Drama Queens - Work in Progress: Marcia Clark

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

She became a household name in the 90s as the lead prosecutor in O.J. Simpson's trial, but her career in law was accidental. Marcia Clark initially wanted to be an actress! Even though the prosecutor, author, and host had different career goals, she admits to Sophia that her interest in criminal law and solving mysteries started at a very young age! She also shares what it was like being in the eye of the storm during the trial of the century, the sexism directed at her, and how she felt when she first heard about the limited series The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story. Plus, Marcia talks about her new podcast, 'Informants: Lawyer X,' which is about a high-profile defense attorney who turned police informer against her own clients, and that is just the tip of the iceberg! 'Informants: Lawyer X' is out now on Wondery+.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hi, everyone. It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Hey, Whipsmarties, today we are joined by a guest that has me absolutely geeked. I mean, someone that I grew up watching on television, who's has now been made into an incredible scripted drama, who has led the most interesting life. And I just can't wait to ask her all of the questions I have. Today, we are joined by none other than Marsha Clark, prosecutor, author, television correspondent, and television producer.

She is perhaps best known for having been the lead prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson murder case. And during that case, she was really thrust into what has been called the hell of the trial. She was made famous overnight in a way that was kind of terrifying. And her experience on that trial was really a confluence of media and tabloid drama, early disinformation in the media, and such incredible sexism. the craziest experiences of the way that a woman could be picked apart. A woman in a position of power in an era that was not great for women, no less. Everything from her arguing style to her hair, her wardrobe, was picked apart on television. The LA Times even described her as resembling.

Sigourney Weaver only more professional, and the New York Times retorted that the transformation was not entirely seamless. Like, what? This woman was prosecuting a murder trial. It seems so wildly inappropriate today, but this is just a moment ago in our human history. After the trial, Clark actually resigned from the district attorney's office. She was so disillusioned with the justice system. And then she and Teresa Carpenter wrote a book about the case called Without a Doubt. Since the trial, Marsha Clark has made numerous appearances on television.

She's been a special correspondent for entertainment tonight. She has provided coverage of high-profile trials and reported from, even red carpets at the Emmys. She is an incredibly multifaceted woman who has taken a lot of frankly sexist pushback and turned it into an incredible career. She's written several novels, even a series surrounding a prosecutor in the LADA's office called Rachel Knight. And now she has a brand new podcast out called Informants, Lawyer X. It is a story you have to hear. to believe it, because it's true. And I'm telling you from the Hollywood world, if any of us had pitched this to a studio, they would have said it was too fantastical, but it's real life.

And so for those of us who are obsessed with justice, obsessed with true crime, this is going to be your next favorite podcast. Informance Lawyer X reveals the story of Nicola Gabo, a defense attorney who represented key players in Australia's violent gang wars, and as she appeared to become one of the gang. She was actually turning into a police informant, selling out the people she was sworn to defend. It's a wild story. And I am so excited to ask Marcia how she discovered Nicola Gabo's story in the first place. And every single question I wanted to ask her since the OJ Simpson trial was on TV. So let's get to it. Hi, Marcia. How are you? I'm good. It's so nice to be here. It's so lovely to have you. Thank you so much for taking the time. My mind is absolutely blown right now. I'm just thrilled that you're here. I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me, really. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, as a kid who went to journalism school in L.A., I'm like, I have so many questions for you.

Wow. There is really, there's so much to talk about. But, you know, anyone I get to sit across from has a pretty incredible list of accomplishments. And yours I have a million questions about, but I actually want to go back a bit to the beginning and know if you could kind of retrace your steps. When did you know that you wanted to be an attorney? Was it a dream you had from the time that you were a young girl, or was it something that sort of evolved, you know, through your young life and led you to decide you wanted to be a prosecutor in school? How did we get here? No, it's funny, Sophia. It reminds me of that buzz light year thing where flying is just a series of fallings. Yeah. And that's what kind of happened to me. It was all accidental. I started out

wanting to be an actress, not movies. I wanted to do, not Broadway, even. I wanted to do. I wanted do off-Broadway, you know, small theater stuff. And I really like that. And in my, that's crazy. And in my first year of undergrad, I realized I was majoring in theater arts. And I realized that's a really dumb major. Because you're either an actor or you're not. You know what I mean? But, you know, certainly having a degree is not going to make your one. So I gave up on that and thought, okay, I should get like something different. And I thought, oh, political science seems like it encompasses a lot of the stuff that might interesting to me. And then I really got into that. wanted to be, I got interested in international relations, particularly, you know, I wanted

to work for the State Department, but I wanted to be in the field. You know, I wanted to work out, not at a desk. And back then, the only thing that girls were allowed to do was type, and they asked me how fast I could type. And I did not have any desire to tell them that I was a fast typist, nor was I a fast. So that was that. So that was that. dream went crashing down and then it was like now what do i do you know i mean i really didn't know and it was just a matter of sitting down and making a list of the things i liked to do the things that i thought i could do and it seemed to add up to law school which really pissed me off because i hated school hated it all forms of school i really like studying on my own okay you know i want

give me the book go go away i'll figure it out but i really don't want to sit in class so having to go back to school was not my favorite thing to do. I went back to law school with a very bad attitude. But I really figured in the first like two months of law school, I realized it was going to be criminal law. That was the only thing I was going to practice. And it was the, I never looked back and I never regretted it because it really was where I wanted to be.

So it kind of happened like that. And I have to tell you, it was such an accidental thing that I had actually forgotten about The LSATs are the admissions, you know, tests you have to take for it to get into law school. Yeah. And I had forgotten that it was due the following morning and I went out and partied the night before. Oh, my God. It was really not good.

I showed up more than slightly hungover for the LSAT. I mean, you know, you have to fill in those little bubbles back in the day and they were very blurry. I don't know what score I got. It was good enough to get into law school. That was fine with me. So, you know what I mean? It wasn't like some big. career path. It just kind of happened and happened and then, yeah. What was it about criminal

law that stood out to you so quickly? I think that started when I was like really, really little. I mean, six years old, kind of little, because I was always looking for the mystery and I was always looking to solve the mystery, make it up and then solve it, which is, sure. Yeah, exactly. So there was this house where we were living at the end of the street that looked kind of, that was kind of abandoned. And I think it really wasn't abandoned, actually. And so I decided, of course, that a big murder had happened there. I saw spots on the sidewalk and those became blood drops. And for some reason, I persuaded all the kids on the block that this was really happening.

And we were going to crack this case wide open. Yeah. So it started very, very young. I was always fascinated with crime. And so it's not really a surprise that in law school, I said criminal law had to be. Right. Well, and not really a surprise that you fast forward to today. you know, you're writing these incredible mysteries.

It all really makes sense. Yeah, it really does. Now, so many of us, obviously, came to know you as a household name during the O.J. Simpson trial. It wasn't lost on me as a tiny little activist my whole life. I remember saying to my parents, I do not like the way they're talking about, this lady on TV. You know, it really irked me as a kid that I could see, even as a child, not understanding the complexities of the world and patriarchy and society and systems and all the things that I understand now, I could see the way you were vilified, you know, this hyper-intelligent, committed prosecutor doing this work who was as enraged as the rest of us, that this trial was going the way that it was. and you know there'd be tabloids at the grocery store and people were calling you a bitch and it was like it really pissed me off as a kid what what was that experience like for you at the

time because it it seemed from the outside that because of who oj was and how public he and and Nicole Brown Simpson's life had been and and everyone knew about you know the cops being called and the abuse and the police reports and the things. And yet, everybody was pissed off at you for going after the bad guy? Like, what? Was it surreal to you? Was it shocking? Was it traumatizing?

Was it infuriating? Maybe it was all of the things. I feel like it was just such a, the beginning of this era of all this stuff being on TV. Was it surreal as a lawyer? Yeah, it really, really was. So before Simpson, I had been a prosecutor for 14 years, a defense attorney before that, and had never felt particularly focused on as a female. And even if I initially was, even if the detectives initially kind of looked like a girl, really,

by the time I got into doing the job and working with them and going out and talking to witnesses, they got over it really fast and it didn't matter anymore. same thing with judges and other defense attorneys. They just, it became a matter of not, no big deal. Right. And so I had stopped worrying about it, if ever I did really worry about it. I don't think I really did. I thought, just do the job, you know, get past whatever.

Then there were sexist jokes and all the rest of it, whatever, la, la, la. And I do the job, you know, because everybody could get over it, it didn't stick in my mind at the time. And by the time the Simpson case happened, it had been many years of, nobody giving me a hard time about being female or being impassioned or being a prosecutor, any of that stuff. And at that time, as of that time, having a high profile case meant what was high profile was maybe the press would spell your name right and only in print and certainly not on television. And maybe they wouldn't mention you at all. You're just the prosecution. So that was high profile. And that's all I had ever had to deal with. And I had dealt with other high profile

cases. This was not my first. But then when the Simpson case hit, there was a sudden it was like being in this vortex. Suddenly there was media coverage that was 24-7. Suddenly there were these cable networks and outlets that were all over the country, not just in one tiny pocket here and there, that were nationwide and they needed content and they could afford to fill the airwaves constantly. And so now the spotlight became huge, which it never had been before. So that was shocking. And the degree to which people got invested and got involved and had opinions and wanted to be heard was unprecedented. That I would become a focus of interest at all, that I would be the focus of any kind of attention, was a brand new thing and not a welcome thing.

And not a welcome thing in so many ways. Number one, I never wanted to be the focus of attention like that, or as me. You know, I mean, even when I wanted to be an actress, I didn't want to be focused on as me. I wanted to be a character. So, you know what I mean? There's that. Totally. I get it.

Yeah, you would. You know what I mean? Exactly. So this was horrifying. But what was more horrifying to me was the way in which I could see justice being subverted. All of the proper considerations about truth, about evidence, about guilt and innocence, went out the window in favor of gossip and, um, sensationalism and clickbait, although we didn't know the word clickbait then, it was that. Yes.

And so it was really depressing and very upsetting to see the important values in our criminal justice system being buried under a mile of slime and false reporting, deliberately false at times and just recklessly false at other times. And then the court itself, the judge himself, who became obsessed with celebrity. and his own spotlight. And all of that was to the detriment of justice and the proper legal administration. So it was really, it was a very depressing, very upsetting experience and very surreal. And so what I had to do is early, early on, not pay attention. I just had to really, what I have to do is in court. That's what matters. Whoever's talking about whatever they're talking about. At one point, I heard Rush Limbaugh was talking about my skirts. I mean, really, how crazy does this get? So enough of that. And so I turned off the TV and just focused on what was

going on. And now for our sponsors. It's such an odd thing in my own relative experience with this, to see what it's like, particularly before the advent of social media where you could have your own voice, where the media for, as you said, clickbait would essentially cast you as a character in a version of a tabloid soap opera because it helped them sell papers. Whether it was anything real about your life or not, it was so disconcerting. And as a person who's pretty obsessed with justice myself, drove me nuts because it feels so unjust. And I think that's what I picked. up on as a kid, you know, watching this trial. What a crazy thing to, you know, to know

Lance Edo's name. Like, what, who knows judges' names? And this trial, you know, blew up into this space that it was everywhere all the time, you know, 24 hours. It was like the Super Bowl never ended in a way. That much coverage. You know, when you, when you talk about the reporting, and, you know, you said something really interesting a moment ago. You said sometimes deliberately false reporting. What did you know to be false that was moving at such a torrent that you couldn't get ahead of it and make it stop? I mean, there were so many things, Sophia, so many things that I can't even recount one in particular, but I would have arguments with Johnny on the side, and we always got along, you know,

and we did not have acrimony personally ever. But I would get annoyed because he would, float these nonsensical stories about this witness, that witness, there weren't witnesses, and he knew it, but he would just throw it out there because he knew the press would pick it up and run with it as though, oh, new lead, knew this,

knew that, and it was, can I say this? Falship. Absolutely. Okay. You know, yeah, and it was, and I said, Johnny, you know, we're going to blow this up tomorrow. He said, well, you know, whatever. And of course, it's not up to him to worry about that. That's not his job. But it

is the press's job. He should be a journalist's job to look at something that comes out. I would watch a reporter walk into the men's room with someone from the defense team and then come out and file a story. What do you think? You had one side of something that you've not verified. You've never tried to corroborate. You don't care where it came from. You guys were standing at the urinal together and he told you a tale. And now you're putting it out there as though this is gospel truth. And that's completely spinning public opinion and giving people a lie, giving people garbage because you haven't bothered to corroborate or verify anything you've done.

So it would happen over and over and over again. And Johnny was right. No one cared because the very next lie would happen the next day and that would wipe it out. And, you know, it looks like our politics today. I was going to say it's not dissimilar to what's been happening in Ohio. That's right. That's right. It's so hard to watch people who will lie for gain, even if it causes harm.

And I would imagine, you know, that it was incredibly difficult to know what the victim had been put through. You know, how abused she'd been, how many incidents of violence there were. Obviously, you saw more than any of the rest of us what the crime scene really looked like. All of these things that I just, I know the way they've stuck with me, and I know I wasn't nearly as close to it as you. And so I guess I wonder, as misrepresented as so much was in the world then, were you nervous when you heard that FX was going to make the people versus O.J. Simpson? It was miserable. It was. I was miserable. Miserable when I heard they were going to do it. Did that shift at all because you got to sit down with Sarah Paulson? Or were you just worried the whole time until you got to see it? well I couldn't the actors were not allowed to meet the real people they portrayed

throughout the shooting no they never did they weren't allowed to so yeah I mean when I first heard it that they were going to do this limited series I thought first of all oh god no please no and then I thought well no harm no foul no one's going to care no one's going to watch this we all know the story it's old news you know and then people were telling me it's not old news and we think it's going to be big and then I I was miserable again. And then I heard Sarah Paulson was going to play me. And then I thought, well, if this awful thing has to happen, at least I have a genius

portraying me. At least I have this amazing actress portraying me. So that was like, that was some comfort. But I didn't get to see her or speak to her until they were done shooting. And then, of course, it was wonderful. We had the best time. We closed the restaurant down, got pretty drunk, had a great time. we still exchanged texts. I love her dearly. Oh, I'm so glad. How did you feel about it when you

saw it or did you not watch it? Of course, I had to watch it. Okay. Could you not watch it? I didn't want to assume. I thought it was great. You know, and people are always asking me how accurate it was and was this, that, the other. And I always tell them, look, they can't be accurate. I mean, they can be. And they were to the extent that they could be. They told the essential truth of the core of the story. The ways in which racial just, the issue of racial justice was manipulated in service of the acquittal of a man who did not deserve it. The way in which the wheels of justice were ground to a halt with all kinds of tactics that should not be allowed. The ways in which things went wrong should not have gone wrong, leading to the verdict

that we got, which we might have gotten anyway. And that's an important thing to think about. In terms of our social history writ large in terms of the context of that case following so closely after Rodney King and then the very most violent riots of that century that occurred in the wake of the Rodney King case and trial. So, I mean, there were so many issues that they did a really nice job of incorporating there. To say that any limited series could be completely accurate when you're talking about something that was covered endlessly for a year 24-7, is impossible. And you wouldn't even want to. So yes, in essence, I think they got a lot of it right. I thought it was really quite beautiful. And I was so impressed with Sarah Paulson.

And I loved whether it felt incredibly accurate or not to you. As a viewer, I appreciated really being able to see what you as a woman were put through that a man never would have been put through to have your hair and your clothes and your demeanor and your speech and your custody battle your personal life all picked apart i thought we were we were able to as an audience see the injustice that was done to you within this world that you mentioned this injunction this was done to these victims because such a terrible injustice had been done to someone else and people were afraid to repeat it. It felt like a miscarriage on a miscarriage on a miscarriage of what the law should be, you know, from personal to societal. And I thought that that was a

pretty incredible thing for them to have been able to do on film. Did it allow you to revisit the intense scrutiny that you experienced? Was it, was it cathartic in a way to see it told honestly to a point? Or was it kind of painful all over again? Or maybe it's both? Yeah, I think it is kind of both. It was, it was cathartic in the sense that Sarah captured the feeling of what it was like to be in the focus of that kind of attention. She captured it beautifully. And so that was great. There's a wonderfulness about a feeling understood.

Yeah. And she really did. Yeah. So that was good. It was also very painful. Justice matters to me. The truth matters to me a lot. And I saw it being, I saw it being shredded every day when I went to court.

And so diving into that cesspool of what was really to me, just a complete subversion of all the values that we hold so dear in a democracy that is founded on a system of justice that at least strives to be fair, at least strives to be the scales of justice, you know, she's blind, and you're supposed to be coming in to focus on the evidence and to focus on the truth and to apply the law to the evidence. This is what we're supposed to do. None of that happened. And I don't think it was allowed to happen for so many reasons. So that was a very painful thing and then looking back at watching the series brought home that painful experience as well so you know i mean so it was both it was both well i i remember the feeling i had

watching it going god i wonder if she's at home going see i'm not crazy it was this bad you know and and not that that fixes it but at least you don't necessarily feel so alone i i imagine at the time when it was happening. Again, there was no social media. You couldn't have a voice. You couldn't get ahead of anything. You couldn't tell your own story. It was told for you in the pages, you know, of all these newspapers and tabloids all around the country. And who did you have in your corner? Like, did you have a best friend who you called every night to flip out about the day? Or was the case so intense that you were sort of underground in your office for months and had, to do it afterwards. Like what, what was your life, not just as Marsha Clark, the prosecutor,

but as, but as Marsha, as a woman who was trying to deal with all of this? Like, who did you turn to? I did have best friends to talk to. And I did talk to them every night. And I also had my team. And Chris, you know what I mean? And so, yes, I mean, there were plenty of people to talk to and vent to, and I'm sure they got really sick of me. So I hope that I apologize to them enough to say, I know you've heard this before, but I can't believe what, you know what I mean, fill in the blank. Sure. And so, yes, there were people to talk to.

And that was, of course, as you know, very helpful to have shoulders to lean on, to whine to and to just, you know, vent to constantly because it was a level of, you're not in control in a courtroom. I mean, I think anyone who says that a prosecutor is controlling the proceedings is not. a lawyer or a very bad one because you are not in control. Somebody once likened it to, you know, oh, you're the director of your film. No, you're not. The judge is. You don't get to say cut. The judge does. So, you know, you go in and you do your very best to try and get the evidence to the jury and to try and, you know, unburry the truth for the jury so they can see what

really happened and to see the truth in the witness's testimony. But when when every roadblock keeps getting thrown in your way. And everywhere you turn, there's another rock put in front of the doorway that stops you from getting to the jury from saying, here it is, here it is, here. Here's what this is what this means. This is why we do this.

This is what happened. But every time you turn, it's like a door closes. That kind of thing, or just big stumbling blocks that you're constantly trying to crawl over. That kind of frustration was a daily occurrence. And it was that you have to vent. before you go crazy. So it was that kind, that was the experience that ultimately, I think, by the end of the

trial, I thought, I can't do this anymore. Everything I thought and held dear about being a lawyer, about being a prosecutor or a defense attorney, all of those values kind of went, got buried and got tainted, got shredded, I didn't believe in the justice system anymore, I walked away thinking, I just can't, I can't, I can't. I'm done. And then I got, I wound up finding that there were other things I could do and wound up writing. But then I wound up with writing fiction at first, publishers weekly, when I put out my first work of criminal crime fiction, said Clark turns to fiction to control the outcome. Very true.

You're like, yeah, obviously. Obviously, right? How great is that? But then I discovered that there was a beauty in writing about true crime, and that's fairly recent. But, I mean, I've always been addicted to true crime, and I do it still. I'm an appellate lawyer. I do court-appointed cases for the indigent, so I'm still practicing criminal law, and I have all these true crime cases. But my agent said, why don't you write a true crime book? Why don't you get into another case?

I said, but I have so many already. Yeah. And then I got into, but, you know, maybe that's a cool thing. And then I fell on the story of lawyer X. And that was amazing. And that was one of these true stories that if it weren't true, you wouldn't believe a word of it. Like if I told you this as fiction, you'd say, too far-fetched, a high-power criminal lawyer, she was at the top of her game representing the most notorious gangsters in Australia in the midst of the gangland wars,

which was around the late 90s, early aughts into 2010, 11. And bodies were literally dropping. in Melbourne. And this was a very beautiful city, a seaside port city that's gorgeous, known for its culture, really beautiful place. And suddenly, this very lovely place to live has blood flowing in the streets because of these gangsters and the drug wars. And Nicola Gabo was standing at the forefront of it all as the premier defense attorney for all the biggest of the big, the most notorious of notorious. And it turns out that she becomes an informant for the the police. And the notion that a defense attorney, especially a celebrated one like that,

becomes the most prized informant for the detectives, is something that Hollywood Kidna made it up. I mean, it's crazy. It feels unheard of. And now a word from our sponsors that I really enjoy, and I think you will too. how did you learn about her story and and did she survive i mean it feels like that's the number one person that a you know cartel of drug runners is going to try to put out a hit on like it does feel so far-fetched for a for a movie but this is real life like how did you hear about her and then what's how is she okay well is she okay is a really good question she's in hiding right now um i tried to reach out to her this was a nine part series for wondery and i think it's exclusive

to wondery plus right now it's part of the exhibit c campaign for true crime shows uh podcasts at wondry and it's the first one out of the gate i heard about it in hollywood and at that time all i knew is that there was some magazine article that i since discovered that actually there was a book written by these journalists. Anthony Dowsley was the journalist in Australia who happened upon this story by hanging out in a cop bar one night and hears people gossiping and talking and the detectives are talking and gossiping and this name keeps popping up, Nicola Gabo. And he says, what is the story here? Why are these detectives talking about this lawyer? This is not common. And as he started to unravel the story, he came upon this incredible tale.

that has to be the cornerstone of his career. And when he published, they refused to allow him to use her name. So she was Lawyer X. And that's the show that we got. That's the podcast that's just out now on Wondry, on Wondry Plus. And informants, Lawyer X. And so she is her story. I talked to Anthony Dowsley, who was the one who investigated it along with journalist Patrick Carlyan.

Also a detective who became involved with Nicola Gabo, Paul Dale. And also another criminal defense lawyer, Zara Gard Wilson, who was also knew her and knew of Nicola Gabo and what she was doing. The story has twists and turns. It is the most incredible thing. First, when I stumbled on it, I thought, okay, that's just weird. And then I realized there's a whole thing that happens with her. There are murders, a double homicide involved. It's got everything. It's just incredible. Well, and I imagine as both a prosecutor and an author, you're like, this is a gold mine of drama and tension and excitement. And it's true. Yeah. It's true. It's unimaginable. Yeah, it is. It was everything. And what was incredible was, as we're writing episode after episode, I'm recording it and going, oh, my God, you're kidding. I mean, one thing after another. No way. No way. And you know something? I mean, I've seen so much, having handled thousands and thousands of cases, it's pretty hard to shock me, honestly. And this shocked me over and over again. And I really did keep going, no way.

So from that place, you know, that amount of expertise, you say, you've seen it all, so it's hard to shock you. Can you give the rest of us who don't know the ins and outs of your world a little bit of an overview of what the risks are that criminal informants face and a little information on what criteria is necessary to even become an informant? Because obviously it's very rare for a defense attorney to flip state's evidence on his or her class. So, like, that, obviously we know is the ground zero for informants, lawyer X. But what does it mean to be an informant in the first place? So usually, and when I say usually, I mean, always, I've never heard of a defense attorney becoming an informant, let alone an official registered informant for the police. Never. This is a one-off.

And it was a huge story in Australia. we just get to find out about it now and it's incredible usually and when I say usually I mean always informants are criminals they're involved in some kind of criminal enterprise whether they're it's a mafia situation whether it's just a drug ring or something or it's gangs you know it's somebody who's involved in the world because that's how they get the information and that's and the cops get to hold of them because they get busted for whatever and then they get to make a deal. And in return for the deal that the cops give them or the prosecutor gives them, they funnel information to them. It is a very, very dangerous life. It's extremely dangerous

because you're always walking this tightrope that if the guys that you're getting the information from, i.e. your gang, your group, your drug ring, whatever it is, if they find out you're snitching, you're dead or hurt very badly, or your family is. Or your family. Yeah. Right, exactly. So there's a lot of vulnerability there. And on the other hand, if you don't deliver, you're going to go to prison. And the cops want you to deliver. The cops are not going to make a deal with you, and they're not going to carry through on that deal if you don't give them what they want. So you're constantly balancing these different interests. Nicola Gaba was doing it big time. She was actually playing both sides against the middle. She was working for the cops against her clients,

but she was also getting information from the cops to feed her clients. It was one of the most amazing kind of power plays I've ever seen where she's kind of the puppet master of all time. But that's unusual. That's a very one-off situation. Usually it's the criminal trying to serve both masters. Very hard to do. And then the cops have to worry about how much they're getting, what they're getting from the informant, how much of it is true. Right. Because he has every reason to want to please them to get to make his deal and keep on the good side of them. And at the same time lying can help because it can shield people he wants to shield or she wants to shield on the criminal side. It gets very complicated. But one thing that is never complicated but always

true is the constant threat of danger from one side or another, prison or death. Right. Well, and this is really interesting because you talk, you know, across the country about the effects of celebrity and press attention on criminal cases, obviously so impactful when we look back at the OJ trial, but even what you're speaking about with this case, the Nicola Gabo story, it became a story because someone from the media heard about it. And I'm really curious, you know, there's obviously a desire to tell stories and journalists want to inform their audience, but sometimes informing an audience about a story like this could cost someone their life.

how do you kind of mitigate these effects, you know, celebrity press attention, social media attention on criminal cases? Are there best practices or is Pandora's box just open at this point? You know, it's a really good question, Sophia. I think that journalists are kind of grappling with this constantly now that we have social media and it's so easy to publish a story without vetting it. easy to just get out there and send that tweet, post that in whatever it is, a blog, if you will, and I don't even think that's a big deal, but substack, if you will, and people get it right away. And so it does become their responsibility to be very careful about what they do, and a lot of them are, a lot of them are. They're very cognizant of the fact that there is integrity involved in here, and there are, there's personal safety concerns of everybody you're talking about. In case of Nick Nicoligabobo, it was particularly vexing problem.

for Anthony Dowsley, the journalist, because it was known that if you reveal who she is, her life is in danger. Well, yeah. Right? Her life is in incredible danger. And so are the lives of her children, not to mention the fact that the cops are going to be furious because you're killing the golden goose. So there was a lot of, there's a lot of litigation that happened to suppress this story for

years. Anthony Dowsley had to fight for five years to finally publish the story and then fight for even longer than that to get her name out. And he had to balance those interests that you're talking about, the safety interest and the threat of danger that was so palpable, so real. The problem is, too, though, is there's also an important thing that the public needs to know that the system of justice is being undermined by this. People will say, for sure, they'll say, oh, so what?

you know, the criminal, the legal rights of these criminals, these drug lords, is being trampled. Boo, who, it kills me for them. Right. You know, I don't care. I want the police to get them, and she's helping them get them. So, yay for her. Well, yeah, but it's not so clean and it's not so clear because if they can trample these guys' rights, they can trample other rights as well.

This becomes a slippery slope. What if it's your brother, your friend, your cousin, who got busted for one minor, thing and the cop knows that he can just tap a source that's completely unreliable because after all we say that's okay if you're going to bust crime do whatever you want we have to set those guardrails they're important so even though it's drug lords largely who got hurt by this but now what's happening is their cases are getting reversed and getting thrown out and these dangerous guys are getting out of prison because of what she did so it matters that the cops weren't doing their job correctly and she wasn't doing her job correctly.

Then the system of justice, it's a three-legged stool, and this is something I say in the podcast. Prosecutors, cops and defense attorneys in court, any one of those three doesn't do their job, and the stool falls down. And that's what happened here. This is unusual. Usually it's one of the others,

but we have to be cognizant of the fact that it matters. There are ripple effects that occur as a result when someone doesn't do what they're supposed to do. And now a word from our wonderful, sponsors. So I'm really curious from this vantage point, understanding all of this and the amount of media literacy people have now, still more is needed, but we've come a long way, you know, since the famous trial, what do you think would happen if the O.J. Simpson trial were tried today?

Do you think it would be different? I think it would. I think it would because now there are competing narratives that get to be heard, that get disseminated. And that's a very good thing, I think. For all that we have been decrying cancel culture and all that stuff, and I agree that we shouldn't have it. I'm in favor of having people have a voice, whether you agree with it or not. Let everyone speak or just about everyone. We have a First Amendment.

it does have certain guidelines. They're loose, and they should be. Because I do want to hear from the right wing. I want to hear from the left wing. I want to hear from every wing if I possibly can, as long as it doesn't do obvious harm, the old saw about crying fire in a crowded theater. Well, exactly.

You can't incite hate speech or harm, but yes. Right, inciting a riot or that kind of thing. But other than that, competing points of view, good thing. And I want to hear them. And I think you would today. back then things were so much more narrow even though you had television that was showing all kinds of things television was kind of a distorting force too because you have this moving picture you see snapshots you don't see the whole thing you don't necessarily pay attention to all the things that are

said in court nor could you everybody has lives but as a result when you only see me yelling in one in one two-second soundbite, you don't see the whole other eight hours of very calm, reflective discourse. So that was kind of a distorting influence, whereas today, you would probably have people on both sides saying, well, I think this or I think that. Back then, Howard Stern and I think Geraldo Rivera were the only two willing to come out front and say, I think that Simpson was guilty. I think he didn't.

I think he should be found guilty. But everyone else was very afraid to say, Oh, he did it. Yes, I think so. In fact, in the very beginning, it was not divided by race. Everyone hated us. Everyone said, I don't want to hear this. It's not true. I don't believe it. And then even when they started to believe it, I would hear things from people saying like, well, you know, I haven't seen all the evidence so I can't form an opinion. You're not on the jury. You can form an opinion today right now in the next five minutes. No one cares. You get to say what you think. People were afraid to say. what they thought. So I don't think that would be the case today. Even though we have a certain degree of worry about, you know, people being afraid to voice their opinions that are not popular, I think that's relaxing a lot. And I think people are more and more willing thanks to podcasts like yours, for example, or podcasts like the fifth column, more blocked and reported or, you know, or Josh steps, you know, they have all these podcasts that are willing to be brave and say what they

have, say what they think, whether it's popular or. or not, that's a really good thing. And people have access to it. Another very good thing. So I do think it would probably be different. Would we have won a conviction? Maybe not. It might have been a hung jury. I think that with even back then, had we had a judge who knew how to run a courtroom, we would have had a hung jury then too. And it would have gone a lot faster as well. But, but, you know, that's just a just a guess. Sure. Yeah, I think it must be so hard to speculate on that stuff. I mean, I know people have even asked you, oh, do you think if the prosecutor had been a man that it might have gone differently? And it's like, how are you supposed to know? Well, how am I supposed to know? But it's also,

it ignores the much more important forces that were in play. Say more about that. Yeah. Race became a huge focal issue. I was really more beside the point than people realize. Yeah. And so there was 400 years of social injustice being packed into that courtroom. Rodney King, as I said, whenever you have a case that's getting buried under all of these social issues that really have nothing to do with the evidence at all, he did not kill Nicole because she's white. She did not divorce him because he's black.

None of that mattered to them. And so none of that had anything to do with the case. She had never been allowed in the courtroom. But once it is, it can't help but have a divisive and very distorting impact on the evidence and on the jurors as well. And so, you know, I think that's true and that was true then. And it's still true now in any case where you have that sort of thing happening. And I do think it may have had an impact and it's still having an impact on the Lawyer X cases

because there's a certain Nicola Gabba herself is in hiding. But people are still wondering who's going to be held accountable. What about all the police who knew that they shouldn't be using a defense attorney as an informant? They knew it. They knew this wasn't the right thing to do. but they still did it. But no one's been prosecuted yet. And I think that they're afraid

because the public really doesn't want to see cops go to prison or go to jail or even get fired necessarily because they like what they were doing. They cleaned up the streets. After all, they did stop crime. And it's really hard to puncture the idea of the good guy coming to save you.

We're dealing with this in our country all the time. You know, when you realize that a third of the people murdered in America die at the hands of a police officer, you go like, oh God, what does that mean? You know, hold on. And it is really hard. And I say this is a person who grew up, you know, with my very favorite show on TV for a long time being Law and Order SVU and who played a cop on TV. And I'm like, I've had to reckon with a lot.

It's really complicated when you pierce the veil of the societal story of who's a hero, who's a bad guy, who is. It's deeply uncomfortable. And yeah, the question of this case, you know, this lawyer X thing that you're talking about, did they need the information? Yes. Did they need to put the bad guys away? Yes. Did they do it in potentially the wrong way that probably put a woman in her family at risk? Yes.

What does it all mean? Because someone will also say, well, she chose to defend these people. And it's like, oh, God, it's hard. it's hard and it's very it's what fascinates me about lawyer ex is also what leads a person to put themselves in this position where she's up against it she's she's really she's an up-and-comer and then she's a celebrated lawyer and she has all this power and all this fame and very successful and then turns on a dine to become an informant and and suddenly turns on the very people who made her as successful as she is and at the same time that makes her miserable and she goes through all kinds of stress and I you know I just think this is a psychological study that is endless because there's all these layers to it yes she's a power player

but she's also a pleaser she's someone who wants to be the very best lawyer possible for all these bad guys but also wants to be the very best informant the police have ever seen and he actually said that to them I want to be the best informant you've ever had am I not the best I mean this is a person whose personality is so complex and so at all with herself. It's like she chases her own tail all the time, 24-7. I, you know, I did try to reach out to her a number of times. Did you get to her? I try. I never got to. Never got to. But that would be one of the interviews that I would really, really love to have to find out why did you do it? What made you do it? How do you feel about it now? What are your regrets? I mean, because I can see, you know,

it's really hard. It's hard to actually weave your way through the path, the psychological path that she wound up in, to find, you know, she went this way and this way and this way and this way. It's a serpentine path to put it mildly. And now, you know, she's, I don't know where she is. And that's probably a very good thing for her and her children. But I mean, it's what a case study that is. Well, and what an interesting thing, too, I wonder how you, obviously, your circumstances are very different. But I wonder how you relate. Because even for you, you know, you mentioned earlier, you were so disillusioned with the justice system after the acquittal and you left the L.A. District Attorney's Office afterwards. And your life has taken all these different twists and turns and the writing and the podcast and the lecturing and all the things you do. Do you miss anything about your old career? Are there things that you would do differently now? Or are you happy where it's all land? it? Or maybe it's also a little bit of both. I don't know. I think I'm kind of a fatalist about

that. Things happen the way they happened, you know? And so I'm here now and it just, it was what it was and that's what I don't look back and say, gee, I wish I were a prosecutor again, then, again, you know, I left the office because I had to. At that time, I just couldn't envision going back into court. And then I did what I did after that. You know what I mean? It just kind of, I've always been that way. I was that way before I became a prosecutor. This looks right. That looks right.

And, you know, whatever fits in at that time, as you say, we'll work in progress. Exactly. Yeah. I do wonder about someone like Nicola Gabo whose ambition was always the same. She wasn't like me. She was somebody who always wanted to be a lawyer. At one time, even thought about being a prime minister. She came from legal royalty.

That was her background. and her uncle was a very famous barrister. So she came from, you know, a family that it makes it not surprising that she would want to be a high power criminal lawyer. And so that she became one and she succeeded to such great, such a great degree only to throw it all away by becoming a notorious informant and becoming the focus of a huge legal scandal in Australia is so mind-boggling to me. Yes. honestly she threw away her own dream yeah i mean her story is wild and it as you talk about it and i think about all these stories why do you think we're all so obsessed with true crime what do you think that is you know sophia i'm one of them so well me too you're like why are we like this this is a very good

question why are we like the way we are i just don't know i mean i think that ultimately truly true crime fanatics like us are curious. They're curious. They want to solve the mystery. They want to know the answer. They want to get the solution. You know, why did this happen? How did this happen? These are always, they're puzzles to solve. And I don't mean to be that in a demeaning or just diminishing way because often lives are on the line. Serious issues are in play here. The more serious. But at base, I think it is a curiosity and a need to know that fuels the true crime society community and i feel like it is a community and it's one that i've been a member of for a long-standing member of since childhood and i don't see that ever changing yeah i don't think it's going to change

for me either i'm so hooked so you know we're we're on the the precipice of this new show and there's such an incredible life and multifaceted career behind you and and you're looking forward with all these new projects, as you look out at what excites you, you know, what comes next, what feels like your work in progress in your life? It could be professional or personal. I feel like everything in my life is a work in progress. Honestly, from day to day, I feel like I learn something new. I learned to improve about one thing or another, whether it's big or small, every single day, and that's why I related so much to your show. It's such a great idea. Work in progress. I mean, yeah. And I kind of think that if you're not a work in progress,

then you're kind of treading water in not a good way. You want to be always in progress, developing, learning, improving if you can. That's what we tried. That's the hope. Absolutely. I love that. Well, thank you so much. It's really, it's just such an honor to have you on the show. I'm absolutely geeked about this and I'm so excited for the new podcast and I'm so I'm just so excited to watch all of the next iterations of the work that you do. Thank you for taking the time today. Thank you so much, Sophia. It's been a pleasure. I hope you enjoy Lawyer X on Wondry Plus. Yes, I can't wait. This is an IHeart podcast.