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CNN Special Reports

The OJ Simpson Trial: Drama of the Century

Aired January 21, 2015 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The shocking crime.

FRED GOLDMAN, FATHER OF RON GOLDMAN: Ron and Nicole were butchered.

PHILLIPS: The riveting car chase.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 911, what are you reporting?

A.C. COWLINGS, O.J. SIMPSON'S FORMER TEAMMATE: This is A.C. I have O.J. in the car.

PHILLIPS: Now O.J. Simpson on trial for murder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was the perfect soap opera.

PHILLIPS: The characters like Kato Kaelin.

So it seems like you feel you're pretty much misunderstood for a really long time.

KATO KAELIN, AMERICAN RADIO AND TELEVISION PERSONALITY: 100 percent (inaudible).

PHILLIPS: The moments and mistakes.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: It was like a slow motion disaster movie for the prosecution.

PHILLIPS: Two decades later.

JOHNNIE COCHRAN, LAWYER: It makes no sense. It doesn't fit. If doesn't fit, you must acquit.

PHILLIPS: The O.J. Trial, Drama Of The Century.

It's minutes after midnight, June 13, 1994. Los Angeles police arrive to a crime scene at Bundy Drive in upscale Brentwood. They find no witnesses and no murder weapon, just two victims.

TOM LANGE, FORMER DETECTIVE, LOST ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT: Slashed, stabbed, everything else. Nicole was nearly decapitated. It was a very bloody scene.

PHILLIPS: Nicole is Nicole Brown Simpson. Lying dead beside her 25 year old Ron Goldman. The prime suspect, Nicole's example-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: Simpson is soon spotted inside a white SUV.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Highway Patrol?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, I think I just saw O.J. Simpson on the five freeway and he's heading north.

PHILLIPS: The famous low speed chase covered live for hours, rivets the nation and ends with Simpson eventual surrender at his home on Rockingham Avenue. It was just the beginning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's what we know right now Lieutenant Duncan...

JIM MORET, FORMER CNN ANCHOR: 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: 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: And to help him prove that Simpson assembles a legal dream team.

TOOBIN: Each one of them was famous.

PHILLIPS: 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: There is Harvard law Professor Alan Dershowitz.

TOOBIN: An ideal intermediary between the Ivory Tower and the gritty world of trial practice.

PHILLIPS: Famed criminal attorney F. Lee Bailey.

TOOBIN: The person you go when you are really in a lot of trouble and can afford it.

PHILLIPS: And of course Johnnie Cochran who would take the lead.

TOOBIN: Flamboyant, out going, approachable, fun and extremely charismatic, while also having considerable mastery of the details of the case. PHILLIPS: 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 don't get along with each other. There was a lot of competition for the limelight.

PHILLIPS: 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: The racist allegations simmering under the surface come to boil just days before the trial begins wen the defense wants permission to ask Fuhrman if he's ever used the N-word.

JOHNNIE COCHRAN, LAWYER: 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: 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: 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: The battles lines are drawn and race will help define the trials outcome.

Its January 24th, 1995, the trial of Orenthal James Simpson has began.

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 everyday was like the red carpet on an arrivals line or at the Oscars. How are you feeling today O.J.? You know its -- Marsha, how are you doing? You know, how are your kids? What are you wearing? It's ridiculous. It was crazy.

PHILLIPS: 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: The prosecution's opening statement tells a story of love, lust and lost of control.

DARDEN: He killed her because he couldn't have her.

PHILLIPS: That trail of blood from Bundy to his own Ford Bronco and into his house in Rockingham was devastating proof of his guilt.

PHILLIPS: Johnny Cochran's opening statement tells jurors a very different story.

COCHRAN: The evidence will show that this is 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: 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: And in court with a juror.

So did you ever believe Kato Kaelin's testimony at all?

(COMMERCIAL BREAL)

PHILLIPS: This is how we knew O.J. Simpson, football star, celebrity pitchman.

SIMPSON: Nobody does it better than her.

PHILLIPS: And movie star. But prosecutor say that dashing public persona hides a much darker truth that Simpson is a violent man who beat his wife.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can see...

PHILLIPS: And it didn't take long before a police detective testifies about an incident in 1989.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then woman came running out of the bushes to my left, across the drive way. She was female Caucasian blond hair. She is wearing a bra only as upper garment and she had on dark lightweight sweatpants and started yelling. He is going to kill me. He is going to kill me.

PHILLIPS: Then jurors hear it for themselves another killing 911 call from Simpson's wife in 1993...

NICOLE SIMPSON, O.J. SIMPSON'S EX-WIFE: My ex-husband has just broken into my house and he is ranting and raving. PHILLIPS: ... less than a year before her murder.

N. SIMPSON: He broke the door down to get in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Wait a minute, what's your name?

N. SIMPSON: Nichole Simpson.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ah OK. Is he the forecaster or whatever?

N. Simpson: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, what is he doing? Is he threatening you?

N. SIMPSON: He's going nuts.

ALDANA: And I was like, "Wow, he can be pretty bad."

PHILLIPS: Now, 20 years later, juror number four, David Aldana remembers that moment vividly.

Is that 911 tape made an impact to you?

ALDANA: Yeah, it did because when you hear somebody plumbing on the door like that and hearing it closely. I think you know he's record by now.

PHILLIPS: Nichole's sister Denise tells prosecutors, she has seen Simpson beat Nichole in person.

DENISE BROWN, NICOLE SIMPSON'S SISTER: He (inaudible) 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: 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, SIMPSON'S DEFENSE ATTORNEY: We played for the jury an huge (inaudible) 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 is dower and bitter and raging.

PHILLIPS: So is Simpson a warmed family man or a violently attacker who cornered and killed two innocent people? The jurors and Simpson take a field trip to his house and the crime scene.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He 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 and being able to understand the evidence better, the testimony better and how the victims were essentially cornered.

PHILLIPS: What do you remember the most about visiting O.J.'s house actually going to the crime scene?

ALDANA: It seems that, "Oh wow, that's the first time I've never really seen Heisman Trophy. We could have asked questions. Nothing was told to us. You don't talk amongst yourselves and don't touch anything.

PHILLIPS: And it is 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 dark leather glove. It appeared to be somewhat moist or sticky. I didn't it, but it appeared that parts were sticking to other parts of the glove.

PHILLIPS: Defense lawyers are eager to point out detective Mark Fuhrman's role in discovering the evidence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And now Mark Fuhrman came up to you and told you he made some discovery, is that correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And so they were clear it was Mark Fuhrman who allegedly found this glove up there near Kato Kaelin's room, is that correct? Outside?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 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: 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: Simpson's shaggy houseguest, Kato Kaelin.

Did you ever expect what was going to happen when you got up there and took the stand?

KAELIN: No. Not all. It was my first time in a courtroom in my entire life. And I think I was 35 at that time.

PHILLIPS: Kaelin's four days on the stand thrust him into the national spotlight.

KAELIN: I even come up with a things there never has a man done so little to be recognized by so many.

JAY LENO, COMEDIAN: Today he testified, he said that O.J.'s maid never really liked him. Sure, she had to work for her room and board.

PHILLIPS: Why was Kato Kaelin so memorable?

ALDANA: He is idiot.

PHILLIPS: Really.

ALDANA: He's so foolish. I'm sorry.

PHILLIPS: That's pretty harsh.

ALDANA: Matter of the 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 her or against it. He was 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 free loader.

PHILLIPS: So it seems like you feel like you were misunderstood for a really long time.

KAELIN: One hundred percent misunderstood. This was something I took so serious, I was making sure that I answered everything correctly. So I was in deep thought going, "OK, 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: Which brings us to the night of the murder. Kaelin and Simpson make a McDonalds run.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: About what time was it when you got home?

KAELIN: It's about 9:40.

PHILLIPS: Kaelin goes to his bedroom and prosecutor say Simpson disappears. A crucial hour passes before Kaelin hears a loud noise outside.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And where is that noise seemed to be becoming from?

KAELIN: From the back of the wall.

PHILLIPS: That prosecutor 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 ancient's (ph) way of the house.

PHILLIPS: Allan Park says he been buzzing the intercom sense 10:40 and received no response, proving prosecutor 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: 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: So what was in the bag and what did Simpson do with it? Detected Tom Lange has a theory.

TOM LANGE: So you want to know what happened to the knife and then clothes. And we know the heck from a witness out at the airport, I believe. So I'm getting out of the limousine when he left that American Air last night after the murders and had his (inaudible) buried in the trash container.

PHILLIPS: Next, with so much evidence, what went wrong?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's people 77.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chris Darden blew it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: The team prosecuting O.J. Simpson for murder has no weapon and no witnesses. But what they do have is a wealth of forensic evidence. Evidence that seems to proved O.J. Simpson butcher Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She appeared to me to be an overkill or rage killing.

PHILLIPS: There was blood everywhere. At the Bundy crime scene. At Simpson's Rockingham State and scattered along the route in between, blood. Prosecutor say, is Simpson's.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does that mean that these characteristics that Mr. Simpson has that are also found in the Bundy walk blood stain are only found in approximately one out of 170 million Caucasians or African- Americans?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, approximately.

PHILLIPS: 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: 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 as a candidate who could have worn the shoes that created the impressions in this case?

WILLIAM BODZIAK, DIRECTOR OF EXAMINATION: Yes, I could include them as a candidate for possibly having one of those shoes.

PHILLIPS: 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: 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 seats so I was kind of in the back. And when he did that, F. Lee Bailey came up to me and he grab me, whispered into my ears, he came 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 it 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 outcomes is. And it was like a slow motion disaster movie for the prosecution as O.J. milk the moment for all it was worth and pretended to try on those gloves.

PHILLIPS: After the trial, Christopher Darden would admit to Larry King, it was a mistake.

LARRY KING, LARRY KING LIVE HOST: When it happened in court, did you know you were in trouble?

DARDEN: I knew that it hadn't going as well as I'd hope it would. It's should have going on.

KING: Did you regarded as like earth's shuttering to the case?

DARDEN: No. Not necessarily. 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: Was it Chris Darden that blew this case?

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, ATTORNEY FOR O.J. SIMPSON: Chris Darden blew this case. Marsha 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 it wasn't cross examined. So for us, it was a win-win.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All Right. He appears to have fold the gloves on counselor.

PHILLIPS: But to juror, David Aldana, it didn't seem like a big deal.

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: 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 gloves get wet, they shrink up.

PHILLIPS: After 92 exhausting days of testimony, 58 witnesses and 488 exhibits.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have support and received all of the people's exhibits and the people rest.

PHILLIPS: Next.

COCHRAN: The LPDA's laboratory is (inaudible) full of contamination.

PHILLIPS: The defense unleashes of blistering attack.

BARRY SCHECK, DEFENSE LAWYER: How about that Mr. Fung?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We take the evidence would show that he did not, could not and would not committed this particular crimes.

PHILLIPS: Johnnie Cochran came roaring out of the gate on the attack and on the offensive.

COCHRAN: LAPD's laboratory where they assess full of contamination.

PHILLIPS: Sighting police incompetence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some had gloves, some didn't have gloves, picking up the evidence.

PHILLIPS: Even suggesting a conspiracy to frame O.J Simpson.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fact that blood mysteriously appears in the vital pieces of evidence. It was devastating evidence of something far more sinister.

PHILLIPS: But the fireworks really begin here. Defense lawyer Barry Scheck unleashes a relentless barrage of questions on expert like LAPD criminologist, Dennis Fung.

SCHECK: How about that Mr. Fung?

PHILLIPS: Confronting him about now wearing gloves while handling evidence.

SCHECK: Did you touch that envelope with your bare hands?

PHILLIPS: And inconsistencies in his testimony.

SCHECK: So, you did begin evidence collection before the (inaudible) left?

DENNIS FUNG, LAPD CRIMINOLOGIST: Yes.

SCHECK: So what you said before wasn't true?

FUNG: It was the best of my recollection at the time.

PHILLIPS: 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 blood stain.

However, a photo taken just hours after the murders showed no blood stain.

SCHECK: Where is it, Mr. Fung?

ALDANA: Look what they did to Fung. He needed a vacation after that (inaudible).

FUNG: I can't see it in the photograph.

PHILLIPS: What do you remember the most about Fung just getting torn apart by Scheck?

ALDANA: Men.

SCHECK: Does that refresh in recollection? Is that a concern of yours? Sure with that?

ALDANA: Barry Scheck is one heck of an attorney. He just ripped him apart.

PHILLIPS: 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.

Do you truly believe that evidence was planted?

ALDANA: Yes. From this day, till the day I'll die. I think it was planted. PHILLIPS: If this was a conspiracy, how do you get blood on socks,

blood on the Bronco?

LANGE: No. Look...

PHILLIPS: He's on blood.

LANGE: It's laughable. OK, let's look at planting a blood, OK? How do we get that blood from Simpson who is in Chicago, the plant blood that's already at the scene? It made no sense. Obviously, it made no sense.

We may get Simpson's blood until he returned from Chicago. Then none of that made any sense but nobody cares. What a great show.

PHILLIPS: And the show continues. More testimonies from defense experts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you ever seen a single assailant where 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: 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: Although he looked like Tarzan, you know, when he was walked more like Tarzan's grandfather.

PHILLIPS: The defense in on a roll until prosecutor Brian Calvert plays this 70 minute workout video on cross examination.

SIMPSON: Work up a little flat here too.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You bet.

PHILLIPS: It was filmed just two weeks before the murder. Simpson not only looks fit but even cracks a joke about wife beating.

SIMPSON: Yeah, and I'm telling you, you got to get your space in there if you're working out with the wife, if you know what I mean?

PHILLIPS: But, perhaps the most dramatic and powerful moment for the defense still to come.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Once he said, never in 10 years have I ever use the N-word, I knew we had it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was Mark Fuhrman who allegedly found this spot on the outside of the Bronco. Is that correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's correct. PHILLIPS: At every opportunity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did Mark Fuhrman have a flashlight when he was over at the Bronco?

PHILLIPS: O.J. Simpson's team attacks lead Detective Mark Fuhrman.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you have occasion to have a conversation with Mark Fuhrman?

PHILLIPS: F. Lee Bailey says, "Fuhrman is incredible and may even be criminal."

F. LEE BAILEY, ATTORNEY FOR O.J. SIMPSON: Did you go back to the crime scene?

MARK FURHMAN: No.

BAILEY: Did you do any more observation?

PHILLIPS: 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: But some of the jurors like David Aldana believed Fuhrman was up to no good.

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: But why would Fuhrman want to frame O.J. Simpson?

Simple, says the defense team. Fuhrman is a racist.

Why did it become so much about race?

DERSHOWITZ: It's amazing because O.J. Simpson was as like a Black person as you can imagine. He lived a white life. He 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 (ph)?

PHILLIPS: And to (inaudible) that Fuhrman is a racist, Bailey repeatedly asks if he used a certain racial slur.

BAILEY: Then you say it on your ought that you have not addressed any black person 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 quote 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, he's every eye movement and so forth. I had no notes. I only wanted one thing from him, denial.

FUHRMAN: No.

BAILEY: No.

FUHRMAN: No.

BAILEY: Once he said never in 10 years have I ever used the N word. I knew we have him.

LANCE: When he was asked that question by F. Lee Bailey about using the N word, everybody in the world knew that no one is being set up but him.

BAILEY: What I didn't know was we also had them on tape.

PHILLIPS: Four months after Bailey versus Fuhrman, the defense gets an unlikely tip.

Screen writer Laura Hart McKinny had interviewed Mark Fuhrman for a fictional script she was writing and she still has the audio recordings.

Despite of court order to keep the taped sealed some of the startling contents are leaked.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just a real grace of them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now, what we're going to look at is Fuhrman and what a scumbag he is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Otherwise...

PHILLIPS: And to Ron Goldman's father, Fred, that tapes are at devastating destruction.

FRED GOLDMAN: This is not now a Fuhrman trial. This is a trial about the man that murdered my son.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) has ruled that the jury will be able to hear portions of tape interviews, with now retired LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman.

PHILLIPS: Fuhrman says the N word dozens of times on the tapes but Judge Ito decide the jury will only hear two.

The excerpts are brief yet powerful and disturbing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don't do it...

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: After the excerpt ended the Fuhrman tapes, you broke down and cried at that moment, why?

KIM GOLDMAN: Because I was worried at the ramifications, because I watched them. It just looked horror, I'm like disgust, you know, and watched them turn. I was like, "That's it."

FUHRMAN: I do.

PHILLIPS: 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'd planted evidence. A charge he denies today, but would not address at that time.

BAILEY: Detective Fuhrman, did you plant or manufacture any evidence in this case?

FUHRMAN: I assert (inaudible) privilege.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He refused to answer that question. On the grounds it might tend to incriminate him. What more does anyone need?

PHILLIPS: Fuhrman is disgraced and dismissed from the case.

Coming up...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, Mr. Simpson, would you please stand and face the jury.

PHILLIPS: The dramatic verdict.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Late September 1995, for nine long months, the trial of the century has been a national obsession.

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 moths and then when the third month came and then there's four and then five and it (inaudible). It just went on and on and on.

PHILLIPS: But, says David Aldana, "There were bright spots, like several secret field trips."

ALDANA: I actually got to fly the good year bloom. We went to a dodger game and I caught a foul ball.

PHILLIPS: There was even a barbecue.

ALDANA: One day that all my friends came and visit me and they all brought cases of beer and e got blustered.

PHILLIPS: Back in court, O.J. Simpson cites the juries fatigue as one reason he's not going to testify.

SIMPSON: I might pull of the mood and the stamina of this jury. Surely, I have confidence, a lot (inaudible) Ms. Clark has of their integrity and that they won't find and record stands now that I did not, could not, and would not have committed this crime.

PHILLIPS: Four days later, the end is finally in site.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have heard all the evidence.

PHILLIPS: No more witnesses, no more delays, just closing statements. First up, lead prosecutor Marcia Clark.

MARCIA CLARK, LEAD PROSECUTOR: Let me come back to Mark for a minute, just so it's clear. Did he lie when he testified here in this courtroom saying that he did not use racial (inaudible) in the last 10 years?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

CLARK: Is he a racist?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

CLARK: 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 reasonable doubt.

SCHECK: How in this country...

PHILLIPS: Then comes, defense attorney Barry Scheck.

SCHECK: There's no doubt Fuhrman is a liar and a genocidal racist, there's no doubt about that. But there's really no doubt either that they played with the (inaudible). And if that can happen, that's a reasonable doubt to this case, period. End of sentence. End of case.

PHILLIPS: Finishing for the defense, Johnnie Cochran with probably the most memorable quote at the trial. COCHRAN: If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.

PHILLIPS: But now, two decades later, we learned 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 Jerry Uelmen, who was the most unknown person in our defense team.

PHILLIPS: So 20 years later, his getting the proper credit?

DERSHOWITZ: He's getting the credit. He deserves it.

PHILLIPS: However, regardless of their source, the word, "It doesn't fit", Hammer Cochran message home. And after nine months of testimony, hundreds of exhibits, more than 260 days isolated in a hotel, juries 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? Let's just see where everybody stands. We went around the room, you know, guilty not guilty.

PHILLIPS: Its two votes guilty, 10, not guilty. After reviewing testimony, they prepared to vote again.

Now, you guys have been sequestered for nine months. You were tired. You hadn't seen your families, your kids, your friends. You want 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 took another vote and the other two come 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: And Aldana for one also believed the defense argument that the police framed O.J.

How was it that with all 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 it pretty much about thrown out. I knew he was dirty. After awhile you get a sense of people.

PHILLIPS: Do you truly believe that the police, the detectives, the criminologists were as incompetent as the defense had made them out to be?

ALDANA: Yeah. I think so.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Simpson would you please stand and face the jury.

PHILLIPS: Deliberations take less than four hours.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We, the jury and the above entitled action find the defendant Orenthal James Simpson not guilty of the crime of murder in violation of penal code section 187A.

K. GOLDMAN: They've read it and we heard that and then I just fell apart.

PHILLIPS: 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 it killed Ron and Nicole suddenly as if all -- wait a minute, how is that possible?

K. GOLDMAN: And then our side was in shock and then you hear the cheers and that -- you're going on on the other side of that...

F. GOLDMAN: That division became what was seen across the T.V.s 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 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 it a decision.

FRED GOLDMAN: And realize that two people were murdered, slaughtered and that you do the right thing at that moment.

PHILLIPS: 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.

KING: With us on the phone now is O.J. Simpson. How are you?

SIMPSON: I'm doing fine. And one, I want to thank you...

PHILLIPS: Could you believe that he called it?

KING: No. I could not believe it. So he calls in. We put him on actually. Johnnie Cochran, and he thanks Johnnie for his help.

SIMPSON: Most of all I want to thank that man, Mr. Johnnie Cochran for believe from the beginning, listening and putting his heart and soul on the line to send me home. KING: He said, "I'll come out soon and I'll tell you that -- I'll give you t he whole story Larry."

PHILLIPS: Do you believe O.J. Simpson is innocent, 20 years later.

ALDANA: I found him innocent and I believe he's innocent.

PHILLIPS: You still believe that 20 years later?

ALDANA: Yup.

PHILLIPS: With all your heart?

ALDANA: All my heart. There's nothing -- if I was again in that same evidence again, I'll find him not guilty again.