Copyright 1995(c)

                              SHALL WE WALK?
                            By Sandra Copeland

     Marcia Clark stood up to address the jurors one final time and
made Mr. Cochran's argument. It surprised everyone, most of all,
Mr. Cochran.
     She looked her best.
     The hair was still sleek and short, the suit was a Jones of
New York with a plain v-neck, no collar, and rounded, elevated
shoulders. It nipped in at the waist and fanned over the hips
smoothly. The matching skirt had a gathered waistband and slash
pockets we saw late in her argument. The plain, large pearls at ear
and throat were just right with the cream, silken ruffled-collar
blouse. The shoes were expensive black 1-1/2 heeled Aigner. She
wore black hose, sheer and satiny-looking.
     She let them look at her a few minutes after greeting them: 
"Ladies and gentlemen, I can only imagine what you expect to hear
me say," she began and let them observe her.
     "But I'm going to say something more than the defense counsel
will say, which is that footprints can take one all sorts of
places.
     "Imaginary footprints will go even farther.

     She walked away from them, beginning again as she turned to
the panel.

     "There are real footprints here, folks. They lead directly
from the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman to the
front door of mansion in which the defendant, O.J. Simpson, lives."

     She intended to divide their own lifestyles from O.J.'s, 
while reminding them, in a different way, of the many things people
do that other people do not understand.

     "There are footprints here, albeit those of a confusing DNA
nature, leading from and to those very spots. There is the glove
the defense would have us believe a law officer carried around in
his sock. In his sock, because Marines, says the defense, 'do
that.'
     "How many of you have known a Marine who carried items in his
sock? The defense, however, will tell you about such people.
Defense counsel may tell you about Colombian drug lords who
intended to murder two other people, a proposition for which it
would be difficult to collect payment. But there are no footprints
leading there. There are no witnesses and no testimony, aside from
theory. 
     "Motive, method and opportunity. Those are footprints. Just as
DNA blood samplings are footprints.
     "The defense may tell you it was two other guys because no one
did or did not see two other guys, but they'd rather not tell you
about the witnesses who claim to have seen a White Bronco speeding
from the scene. Because those are footprints.
     "Defense counsel, like a sleight of hand magician, will ask
you to look here or there, but not at the footprints. They may tell
you that O.J. was physically incapable of wielding such a weapon on
a day he could play only nine holes of golf. They will not want to
tell you about the exercise video in which he jokes about beating
women and does the kind of gymnastics a young man might do with
ease. Those are footprints.
     "The defense will want to tell you what a fine guy all-time-
sport-hero their client is, as though one's look or dress or
occupation somehow determined one's capacity for violence. They
will want to tell you about the Machiavellian plot that allowed an
entire police department to conspire to frame O.J. Simpson, while
at the same time asking you to believe that he was the guy
everybody loved. Everybody, that is, except anyone who collected
evidence against him. Those people, the defense has said, concocted
a frame-up of this much beloved man. 
     "The defense will paint their client as either infirm,
emotionally or physically incapable; without intent; absent; or
even divine, if possible. But they will not address the footprints.
They will not talk to you about the blood droplets that tie O.J.
Simpson to the scene of the murder. Those are footprints.
     "The defense counsel is going to paint a marvelous picture,
like the fresco ceiling of an historic chapel, filled with cherubs
of the imagining, but it will try and throw dirt and debris on
those footprints, because it is all the defense can do. It can't
make the footprints go away, so it will attempt to cover them up --
to divert your attention from them. 
     "The defense counsel will ask you to believe that such a nice
guy as his client couldn't do such a horrendous thing.
     "Two people are very brutally slain. The footprints lead
directly back to the defense counsel's nice-guy client, O.J.
Simpson. They don't want you to remember that, and I don't want you
to forget it.
     "Like Woodward and Bernstein, follow the money -- the
footprints." 

     She stepped to the defense counsel as she said the last, and
removed her jacket. Placing one hand in the pocket of her skirt,
she gestured with the other as she continued.

     "There is a clear trail from the murder to the murderer. The
defense may cast any number of shadows across the path, but they
cannot obscure the footprints unless you let them. And they must
obscure them because they cannot explain them.
     "Can you 'see' a murderer? 
     "Of course not. You probably can't imagine seeing one...
knowing one. If you like football, it might be hard to see the
defendant as a murderer. But seeing is no test when it comes to
murderers, is it? Murder is the test when it comes to murderers,
and here, there are clearly two murders as there is a clear trail
to the murderer.
     "There are footprints.
     "Mr. Cochran won't tell you about them. He cannot excuse them.
Mr. Cochran will tell you only about the things he can excuse or
explain, but never, ever about the footprints.
     "But you have to ask yourself: 'How did the defendant's
footprints get there if he wasn't there?' DNA is a complex subject,
and difficult to understand, but nobody has trouble differentiating
footprints from bloody printfoots. Mr. Cochran won't want want to
talk about that.
     "He won't want to talk about how there could be footprints
without a foot, but he will, rather, talk about grown men carrying
items in their socks as a habit. Or a preplanned paranoid obsession
to frame the defendant. Or a drug cartel with hit men so
inefficient as to mis-identify murder targets.  
     "I suspect the defense will offer a number of excuses and
theories. They will be unable to explain the footprints, though.
     "Because a footprint is made by a foot.
     "And for all the defense will say, nothing they can say will
erase the bloody footprints that lead from the murder victims to
O.J.'s bloody socks.
     "Follow the bloody trail, and you must find for the
prosecution, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you."

     She sat down and Johnnie Cochran fumbled through his closing
argument, sometimes crafting an explanatory excuse almost identical
to one she had predicted he would make. He looked foolish. She had
satirized his defense into oblivion, and the day was hers.
     Marcia won instant fame and notoriety and great sums of money.
     O.J. did not walk.     

                                    END 