Marcia Clark Is Redeemed

It had been nearly 20 years since the trial when Marcia Clark heard the news: The television network FX was going to produce a mini-series called The People v. O.J. Simpson.

“I just thought, Oh my God, no. No, no, no. Noooo. Not again.”

Clark had every reason to feel dread. As the lead prosecutor on the 1995 case against O.J. Simpson for the double murder of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, Clark had come in for perhaps more public disparagement than any of the trial’s other players. She was mocked relentlessly in the press for her clothes and her hairstyles; tabloids published topless photos of her and reported breathlessly on her ongoing custody fight over her two sons, tsk-tsk-ing her for her alimony requests to pay for childcare she needed for her long hours working on the trial. Johnnie Cochran, a member of O.J.’s “Dream Team” defense, referred to her as “hysterical,” and Judge Lance Ito advised the jury not to be distracted by counsel’s clothes, in reference to Clark’s short skirts.