouble and can afford it.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And of course, Johnnie Cochran, who would take the lead.
TOOBIN: Flamboyant, outgoing, approachable, fun and extremely charismatic, while also having considerable mastery of the details of the case.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And known for defending celebrities, like child actor Todd Bridges, Football Legend, Jim Brown and Superstar, Michael Jackson. But would the all-star strategy work?
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, ATTORNEY FOR O.J. SIMPSON: The O.J. dream team was not a dream team, it was a nightmare team. Most of the lawyers didn't get along with each other. There was a lot of competition for the limelight.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): But despite all that competition, Simpson's team comes up with this. They allege that LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman was a racist who planted evidence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not just any city where an allegation of a racist cop is being made. This is the LAPD.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): The racist allegations simmering under the surface come to a boil just days before the trial begins. When the defense wants permission to ask Fuhrman if he's ever used the N-word.
COCHRAN: And I'll use the word because -- I'm quoting him, all the niggers put them together in a big group and burn them.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): But prosecutor Chris Darden wants no part of it.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN, LAWYER: It is the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language. It will upset the black jurors. It'll issue a test. It will give them a test.
And the test would be, whose side are you on? The side of the white prosecutors and the white policeman? Or are you on the side of the black defendant and his very prominent and capable black lawyer?
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Cochran immediately fires back.
COCHRAN: Not every African-American feels that way. It's demeaning to our jurors to say that African-Americans cannot hear these offensive words.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't go back in time.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): The battles lines are drawn and race will help define the trial's outcome. Its January 24th, 1995. The trial of Orenthal James Simpson has begun.
TOOBIN: There was a forest of satellite trucks, satellite dishes, people working in trailers. All built so that this trial could go out to the world.
MORET: Walking into the courtroom every day was like the red carpet on an arrivals line or at the Oscars. How are you feeling today O.J.?
You know its -- Marcia, how are you doing? You know, how are your kids? What are you wearing? It's ridiculous. It was crazy.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Outside the court house, it's a circus. Inside, a real life drama unfolding with millions of people watching.
TOOBIN: The Simpson case combined everything that obsesses the American public. It had violence, sex, race, sports and the only eyewitness was a dog.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): The prosecution's opening statement tells a story of love, lust and loss of control.
DARDEN: He killed her because he couldn't have her.
MARCIA CLARK, PROSECUTOR: That trail of blood from Bundy to his own Ford Bronco and into his house in Rockingham was devastating proof of his guilt.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Johnnie Cochran's opening statement tells jurors a very different story.
COCHRAN: The evidence will show that this -- the careless, strip shot, negligent collection in handling and processing of samples, by basically poorly trained personnel from the LAPD, has contaminated, compromised and corrupted the DNA evidence in this case.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Coming up, behind the scenes.
DAVID ALDANA, FORMER O.J. SIMPSON JUROR: This is the first I've ever really seen a Heisman Trophy.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And in court with a juror.
PHILLIPS (on camera): So did you ever believe Kato Kaelin's testimony at all?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS (voice-over): This is how we knew O.J. Simpson. Football star. Celebrity pitchman.
SIMPSON: Nobody does it better than her.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And movie star. But prosecutors say that dashing public persona hides a much darker truth that Simpson is a violent man who beat his wife.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You could see.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And it didn't take long before a police detective testifies about an incident in 1989.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A woman came running out of the bushes to my left, across the driveway. She was female, Caucasian, blond hair. She was wearing a bra only as upper garment and she had on dark lightweight sweatpants and started yelling, he's going to kill me, he's going to kill me.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Then jurors hear it for themselves, another chilling 911 call from Simpson's wife in 1993.
NICOLE SIMPSON, EX-WIFE OF O.J. SIMPSON: My ex-husband or my husband just broke into my house and he is ranting and raving.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Less than a year before her murder.
NICOLE SIMPSON: He broke the door down to get in before.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Wait a minute, what's your name?
NICOLE SIMPSON: Nichole Simpson.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, OK. Is he the forecaster or whatever?
NICOLE Simpson: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is he doing? Is he threatening you?
NICOLE SIMPSON: He's going nuts.
ALDANA: And I was like, wow, he can be pretty bad.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Now, more than 20 years later, juror number four, David Aldana, remembers that moment vividly.
PHILLIPS (on camera): Has that 911 tape made an impact to you?
ALDANA: Yes, it did, because when you hear somebody pounding on the door like that and hearing it closely. I think you know his record by now.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Nichole's sister Denise tells prosecutors, she has seen Simpson beat Nichole in person.
DENISE BROWN, NICOLE SIMPSON'S SISTER: He just grabbed Nicole, told her to get out of his house. Wanted us all out of his house.
He picked her up and threw her against the wall. He picked her up and threw her out of the house.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): However, Defense Attorney, Robert Shapiro, counters with a completely different image of O.J. Simpson. Here he is with the Brown family just hours before Nichole's murder. ROBERT SHAPIRO, ATTORNEY FOR O.J. SIMPSON: We played for the jury the June 12th video tape. When we saw O.J. Simpson at 6:00 to 6:30 in the evening of June 12 and you saw him.
He was kissing the Brown family. He was shaking hands with Lou Brown. He picked his son up. He didn't look like a man who was dour and bitter and raging.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): So is Simpson a warmed family man or a violent attacker who cornered and killed two innocent people? The jurors and Simpson take a field trip to his house and the crime scene.
CLARK: It was very, very good for the jury I think to be able to see the relationship of each of those locations to each other as well as to get it a much clearer idea of how very, very small the space was in which Ron Goldman was attacked and murdered by the defendant.
And so, I think that this really assisted the jury in being able to understand the evidence better, the testimony better and how the victims were essentially cornered.
PHILLIPS (on camera): What do you remember the most about visiting O.J.'s house, actually going to the crime scene?
ALDANA: It was like, oh wow, that's the first time I've never really seen Heisman Trophy. Because we couldn't asked questions. Nothing was told to us. You don't talk amongst yourselves and don't touch anything.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And it's this home visit that leads to the very heart of the prosecution's case, the physical evidence against O.J. Simpson.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you please describe the appearance of the glove, sir?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It appeared a dark leather glove. It appeared to be somewhat moist or sticky. I didn't touch it, but it appeared that parts were sticking to other parts of the glove.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Defense lawyers are eager to point out detective Mark Fuhrman's role in discovering the evidence.
COCHRAN: And now, Mark Fuhrman came up to you and told you he made some discovery, is that correct?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
COCHRAN: And so then we're clear it was Mark Fuhrman who allegedly found this glove out there near Kato Kaelin's room, is that correct? Outside?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
COCHRAN: And it was Mark Fuhrman who allegedly found the spot on the outside of the Bronco, is that correct? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's correct.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Mark Fuhrman would play a starring role in this unfolding drama as with this man.
KAELIN: I heard a thumping noise.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many thumps did you hear?
KAELIN: Three.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Simpson's shaggy houseguest, Kato Kaelin.
PHILLIPS (on camera): Did you ever expect what was going to happen when you got up there and took the stand?
KAELIN: No. Not all. I -- it was my first time in a courtroom in my entire life. And I think I was 35 at the time.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Kaelin's four days on the stand thrust him into the national spotlight.
KAELIN: I even come up with the things, saying, never has a man done so little to be recognized by so many.
JAY LENO, HOST, THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO: Today, he testified. He said that O.J.'s maid never really liked him. Well sure, she had to work for her room and board.
PHILLIPS (on camera): Why was Kato Kaelin so memorable?
ALDANA: He's an idiot.
PHILLIPS (on camera): Really.
ALDANA: He's so foolish. I'm sorry.
PHILLIPS (on camera): That's pretty harsh.
ALDANA: Matter of fact, when we were doing our deliberations, he was like the no-brainer. The guy is an idiot. Nothing he says we can go with or against it. He's null and void.
KAELIN: I was called so many things. I was called a celebrity. I was called a pariah. I was called a traitor. I was called a dummy. I was called a freeloader.
PHILLIPS (on camera): So it seems like you feel like you were pretty much misunderstood for a really long time.
KAELIN: One hundred percent misunderstood. This was something I took so serious that I was making sure that I answered everything correctly. So I was in deep thought going, OK, you have to get this right, Kato. And that was it.
If you pause, people go, he's making some -- he's lying. He's doing this. The furthest thing from the truth, it's for me to become even more honest, for me to make sure I answer this thing 100 percent honest.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Which brings us to the night of the murder. Kaelin and Simpson make a McDonald's run.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: About what time was it when you got home?
KAELIN: It's about 9:40.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Kaelin goes to his bedroom and prosecutors say Simpson disappears. A crucial hour passes before Kaelin hears a loud noise outside.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And where did that noise seem to be coming from?
KAELIN: From the back of the wall.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): That, prosecutors say, is Simpson hitting an exterior wall and dropping a bloody glove. At 10:55, a limo driver waiting to take Simpson to the airport spot a black person, six feet tall, 200 pounds.
ALLAN PARK, LIMOUSINE DRIVER: I saw a figure coming to the entranceway of the house.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Allan Park says he'd been buzzing the intercom since 10:40 and received no response, proving, prosecutors say, Simpson had not been home.
PARK: This time, there was an answer, which was Mr. Simpson. He told me that he overslept and he just got out of the shower and he'll be down in a minute.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Both Park and Kaelin notice a dark duffle bag near the rear of Simpson's Bentley.
PARK: He came out and Kato offered to go get the bag and he said no, no, that's OK, I'll get it. I'll get it.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): So what was in the bag? And what did Simpson do with it? Detective Tom Lange has a theory.
LANGE: So you want to know what happened to the knife and then clothes? We know that, from a witness out at the airport, I believe, saw him getting out of the limousine when he left on American Airlines the night of the murders and had his arm buried in the trash container.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Next, with so much evidence, what went wrong?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's people 77.
LANGE: Chris Darden blew it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS (voice-over): The team prosecuting O.J. Simpson for murder
has no weapons and no witnesses. But what they do have is a wealth of forensic evidence. Evidence that seems to prove O.J. Simpson butchered Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She appeared to me to be an overkill or a rage killing.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): There was blood everywhere. At the Bundy crime scene. At Simpson's Rockingham Estate and scattered along the route in between. Blood, prosecutors say, is Simpson's.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does that mean that these characteristics that Mr. Simpson has that are also found in the Bundy walk bloodstain are only found in approximately one out of 170 million Caucasians or African- Americans?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, approximately.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And that's not all, blood consistent with both victims was found in Simpson's bronco, on that glove discovered behind his house and on these socks in his bedroom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You described that material or that blood staining is matching Nicole Brown, is that right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's correct.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Then, there were the bloody shoe prints in the bronco and on Nicole's dress. FBI expert, William Bodziak says, those prints came from Bruno Magli designer shoes. And Simpson's size, 12.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you include them as a candidate who could have worn the shoes that created the impressions in this case?
WILLIAM BODZIAK, SPECIAL AGENT, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: Yes, I could include them as a candidate for possibly having worn those shoes.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): As the trial wears on, attention turns from socks and shoes to gloves. One found at the murder scene, the other, behind Simpson's house. Together, prosecutors believe they have proof that Simpson's caught red-handed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm handing Mr. Simpson the dark gloves marking him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's people 77.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): What were you thinking when you heard Prosecutor Christopher Darden request that Simpson try on those gloves?
LANGE: I was sitting in the courtroom. I couldn't find a seat, so I was kind of in the back. And when he did that, F. Lee Bailey came up to me and he grabbed me, whispered into my ears, he was kind of laughing.
Why the hell did you let him do that? I didn't do he was going to do anything. No, Chris is a good man. He's a good prosecutor. He's a bright man. He should have known better.
TOOBIN: I remember watching the gloves in the courtroom and thinking to myself, he's not going to ask O.J. to put on the glove. That's too much of a risk. You never ask a question in a courtroom, much less do a demonstration, where you don't know what the outcome is.
And it was like a slow motion disaster movie for the prosecution as O.J. milked the moment for all it was worth and pretended to try on those gloves.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): After the trial, Christopher Darden would admit to Larry King, it was a mistake.
LARRY KING, HOST, LARRY KING LIVE: When it happened in court, did you know you were in trouble?
DARDEN: I knew that it hadn't gone as well as I'd hope it would -- it should have gone.
KING: Did you regard it as like earth shattering to the case?
DARDEN: No. Not necessarily.
KING: No?
DARDEN: Not particularly. It wasn't until I went upstairs and left the courtroom that I realized that people thought that it was a monumental failure, a monumental mistake.
PHILLIPS (on camera): Was it Chris Darden that blew this case?
DERSHOWITZ: Chris Darden blew this case. Marcia Clark contributed pretty heavily to blowing the case too, but Chris Darden blew it.
When O.J. was able to walk in front of the jury and say, it's too small, he didn't have to testify because he had already testified in front of the jury and he wasn't cross examined. So for us, it was a win-win.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All Right. He appears to have pulled the gloves on, counselor.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): But to juror, David Aldana, it didn't seem like a big deal.
PHILLIPS (on camera): So O.J. Simpson was right in front of you when he put on that glove?
ALDANA: He was about maybe two feet away from me.
PHILLIPS (on camera): What do you remember from that moment? ALDANA: You know, a lot of people make a big deal about it, but you know, I was a truck driver. I wear gloves all the time. I know that when my gloves get wet, they shrink up.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): After 92 exhausting days of testimony, 58 witnesses and 488 exhibits --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We ask the court to receive all of the people's exhibits and the people rest.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Next.
COCHRAN: The LAPD's laboratory is a cesspool of contamination.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): The defense unleashes a blistering attack.
BARRY SCHECK, DEFENSE LAWYER: How about that, Mr. Fung?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:30:03] SCHECK: How about that, Mr. Fung?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COCHRAN: We think the evidence will show that he did not, could not, and would not have committed these particular crimes.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Johnnie Cochran came roaring out of the gate on the attack and on the offenses.
COCHRAN: The LAPD's laboratory is a cesspool of contamination.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Citing police incompetence.
COCHRAN: Some had gloves, some didn't have gloves, picking up the evidence.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Even suggesting a conspiracy to frame O.J. Simpson.
COCHRAN: The fact that blood mysteriously appears on vital pieces of evidence is devastating evidence of something far more sinister.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): But the fireworks really begin here. Defense lawyer Barry Scheck, unleashes a relentless barrage of questions on experts like LAPD Criminologist Dennis Fung.
SCHECK: How about that Mr. Fung?
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Confronting him about not wearing gloves while handling evidence.
SCHECK: Did you touch that envelope with your bare hands?
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And inconsistencies in his testimony.
SCHECK: So you did begin evidence collection before the coroners left?
[21:35:03] DENNIS FUNG, CRIMINALIST, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT: Yes.
SCHECK: So what you said before wasn't true?
FUNG: It was the best of my recollection at the time.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And then the photos from the rear gate of Nicole Brown Simpson's home. This one was taken by Fung 20 days after the murders. As you can see, there is a bloodstain. However, a photo taken just hours after the murders showed no bloodstain.
SCHECK: Where is it, Mr. Fung?
ALDANA: And look at what they did to Fung. He needed a vacation after that because they just reamed him.
FUNG: I couldn't see it in the photograph.
PHILLIPS: What do you remember the most about Fung just getting torn apart by Scheck?
ALDANA: Oh, man.
SCHECK: Does that refresh your recollection? Is that a concern of yours? Are you sure of that?
ALDANA: Barry Scheck is one heck of an attorney. He just ripped him apart.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Scheck is trying to convince the jury not only were investigators incompetent, but they tried to frame O.J. for the murders, and juror David Aldana agrees.
PHILLIPS: Do you truly believe that evidence was planted?
ALDANA: Yes. I -- from this day until the day I die, yes, I think it was planted.
PHILLIPS: If this was a conspiracy, how do you get blood on socks, blood on the Bronco --
TOM LANGE, FORMER DETECTIVE, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT: No, look --
PHILLIPS: -- his own blood?
LANGE: It's laughable. OK. Let's look at planting of blood, OK? How do we get that blood from Simpson, who is in Chicago, to plant blood that was already at the scene? It made no sense. Obviously, it made no sense.
We didn't get Simpson's blood until he returned from Chicago. None of it made any sense, but nobody cared. It was a great show.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And the show continues. More testimony from defense experts.
SCHECK: Have you ever seen a single assailant wear two pairs of shoes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. That represents human DNA that shouldn't be there, and that's what our definition of contamination is.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): On the stand now, O.J.'s personal physician, Robert Huizenga. He testifies that Simpson was in no way physically capable of murdering Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.
ROBERT HUIZENGA, PHYSICIAN OF O.J. SIMPSON: Although he looked like Tarzan, you know, he was walking more like Tarzan's grandfather.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): The defense is on a roll. Until Prosecutor Brian Calvert plays this 70 minute work-out video on cross- examination.
O.J. SIMPSON, ACCUSED OF KILLING NICOLE BROWN SIMPSON AND RON GOLDMAN: Working up a little sweat here, too.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You bet.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): It was filmed just two weeks before the murder. Simpson not only looks fit, but even cracks a joke about wife beating.
SIMPSON: I'm telling you, you just got to get your space in if you're working out with the wife, if you know what I mean.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): But perhaps the most dramatic and powerful moment for the defense is still to come.
F. LEE BAILEY, ATTORNEY FOR O.J. SIMPSON: Once he said, never in 10 years have I ever used the "N" word, I knew we had him.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:41:55] COCHRAN: And it was Mark Fuhrman who allegedly found the spot on the outside of the Bronco. Is that correct?
LANGE: That's correct.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): At every opportunity.
ROBERT SHAPIRO, ATTORNEY FOR O.J. SIMPSON: Did Mark Fuhrman have a flashlight when he was over at the Bronco?
PHILLIPS (voice-over): O.J. Simpson's team attacks lead detective Mark Fuhrman.
COCHRAN: Did you have occasion to have a conversation with Mark Fuhrman?
PHILLIPS (voice-over): F. Lee Bailey says Fuhrman isn't credible and may even be criminal. BAILEY: Did you go back to the crime scene?
MARK FUHRMAN, FORMER DETECTIVE, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT: No.
BAILEY: Did you do any more observations?
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Bailey wants to know if he planted evidence at the scene.
BAILEY: Did you wipe a glove in the Bronco, Detective Fuhrman?
FUHRMAN: No.
BAILEY: You did not?
FUHRMAN: No.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): But some of the jurors, like David Aldana, believe Fuhrman was up to no good.
PHILLIPS: Did you ever, for a moment, believe that the police wanted to frame O.J. Simpson?
ALDANA: Frame him? I think that was in Fuhrman's mind.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): But why would Fuhrman want to frame O.J. Simpson? Simple, says the defense team. Fuhrman is a racist.
PHILLIPS: Why did it become so much about race?
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, ATTORNEY FOR O.J. SIMPSON: It's amazing because O.J. Simpson was as White a Black person as you can imagine. He lived a White life, lived in a White neighborhood --
PHILLIPS: Married to a White woman.
DERSHOWITZ: -- married to a White woman, working for a major car company. He was not part of the African-American community to speak of, but I think that many African-Americans could identify with the police tampering with evidence and planting evidence.
BAILEY: Were you familiar with the language attributed to you by Ms. Bell?
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And to hammer home that Fuhrman is a racist, Bailey repeatedly asked if he'd used a certain racial slur.
BAILEY: And you say, on your oath, that you have not addressed any Black person as a nigger or spoken about Black people as niggers in the past 10 years, Detective Fuhrman?
FUHRMAN: That's what I'm saying, sir.
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, would they not, Detective Fuhrman? FUHRMAN: Yes, they would.
BAILEY: All of them, correct?
FUHRMAN: All of them.
BAILEY: I was focused on Mark Fuhrman, his every twitch, his every eye movement and so forth. I had no notes. I only wanted one thing from him. Denial.
FUHRMAN: No.
BAILEY: Never?
FUHRMAN: No.
BAILEY: Once he said never in 10 years have I ever used the "N" word, I knew we had him.
LANGE: When he asked that question by F. Lee Bailey, about using the "N" word, everybody in the world knew that he was being set up but him.
BAILEY: What I didn't know was we also had him on tape.
[21:45:00] PHILLIPS (voice-over): Four months after Bailey versus Fuhrman, the defense gets an unlikely tip. Screenwriter Laura Hart McKinny had interviewed Mark Fuhrman for a fictional script she was writing, and she still has the audio recordings.
Despite a court order to keep the tape sealed, some of the startling contents are leaked.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is just a real racist scum.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now, what we're going to look at is Fuhrman and what a scumbag he is.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And to Ron Goldman's father, Fred, the tapes are a devastating distraction.
FRED GOLDMAN, FATHER OF RON GOLDMAN: This is not now the Fuhrman trial. This is a trial about the man that murdered my son.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Judge Lance Ito has ruled that the jury will be able to hear portions of taped interviews with now retired LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Fuhrman says the "N" word dozens of times on the tapes, but Judge Ito decides the jury will only hear two. The excerpts are brief, yet powerful and disturbing.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
FUHRMAN: They don't do anything. They don't go out there and initiate contact with some six-foot-five-inch nigger who's been in prison for seven years pumping weights.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: After the excerpt ended, the Fuhrman tapes, you broke down and cried at that moment. Why?
KIM GOLDMAN, SISTER OF RON GOLDMAN: Because I was worried at the ramifications because I watched them with this look of horror and, like, disgust, you know, and watched them turn. I was like, that it -- that's it.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): That's it. Fuhrman had lied on the stand and had used an abhorrent racial slur. It throws a whole new light on defense assertions that he had planted evidence, a charge he denies today but would not address at the time.
BAILEY: Detective Fuhrman, did you plant or manufacture any evidence in this case?
FUHRMAN: I assert my Fifth Amendment privilege.
COCHRAN: He refused to answer that question on the grounds it might tend to incriminate him. What more does anyone need?
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Fuhrman is disgraced and dismissed from the case. Coming up --
JUSTICE LANCE ITO, PRESIDING JUDGE OF THE TRIAL OF O.J. SIMPSON: All right. Mr. Simpson, would you please stand and face the jury.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): -- the dramatic verdict.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:51:17] PHILLIPS: Late September 1995, for nine long months, the trial of the century has been a national obsession.
CROWD: Stop domestic violence! Break the code of silence!
PHILLIPS (voice-over): But a casualty of the constant hype is the freedom of 14 men and women. The jury has been sequestered since before the trial started.
ALDANA: We were told it was going to be about three months. And then when the third month came, and then there was four and then five, and then it kept going. It just went on and on and on.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): But, says David Aldana, there were bright spots like several secret field trips.
ALDANA: I actually got to fly the Goodyear Blimp. We went to a Dodger game and I caught a foul ball.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And there was even a barbeque.
ALDANA: One day that all my friends came and visited me and they all brought cases of beer and we got plastered.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Back in court, O.J. Simpson cites the jurors' fatigue as one reason he's not going to testify.
SIMPSON: I am mindful of the mood and the stamina of this jury. I have confidence, a lot more it seems than Miss Clark has, of their integrity. And that they will find, as the record stands now, that I did not, could not, and would not have committed this crime.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Four days later, the end is finally in sight.
ITO: You have heard all of the evidence.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): No more witnesses, no more delays. Just closing statements. First up, Lead Prosecutor Marcia Clark.
MARCIA CLARK, LEAD PROSECUTOR OF THE O.J. TRIAL: Let me come back to Mark Fuhrman for a minute, just so it is clear.
Did he lie when he testified here in this courtroom, saying that he did not use racial epithets in the last 10 years? Yes. Is he a racist? Yes.
But the fact that Mark Fuhrman is a racist and lied about it on the witness stand does not mean that we haven't proven the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
SCHECK: How in this country --
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Then comes defense attorney Barry Scheck.
SCHECK: There's no doubt Fuhrman's a liar and a genocidal racist. There's no doubt about that. But there's really no doubt either that they played with the stockings there (ph). And if that can happen, that's a reasonable doubt to this case, period. End of sentence, end of case.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Finishing for the defense, Johnnie Cochran with probably the most memorable quote of the trial.
COCHRAN: If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): But now, two decades later, we learn that wasn't Cochran's phrase after all.
DERSHOWITZ: He didn't invent that. That was done by the Dean of the Santa Clara Law School, Gerry Uelmen, who was the most unknown person in our defense team.
PHILLIPS: And so 20 years later, he is getting the proper credit?
DERSHOWITZ: Yes, he is getting the credit. He deserves it.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): However, regardless of their source, the words, "it doesn't fit," hammered Cochran's message home.
BAILEY: Have not used that word in the last --
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And after nine months of testimony, hundreds of exhibits, more than 260 days isolated in a hotel, jurors are finally sent to determine O.J. Simpson's fate.
ALDANA: We walked into that room. Well, let's see, what do you want to do first? Yes, well, let's just see where everybody stands. We went around the room, you know, guilty, not guilty.
[21:55:02] PHILLIPS (voice-over): It's two votes guilty, 10 not guilty. After reviewing testimony, they prepare to vote again.
PHILLIPS: Now, you guys had been sequestered for nine months, and you were tired, you hadn't seen your families, your kids, your friends. You wanted to get out of there. Were the majority of you working hard to get those two to come on board?
ALDANA: Actually, no. It wasn't arguing or yelling or anything like that. We just came to take another vote, and the other two came on board and they said "not guilty." And it wasn't because they thought that he was innocent. It was because the prosecution just didn't prove it.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And Aldana, for one, also believed the defense argument that the police framed O.J.
PHILLIPS: How is it with all of this evidence against O.J. that he's set free?
ALDANA: Some of that stuff was planted. And when some of it was planted, what was and what wasn't?
PHILLIPS: How did Mark Fuhrman play a part in your decision when it came down to the verdict?
ALDANA: Quite a bit. Because everything that he had anything to do with pretty much got thrown out. I knew he was dirty. After a while, you get a sense of people.
PHILLIPS: Do you truly believe that the police, the detectives, the criminologists, were as incompetent as the defense made them out to be?
ALDANA: Yes, I think so.
ITO: Mr. Simpson, would you please stand and face the jury.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Deliberations take less than four hours.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We the jury in the above entitled action find the Defendant, Orenthal James Simpson, not guilty of the crime of murder in violation of Penal Code Section 187 --
K. GOLDMAN: They read it and we heard that and then I just fell apart.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Fred and Kim Goldman were devastated.
F. GOLDMAN: It was as if your insides got yanked out of you. Everything that we knew to be certain, that he had killed Ron and Nicole, suddenly as if, wait a minute, how is that possible?
K. GOLDMAN: And then our side was in shock, and then you hear the cheers --
F. GOLDMAN: From the other side.
K. GOLDMAN: -- and the jubilee going on on the other side.
(APPLAUSE)
F. GOLDMAN: That division became what was seen across the TVs for several days. It was Blacks cheering and Whites crying.
PHILLIPS: When you think of the verdict now, what are your thoughts?
K. GOLDMAN: I feel betrayed. I feel really let down. I feel confused.
Emotionally, I don't get why they chose to acquit him. Logically, I get it. It was because it was as a a racial thing. It was -- you know, you're the messenger. And I'm sad. I'm sad that we, as a country, couldn't rise above --
F. GOLDMAN: Above it.
K. GOLDMAN: -- and make a decision --
F. GOLDMAN: And realize that two people were murdered, slaughtered, and that you do the right thing at that moment.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Juror number 11, as I count two, this your verdict?
(APPLAUSE)
PHILLIPS (voice-over): As for Simpson, he returns to his home in Brentwood, vowing to spend his time looking for the real killer. But first, he has a phone call to make to CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KING, CNN ANCHOR: With us on the phone is O.J. Simpson. How are you?
SIMPSON: I'm doing fine. And, one, I want to thank you --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Could you believe that he called in?
KING: No, could not believe it. So he calls in, we put him on actually. Johnnie Cochran's -- and he thanks Johnny for his help. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SIMPSON: Most of all, I want to thank that man, Mr. Johnnie Cochran, for believing from the very beginning, listening, and putting his heart and soul on the line to send me home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: He says, I'll come on soon and I'll tell you the -- I'll give you the whole story, Larry.
PHILLIPS: Do you believe O.J. Simpson is innocent, 20 years later?
ALDANA: I found him innocent, and I believe he is innocent.
PHILLIPS: You still believe that, 20 years later?
ALDANA: Yes.
PHILLIPS: With all your heart?
ALDANA: All my heart. There is nothing -- if I was given that same evidence again, I would find him not guilty again.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
