Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Hey
Speaker 1: wh'b smarties. Today we are joined by a guest that
Speaker 1: has me absolutely geeked. I mean, someone that I grew
Speaker 1: up watching on television, whose story has now been made
Speaker 1: into an incredible scripted drama, who has led the most
Speaker 1: interesting life, and I just can't wait to ask her
Speaker 1: all of the questions I have. Today we are joined
Speaker 1: by none other than Marcia Clark, prosecutor, author, television correspondent,
Speaker 1: and television producer. She is perhaps best known for having
Speaker 1: been the lead prosecutor in the O. J. Simpson murder case,
Speaker 1: and during that case she was really thrust into what
Speaker 1: has been called the hell of the trial. She was
Speaker 1: made overnight in a way that was kind of terrifying,
Speaker 1: and her experience on that trial was really a confluence
Speaker 1: of media and tabloid drama and early disinformation in the
Speaker 1: media and such incredible sexism, the craziest experiences of the
Speaker 1: way that a woman could be picked apart a woman
Speaker 1: in a position of power in an era that was
Speaker 1: not great for women. No less, everything from her arguing
Speaker 1: style to her hair, her wardrobe was picked apart. On television,
Speaker 1: the La Times even described her as resembling Sigourney Weaver,
Speaker 1: only more professional, and The New York Times retorted that
Speaker 1: the transformation was not entirely seamless, like what this one
Speaker 1: was prosecuting a murder trial. It seems so wildly inappropriate today,
Speaker 1: but this is just a moment ago in our human history.
Speaker 1: After the trial, Clark actually resigned from the District Attorney's office.
Speaker 1: She was so disillusioned with justice system. And then she
Speaker 1: and Teresa Carpenter wrote a book about the case called
Speaker 1: Without a Doubt. Since the trial, Marsha Clark has made
Speaker 1: numerous appearances on television. She's been a special correspondent for
Speaker 1: Entertainment Tonight. She has provided coverage of high profile trials
Speaker 1: and reported from even red carpets at the Emmys. She
Speaker 1: is an incredibly multifaceted woman who has taken a lot
Speaker 1: of frankly sexist pushback and turned it into an incredible career.
Speaker 1: She's written several novels, even a series surrounding a prosecutor
Speaker 1: in the lada's office called Rachel Knight, and now she
Speaker 1: has a brand new podcast out called Informants Lawyer X.
Speaker 1: It is a story you have to hear to believe
Speaker 1: it because it's true. And I'm telling you from the
Speaker 1: Hollywood world. If any of us had pitched this to
Speaker 1: a studio, they would have said it was too fantastical.
Speaker 1: But it's real life, and so for those of us
Speaker 1: who are obsessed with justice, obsessed with true crime, this
Speaker 1: is going to be your next favorite podcast. Informant's Lawyer
Speaker 1: X reveals the story of Nicolagabo, a defense attorney who
Speaker 1: represented key players in Australia's violent gang Wars, and as
Speaker 1: she appeared to become one of the gang, she was
Speaker 1: actually turning into a police informant, selling out the people
Speaker 1: she was sworn to defend. It's a wild story and
Speaker 1: I am so excited to ask Marcia how she discovered
Speaker 1: Nicolagabo's story in the first place, and every single question
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask her since the oj Simpson trial
Speaker 1: was on TV. So let's get to it. Hi, Marcia,
Speaker 1: how are you.
Speaker 2: I'm good. It's so nice to be here.
Speaker 1: It's so lovely to have you. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for taking the time. My mind is absolutely blown right now,
Speaker 1: just thrilled that you're here.
Speaker 2: I've thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Really yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I you know, as a kid who went
Speaker 1: to journalism school in LA.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I have so many questions for you.
Speaker 1: There is really there's so much to talk about. But
Speaker 1: you know, anyone I get to sit across from has
Speaker 1: a pretty incredible list of accomplishments, and yours I have
Speaker 1: a million questions about. But I actually want to I
Speaker 1: want to go back a bit to the beginning and
Speaker 1: know if you could kind of retrace your steps. When
Speaker 1: did you know that you wanted to be an attorney?
Speaker 1: Was it a dream you had from the time that
Speaker 1: you were a young girl, or or was it something
Speaker 1: that sort of evolved, you know, through your young life
Speaker 1: and led you to decide you wanted to be a
Speaker 1: prosecutor in school? How did we get here?
Speaker 2: No, it's funny for you. It reminds me of that
Speaker 2: buzz light Year thing where flying is just a series
Speaker 2: of fallings. Yeah, and that's what it kind of happ
Speaker 2: and to me, it was all accidental. I started out
Speaker 2: wanting to be an actress, not movies. I wanted to
Speaker 2: do not Broadway even I wanted to do off Broadway,
Speaker 2: you know, small theater stuff, and I really liked that.
Speaker 2: And in my y, that's crazy. And in my first
Speaker 2: year of undergrad I realized I was majoring in theater arts,
Speaker 2: and I realized, that's a really dumb major because you're
Speaker 2: either an actor or you're not, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But you know, certainly having a degree is not going
Speaker 2: to make your one. So I gave up on that thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: I should get like something different, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: political science seems like it encompasses a lot of the
Speaker 2: stuff that might interesting to me. And then I really
Speaker 2: got into that and I wanted to be I got
Speaker 2: interested in international relations, particularly, you know, I wanted to
Speaker 2: work for the State Department, but I wanted to be
Speaker 2: in the field, you know. I wanted to work out,
Speaker 2: not at a desk. And back then, the only thing
Speaker 2: that girls were allowed to do was type, and they
Speaker 2: asked me how fast I could type, and I did
Speaker 2: not have any desire to tell them that I was
Speaker 2: a fast typist, nor was I a fast So that
Speaker 2: was that that dream went crashing down. And then it
Speaker 2: was like, now what do I do?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: I mean, I really didn't know, and it was just
Speaker 2: a matter of sitting down and making a list of
Speaker 2: the things I liked to do the things that I
Speaker 2: thought I could do, and it seemed to add up
Speaker 2: to law school, which really pissed me off because I
Speaker 2: hated school. Hated it, hats all forms of school. I
Speaker 2: really liked studying on my own. Okay, you know, I
Speaker 2: want to give me the book, I'll go away, I'll
Speaker 2: figure it out. But I really don't want to sit
Speaker 2: in class. So having to go back to school was
Speaker 2: not my favorite thing to do. I went back to
Speaker 2: law school with a very bad attitude. But I really
Speaker 2: figured in the first like two months of law school.
Speaker 2: I realized it was going to be criminal law. That
Speaker 2: was the only thing I was going to practice, and
Speaker 2: it was the I never looked back, and I never
Speaker 2: regretted it because it really was where I wanted to be.
Speaker 2: So it kind of happened like that. And I have
Speaker 2: to tell you it was such an accidental thing that
Speaker 2: I had actually forgotten about. The LSATs are the admissions,
Speaker 2: you know, tests you have to take to get into
Speaker 2: law school. Yeah, and I had forgotten that it was
Speaker 2: due the following morning, and I went out and partied
Speaker 2: the night before. Oh my god, it was really not good.
Speaker 2: I showed up more than slightly hungover for the LSAT.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you have to fill in those
Speaker 2: little bubbles back in the day, and they were very blurry.
Speaker 2: I don't know what score I got. It was good
Speaker 2: enough to get into law school. That was fine with me,
Speaker 2: so you know what I mean. It wasn't like some
Speaker 2: big career path. It just kind of happened and happened
Speaker 2: and happened, and then, yeah.
Speaker 1: What was it about criminal law that stood out to
Speaker 1: you so quickly?
Speaker 2: I think that started when I was like really really little,
Speaker 2: I mean six years old, kind of little, because I
Speaker 2: was always looking for the mystery, and I was always
Speaker 2: looking to solve the mystery, make it up and then
Speaker 2: solve it, which is sure, yeah, exactly. So there was
Speaker 2: this house where we were living, at the end of
Speaker 2: the street that looked kind of that was kind of
Speaker 2: abandon well, it was abandoned actually, and so I decided,
Speaker 2: of course that a big murder had happened there. And
Speaker 2: I saw, you know, spots on the sidewalk and those
Speaker 2: became blood drops, and for some reason I persuaded all
Speaker 2: the kids on the block that this was really happening
Speaker 2: and we were going to crack this case wide open. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So It started very very young. I was always fascinated
Speaker 2: with crime, and so it's not really a surprise that
Speaker 2: in law school I said criminal laws had to be.
Speaker 1: Right well, and not really a surprise that you fast
Speaker 1: forward to today and you know you're writing these incredible mysteries.
Speaker 1: It all really makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really does now.
Speaker 1: So many of us obviously came to know you as
Speaker 1: a household name during the oj Simpson trial. It wasn't
Speaker 1: lost on me as a tiny little activist in my
Speaker 1: whole life. I remember saying to my parents, I do
Speaker 1: not like the way they're talking about this lady on TV.
Speaker 1: You know, it really irked me as a kid that
Speaker 1: I could see, even as a child not understanding the
Speaker 1: complexities of the world in patriarchy and society and systems
Speaker 1: and all the things that I understand now. I could
Speaker 1: see the way you were vilified. You know, this hyper intelligent,
Speaker 1: committed prosecutor doing this work, who was as enraged as
Speaker 1: the rest of us that this trial was going the
Speaker 1: way that it was. And you know, there'd be tabloids
Speaker 1: at the grocery store and people were calling you a bitch,
Speaker 1: and it was like, it really pissed me off.
Speaker 2: As a kid.
Speaker 1: What what was that experience like for you at the time,
Speaker 1: Because it seemed from the outside that because of who
Speaker 1: OJ was and how public he and Nicole Brown Simpson's
Speaker 1: life had been, and everyone knew about, you know, the
Speaker 1: cops being called in, the abuse and the police reports
Speaker 1: and the things, and yet everybody was pissed off at
Speaker 1: you for going after the bad guy? Like what was
Speaker 1: it surreal to you? Was it shocking? Was it traumatizing?
Speaker 1: Was it infuriating? Maybe it was all of the things.
Speaker 1: I feel like it was just such the beginning of
Speaker 1: this era of all this stuff being on TV. Was
Speaker 1: it surreal? As a lawyer?
Speaker 2: That really was? It? Really really was so Before Simpson,
Speaker 2: I had been a prosecutor for fourteen years defense attorney
Speaker 2: before that, and had never felt particularly focused on as
Speaker 2: a female. And even if there even if I initially was,
Speaker 2: even if the detectives initially kind of looked like a girl, really,
Speaker 2: by the time I got into doing the job and
Speaker 2: working with them and going out and talking to witnesses,
Speaker 2: they got over it really fast and it didn't matter anymore.
Speaker 2: Same thing with judges and other defense attorneys suggest it
Speaker 2: became a matter of not no big deal, right, and
Speaker 2: so I had stopped worrying about it. If ever I
Speaker 2: did really worry about it, I don't think I really did.
Speaker 2: I thought I just do the job, you know, get
Speaker 2: past whatever. Then there were sexist jokes and all the
Speaker 2: rest of it, whatever la la lah, and I do
Speaker 2: the job, you know, because everybody could get over it.
Speaker 2: It didn't stick in my mind at the time, and
Speaker 2: by the time the Simpson case happened, it had been
Speaker 2: many years of nobody giving me a hard time about
Speaker 2: being female, or being impassioned, or being a prosecutor any
Speaker 2: of that stuff. And at that time, as of that time,
Speaker 2: having a high profile case meant what was high profile
Speaker 2: was maybe the press would spell your name right and
Speaker 2: only in print and certainly not on television, and maybe
Speaker 2: they wouldn't mention you at all. You're just the prosecution.
Speaker 2: So that was high profile. And that's all I had
Speaker 2: ever had to deal with, and I had dealt with
Speaker 2: other pride h profile cases. This was not my first.
Speaker 2: But then when the Simpson case hit, there was a
Speaker 2: sudden it was like being in this vortex. Suddenly there
Speaker 2: was media coverage that was twenty four to seven. Suddenly
Speaker 2: there were these cable networks and outlets that were all
Speaker 2: over the country, not just in one tiny pocket here
Speaker 2: and there, that were nationwide, and they needed content and
Speaker 2: they could afford to fill the air waves constantly, And
Speaker 2: so now the spotlight became huge, which it never had
Speaker 2: been before. So that was shocking. And the degree to
Speaker 2: which people got invested in, got involved and had opinions
Speaker 2: and wanted to be heard was unprecedented. That I would
Speaker 2: become a focus of interest at all, That I would
Speaker 2: be the focus of any kind of attention was a
Speaker 2: brand new thing and not a welcome thing, and not
Speaker 2: a welcome thing in so many ways. Number One, I
Speaker 2: never wanted to be the focus of attention like that
Speaker 2: number or as me, you know, I mean, even when
Speaker 2: I wanted to be an actress, I didn't want to
Speaker 2: be focused on as me. I wanted to be a character.
Speaker 2: So you know what I mean, there's that, Yeah, you would,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean exactly. So this was horrifying.
Speaker 2: But what was more horrifying to me was the way
Speaker 2: in which I could see justice being subverted. All of
Speaker 2: the proper considerations about truth, about evidence, about guilt and
Speaker 2: innocence went out the window. In favor of gossip and
Speaker 2: sensationalism and clickbait. Although we didn't know the word clickbait,
Speaker 2: then it was that. And so it was really depressing
Speaker 2: and very upsetting to see the important values in our
Speaker 2: criminal justice system being buried under a mile of slime
Speaker 2: and false reporting, deliberately false at times and just recklessly
Speaker 2: false at other times. And then the court itself, the
Speaker 2: judge himself, who became obsessed with celebrity and his own
Speaker 2: spotlight and all of that was to the detriment of
Speaker 2: justice and the proper legal administration. So it was really
Speaker 2: it was a very depressing, very upsetting experience and very surreal.
Speaker 2: And so what I had to do is early early on,
Speaker 2: not pay attention. I just had to. Really, what I
Speaker 2: had to do is in court, that's what matters, whoever's
Speaker 2: talking about, whatever they're talking about. At one point I
Speaker 2: heard rush Limbaugh was talking about my skirts. I mean, really,
Speaker 2: how crazy does this get? So enough of that, and
Speaker 2: so I turned off the TV, yep, and just focused
Speaker 2: on what was going on.
Speaker 1: And now for our sponsors, it's such an odd thing
Speaker 1: in my own relative experience with this to see what
Speaker 1: it's like, particularly before the advent of social media where
Speaker 1: you could have your own voice, where the media, for
Speaker 1: as you said, clickbait, would essentially cast you as a
Speaker 1: character in a in a version of a tabloid soap
Speaker 1: opera because it helped them sell papers. Whether it was
Speaker 1: anything real about your life or not, it it was.
Speaker 1: It was so disconcerting and as a person who's pretty
Speaker 1: obsessed with justice myself, drove me nuts because it feels
Speaker 1: so unjust. And I think that's what I picked up
Speaker 1: on as a kid. You know, watching this trial, what
Speaker 1: a crazy thing to you know, to know your name,
Speaker 1: to know lance Edo's name, like what who knows judges' names?
Speaker 1: And this trial, you know, blew up into this space
Speaker 1: that it was everywhere all the time, you know, twenty
Speaker 1: four hours. It was like the Super Bowl never ended
Speaker 1: in a way. That much coverage. You know, when you
Speaker 1: when you talk about the reporting, and you know, you
Speaker 1: said something really interesting a moment ago, you said, sometimes
Speaker 1: deliberately reporting what did you know to be false? That
Speaker 1: was moving at such a torrent that you couldn't get
Speaker 1: ahead of it and make it stop.
Speaker 2: I mean, there were so many things. Sophia has so
Speaker 2: many things that I can't even recount one in particular.
Speaker 2: But I would have arguments with Johnny on the side,
Speaker 2: and we always got along, you know, and there was
Speaker 2: we did not have acrimoni personally ever, But I would
Speaker 2: get annoyed because he would float these nonsensical stories about
Speaker 2: this witness that witness. There weren't witnesses, and he knew it,
Speaker 2: but he would just throw it out there because he
Speaker 2: knew the press would pick it up and run with
Speaker 2: it as though, oh new Lee knew this, knew that,
Speaker 2: And it was can I say this? Okay? You know? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And it was. And I said, Johnny, you know it's good.
Speaker 2: We're gonna blow this up tomorrow. He said, well, you
Speaker 2: know whatever. And of course it's not up to him
Speaker 2: to worry about that. That's not his job. But it
Speaker 2: is the press's job. He should be a journalist's job
Speaker 2: to look at, you know, something that comes out. I
Speaker 2: would watch it a reporter walk into the men's room
Speaker 2: with someone from the defense team and then come out
Speaker 2: and file a story. What do you think you had
Speaker 2: one side of something that you've not verified, you've never
Speaker 2: tried to corroborate. You don't care where it came from.
Speaker 2: You guys were standing at the urinal together, and he
Speaker 2: told you a tale, and now you're putting it out
Speaker 2: there as though this is gospel truth. And that's completely
Speaker 2: spinning public opinion and giving people a lie, giving people
Speaker 2: garbage because you haven't bothered to corroborate or verify anything
Speaker 2: you've done. So it would happen over and over and
Speaker 2: over again. And Johnny was right, no one cared because
Speaker 2: the very next lie would happen the next day and
Speaker 2: that would wipe it out. And you know, it looks
Speaker 2: like our politics today.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, it's not dissimilar to what's
Speaker 1: been happening in Ohio.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: It's so hard to watch people who will lie for gain,
Speaker 1: even if it causes harm. And I would imagine you
Speaker 1: know that it was incredibly difficult to know what the
Speaker 1: victim had been through, you know, how abused she'd been,
Speaker 1: how many incidents of violence there were. Obviously you saw
Speaker 1: more than any of the rest of us, what the
Speaker 1: crime scene really looked like, all of these things that
Speaker 1: I just I know the way they've stuck with me,
Speaker 1: and I know I wasn't nearly as close to it
Speaker 1: as you, and so I guess I wonder as misrepresented
Speaker 1: as so much was in the world. Then were you
Speaker 1: nervous when you heard that FX was going to make
Speaker 1: the people versus O. J. Simpson?
Speaker 2: It was miserable, it was. It was miserable, miserable when
Speaker 2: I heard they were going to do it.
Speaker 1: Did that shift at all because you got to sit
Speaker 1: down with Sarah Paulson or were you just worried the
Speaker 1: whole time until you got to see it?
Speaker 2: Well? I couldn't. The actors were not allowed to meet
Speaker 2: the real people they portrayed throughout the shooting. No, they
Speaker 2: never did. They weren't allowed to. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: when I first heard it that they were going to
Speaker 2: do this limited series, I thought, first of all, oh God, no,
Speaker 2: please no, And then I thought, well, no harm, no foul,
Speaker 2: No one's going to care, No one's going to watch this.
Speaker 2: We all know the story. It's old news, you know.
Speaker 2: And then people were telling me it's not old news,
Speaker 2: and we think it's going to be big, And then
Speaker 2: I was miserable again. And then I heard Sarah Paulson
Speaker 2: was going to play me, and then I thought, well,
Speaker 2: if this awful thing has to happen, at least I
Speaker 2: have a genius portraying me. At least I have this
Speaker 2: amazing actress portraying me, so that was like, that was
Speaker 2: some comfort. But I didn't get to see her or
Speaker 2: speak to her until they were done shooting. And then,
Speaker 2: of course it was wonderful. We had the best time.
Speaker 2: We closed the restaurant down, got pretty drunk, had a
Speaker 2: great time. We still exchanged texts. I love her dearly.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm so glad. How did you feel about it
Speaker 1: when you saw it? Or did you not watch it?
Speaker 2: Of course I had to watch it. Okay, could you
Speaker 2: not watch it?
Speaker 1: I didn't want to assume.
Speaker 2: I thought it was great, you know. And people are
Speaker 2: always asking me how how accurate it was, and was
Speaker 2: this that and the other? And they always tell them, Look,
Speaker 2: they can't be accurate. They I mean, they can be,
Speaker 2: and they were to the extent that they could be.
Speaker 2: They told the essential truth of the core of the story.
Speaker 2: The ways in which racial justice, the issue of racial justice,
Speaker 2: was manipulated in service of the acquittal of a man
Speaker 2: who did not deserve it, The way in which the
Speaker 2: wheels of justice were ground to a halt with all
Speaker 2: kinds of tactics that should not be allowed. The ways
Speaker 2: in which things went wrong should not have gone wrong,
Speaker 2: leading to the verdict that we got, which we might
Speaker 2: have gotten anyway. And that's an important thing to think
Speaker 2: about in terms of our social history, written large in
Speaker 2: terms of the context of that case, following so closely
Speaker 2: after Rodney King and then the very most violent riots
Speaker 2: of that century that occurred in the wake of the
Speaker 2: Rodney King case so and trial. So, I mean, there
Speaker 2: were so many issues that they did a really nice
Speaker 2: job of incorporating there. To say that any limited series
Speaker 2: could be completely accurate when you're talking about something that
Speaker 2: was covered endlessly for a year twenty four to seven
Speaker 2: is impossible, and you wouldn't even want to. So Yes,
Speaker 2: in essence, I think they got a lot of it right.
Speaker 1: I thought it was really quite beautiful, and I was
Speaker 1: so impressed with Sarah Paulson, and I loved whether it
Speaker 1: felt incredibly accurate or not to you as a viewer.
Speaker 1: I appreciated really being able to see what you as
Speaker 1: a woman, were put through that a man never would
Speaker 1: have been put through. To have your hair and your
Speaker 1: clothes and your demeanor and your speech and your custody battle,
Speaker 1: your personal life all picked apart. I thought we were
Speaker 1: able to as an audience see the injustice that was
Speaker 1: done to you within this world that you mentioned. This
Speaker 1: injustice was done to these victims because such a terrible
Speaker 1: injustice had been done to someone else and people were
Speaker 1: afraid to repeat it. It felt like a miscarriage on
Speaker 1: a miscarriage, on a miscarriage of what the law should be,
Speaker 1: you know, from personal to societal. And I thought that
Speaker 1: that was a pretty incredible thing for them to have
Speaker 1: been able to do on film. Did it allow you
Speaker 1: to revisit the intense scrutiny that you experienced. Was it
Speaker 1: cathartic in a way to see it told honestly to
Speaker 1: a point or was it kind of painful all over again?
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's both.
Speaker 2: I think it is kind of both. It was cathartic
Speaker 2: in the sense that Sarah captured the feeling of what
Speaker 2: it was like to be in the focus of that
Speaker 2: kind of attention. She captured it beautifully, and so that
Speaker 2: was great. There's a wonderfulness about a feeling understood, and
Speaker 2: she really did. Yeah, so that was good. It was
Speaker 2: also very painful. Justice matters to me, the truth matters
Speaker 2: to me a lot, and I saw it being I
Speaker 2: saw it being shredded every day when I went to court,
Speaker 2: and so I diving into that cesspool of what was really,
Speaker 2: to me, just a complete subversion of all the values
Speaker 2: that we hold so dear in a democracy where that
Speaker 2: is founded on a system of justice that at least
Speaker 2: strives to be fair, at least strives to be the
Speaker 2: scales of justice. You know, she's blind and you're supposed
Speaker 2: to be coming in to focus on the evidence, and
Speaker 2: to focus on the truth, and to apply the law
Speaker 2: to the evidence. This is what we're supposed to do.
Speaker 2: None of that happened, and I don't think it was
Speaker 2: allowed to happen for so many reasons. So that was
Speaker 2: a very painful thing. And looking back watching the series
Speaker 2: brought home that painful experience as well, so you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, so it was both. It was both.
Speaker 1: Well, I remember the feeling I had watching it, going, God,
Speaker 1: I wonder if she's at home, going see I'm not crazy.
Speaker 1: It was this bad, you know, And not that that
Speaker 1: fixes it, but at least you don't necessarily feel so alone.
Speaker 1: I imagine at the time when it was happening, again,
Speaker 1: there was no social media. You couldn't have a voice,
Speaker 1: you couldn't get ahead of anything. You couldn't tell your
Speaker 1: own story. It was told for you in the pages
Speaker 1: you know of all these newspapers and tabloids all around
Speaker 1: the country. And who did you have in your corner?
Speaker 1: Like did you have a best friend who you called
Speaker 1: every night to flip out about the day or was
Speaker 1: the case so intense that you were sort of underground
Speaker 1: in your office for months and had to do it afterwards?
Speaker 2: Like what was your life life?
Speaker 1: Not just as Marcia Clerk the prosecutor, but as Marcia
Speaker 1: as a woman who was trying to deal with all
Speaker 1: of this, Like who did you turn to?
Speaker 2: I did have best friends to talk to, and I
Speaker 2: did talk to them every night, and I also had
Speaker 2: my team and Chris, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 2: so yes, I mean there were plenty of people to
Speaker 2: talk to and vent to. And I'm sure they got
Speaker 2: really sick of me. So I hope that I apologize
Speaker 2: to them enough to say, I know you've heard this before,
Speaker 2: but I can't believe what you know, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean? Fill in the blank. Sure, And so yes,
Speaker 2: there were people to talk to, and that was, of course,
Speaker 2: as you know, very helpful. They have shoulders to lean on,
Speaker 2: to wine to and to just you know, vent to constantly,
Speaker 2: because it was a level of you're not in control
Speaker 2: in a courtroom. I mean, I think anyone who says
Speaker 2: that a prosecutor is controlling the proceedings is not a
Speaker 2: lawyer or a very bad one because you are not
Speaker 2: in control. Somebody once likened it to you know, oh,
Speaker 2: you're the director of your film. No, you're not. The
Speaker 2: judge is. You don't get to say cut. The judge does. So,
Speaker 2: you know, you go in and you do your very
Speaker 2: best to try and get the evidence to the jury
Speaker 2: and to try and you know, unbury the truth for
Speaker 2: the for the jury so they can see what really
Speaker 2: happened and to see the truth in the witness's testimony.
Speaker 2: But when when every roadblock keeps getting thrown in your way,
Speaker 2: and every turn, everywhere you turn, there's another rock put
Speaker 2: in front of the doorway that stops you from getting
Speaker 2: to the jury from saying here, it is here, it
Speaker 2: is here, this is what this means, this is why
Speaker 2: we do this, this is what happened. But every time
Speaker 2: you turn, it's like a door closes, that kind of thing,
Speaker 2: or just big stumbling blocks that you're constantly trying to
Speaker 2: crawl over. That kind of frustration was a daily occurrence,
Speaker 2: and it was that you have to vent before you
Speaker 2: go crazy. So it was it was that kind that
Speaker 2: was the experience that ultimately, I think by the end
Speaker 2: of the trial, I thought, I can't, I can't do
Speaker 2: this anymore. Everything I thought and held dear about being
Speaker 2: a lawyer, about being a prosecutor or a defense attorney,
Speaker 2: all of those values kind of went got buried and
Speaker 2: got tainted, got shredded. I didn't believe in the justice
Speaker 2: system anymore. I walked away thinking I just can't, I can't,
Speaker 2: I'm done, And then I got I wound up finding
Speaker 2: that there were other things I could do, and wound
Speaker 2: up writing. But then I wound up with writing fiction.
Speaker 2: At first, the publishers Weekly when I put out my
Speaker 2: first work of criminal crime fiction said, Clark turns to
Speaker 2: fiction to control the outcome. Very true. You're like, obviously,
Speaker 2: obviously right. How great is that? But then I discovered
Speaker 2: that there was a beauty in writing about true crime.
Speaker 2: And that's fairly recent, but I mean, I've always been
Speaker 2: addicted to true and I do it still. I'm an
Speaker 2: appellate lawyer. I do court appointed cases for the indigen
Speaker 2: So I'm still practicing criminal law, and I get I
Speaker 2: have all these true crime cases. But my agent said,
Speaker 2: why don't you write a true crime book. Why don't
Speaker 2: you get into another case. I said, but I have
Speaker 2: so many already. Yeah, And then I got into but
Speaker 2: you know, maybe that's a cool thing. And then I
Speaker 2: fell on the story of Lawyer X and that was amazing,
Speaker 2: And that was one of these true stories that if
Speaker 2: it weren't true, you wouldn't believe a word of it,
Speaker 2: Like if I told you this as fiction, you'd say,
Speaker 2: too far fetched. A high powered criminal lawyer, she was
Speaker 2: at the top of her game, representing the most notorious
Speaker 2: gangsters in Australia in the midst of the Gangland Wars,
Speaker 2: which was around the late nineties, early aughts into twenty
Speaker 2: ten eleven, and bodies were literally dropping in Melbourne. And
Speaker 2: this was a very beautiful city, seaside Port, beauty Port
Speaker 2: city that was gorgeous, known for its culture, really beautiful place.
Speaker 2: And suddenly this very lovely place to live has blood
Speaker 2: flowing in the streets because of these gangsters and the
Speaker 2: drug wars. And Nicola Gabbo was standing at the forefront
Speaker 2: of it all as the premiere defense attorney for all
Speaker 2: of the biggest of the big the most notorious of notorious,
Speaker 2: and it turns out that she becomes an informant for
Speaker 2: the police. And the notion that a defense attorney, especially
Speaker 2: a celebrated one like that, becomes the most prized informant
Speaker 2: for the detectives is something that Hollywood pudnta made it up.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's crazy, it feels unheard of and
Speaker 1: now a word from our sponsors that I really enjoy
Speaker 1: and I think you will too. How did you learn
Speaker 1: about her story? And did she survive? I mean, it
Speaker 1: feels like that's the number one person that a cartel
Speaker 1: of drug runners is going to try to put out
Speaker 1: a hit on. Like it does feel so far fetched
Speaker 1: for a movie, but this is real life, Like how
Speaker 1: did you hear about her? And then what happened?
Speaker 2: Is she okay? Well? Is she okay? Is a really
Speaker 2: good question. She's in hiding right now. I tried to
Speaker 2: reach out to her. This was a nine part series
Speaker 2: for Wondery and I think it's exclusive to Wondery Plus
Speaker 2: right now. It's part of the Exhibit cea campaign for
Speaker 2: True crime shows podcasts at Wondery and it's the first
Speaker 2: one out of the gate. I heard about it in Hollywood,
Speaker 2: and at that time all I knew was that there
Speaker 2: was some magazine article that I since discovered that actually
Speaker 2: there was a book written by these journalists. Anthony Dowsley
Speaker 2: was the journalist in Australia who happened upon this story
Speaker 2: by hanging out in a cop bar one night and
Speaker 2: here's people gossiping and talking, and the detectives are talking
Speaker 2: and gossiping. This name keeps popping out, Nicolagabo, and he says,
Speaker 2: what is the story here? Why are these detectives talking
Speaker 2: about about this lawyer? This is not common And as
Speaker 2: he started to unravel the story, he came upon this
Speaker 2: incredible tale that has to be the cornerstone of his career.
Speaker 2: And when he published, they refused to allow him to
Speaker 2: use her name. So she was Lawyer X. And that's
Speaker 2: the show that we got. That's the podcast that's just
Speaker 2: out now on Wondering on Wondery Plus and informants Lawyer
Speaker 2: X and so she is her story. I talked to
Speaker 2: Anthony Dowsley, who was the one who investigated it, along
Speaker 2: with journalist Patrick Carlyon, also a detective who became involved
Speaker 2: with Nicolagabo. Paul Dale, and also another criminal defense lawyer,
Speaker 2: Zara guard Wilson, who was also knew her and knew
Speaker 2: of Nicolagabo and what she was doing. The story has
Speaker 2: twists and turns. It is the most incredible thing. First
Speaker 2: when I stumbled on it, I thought, Okay, that's just weird,
Speaker 2: and then I realized there's a whole thing that happens
Speaker 2: with hers. There are murders, a double homicide involved. It's
Speaker 2: got everything. It's just incredible.
Speaker 1: Well and I imagine, as both a prosecut and an author,
Speaker 1: you're like, this is a gold mine of drama and
Speaker 1: tension and excitement, and it's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's true. Unimaginable, Yeah it is. It was everything.
Speaker 2: And what was incredible was as we're writing episode after episode,
Speaker 2: I'm recording it and going, oh my god, you're getting
Speaker 2: I mean one thing, no way, and you know something.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've seen so much, having handled thousands and
Speaker 2: thousands of cases, it's pretty hard to shock me, honestly,
Speaker 2: and this shocked me over and over again, and I
Speaker 2: really did keep going no way.
Speaker 1: So from that, from that place, you know, that amount
Speaker 1: of expertise. You say, you've seen it all, so it's
Speaker 1: hard to shock. You can you give the rest of
Speaker 1: us who don't know the ins and outs of your
Speaker 1: world a little bit of an overview of what the
Speaker 1: risks are that criminal informants face and a little information
Speaker 1: on what criteria is necess to even become an informant,
Speaker 1: because obviously it's very rare for a defense attorney to
Speaker 1: flip state's evidence on his or her clients. So like that,
Speaker 1: obviously we know is the ground zero for informants lawyer X,
Speaker 1: But what does it mean to be an informant in
Speaker 1: the first place?
Speaker 2: So usually, and when I say usually, I mean always,
Speaker 2: I've never heard of a defense attorney becoming an informant,
Speaker 2: let alone an official registered informant for the police. Never.
Speaker 2: This is a one off and it was a huge
Speaker 2: story in Australia. We just get to find out about
Speaker 2: it now and it's incredible. Usually, and when I say usually,
Speaker 2: I mean always, informants are criminals. They're involved in some
Speaker 2: kind of criminal enterprise, whether there it's a mafia situation,
Speaker 2: whether it's just a drug ring or something, or it's gangs.
Speaker 2: You know, it's somebody who's involved in the world, because
Speaker 2: that's how they get the information, and that's the cops
Speaker 2: get a hold of them because they get busted for whatever,
Speaker 2: and then they get to make a deal and in turn,
Speaker 2: in return for the deal that the cops give them
Speaker 2: or the prosecutor gives them, they funnel information to them.
Speaker 2: It is a very, very dangerous life. It's extremely dangerous
Speaker 2: because you're always walking this tightrope that if the guys
Speaker 2: that you're getting the information from, i e. Your gang,
Speaker 2: your group, your drug ring, whatever it is, if they
Speaker 2: find out you're snitching, you're dead, yes, or hurt very badly,
Speaker 2: or your family is well your family right exactly. So
Speaker 2: there's a lot of vulnerability there. And on the other hand,
Speaker 2: if you don't deliver, you're going to go to prison.
Speaker 2: So and the cops want you to deliver, the cops
Speaker 2: are not going to make a deal with you, and
Speaker 2: they're not going to carry through on that deal if
Speaker 2: you don't give them what they want. So you're constantly
Speaker 2: balancing these different interests. Nicola Gaba was doing in big time.
Speaker 2: She was actually playing both sides against the middle. She
Speaker 2: was working for the cops against her clients, but she
Speaker 2: was also getting information from the cops her clients. It
Speaker 2: was one of the most amazing kind of power plays
Speaker 2: I've ever seen, where she's kind of the puppet master
Speaker 2: of all time. But that's unusual. That's a very one
Speaker 2: off situation. Usually it's the criminal trying to serve both masters,
Speaker 2: very hard to do, to do, and then the cops
Speaker 2: have to worry about how much they're getting what they're
Speaker 2: getting from the inform and how much of it is true, right,
Speaker 2: because he has every reason to want to please them,
Speaker 2: to get to make his deal and keep on the
Speaker 2: good side of them. And at the same time, lying
Speaker 2: can help because it can shield people he wants to
Speaker 2: shield or she wants to shield. On the criminal side
Speaker 2: gets very complicated, but one thing that is never complicated
Speaker 2: but always true is the constant threat of danger from
Speaker 2: one side or another, prison or death.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, and this is really interesting because you talk,
Speaker 1: you know, across the country about the effects of celebrity
Speaker 1: and press attention on criminal cases. Obviously so impactful when
Speaker 1: we look back at oj trial, but even what you're
Speaker 1: speaking about with this case, the Nicolagabo story, it became
Speaker 1: a story because someone from the media heard about it.
Speaker 1: And I'm really curious. You know, there's obviously a desire
Speaker 1: to tell stories, and journalists want to inform their audience,
Speaker 1: but sometimes informing an audience about a story like this
Speaker 1: could cost someone their life. How do you kind of
Speaker 1: mitigate these effects, you know, celebrity press attention, social media
Speaker 1: attention on criminal cases. Are there best practices or is
Speaker 1: Pandora's box just open at this point?
Speaker 2: You know, it's a really good question, Sophia. I think
Speaker 2: that journalists are kind of grappling with this constantly now
Speaker 2: that we have social media and it's so easy to
Speaker 2: publish a story without vetting it. It's so easy to
Speaker 2: just get out there and send that tweet, post that
Speaker 2: in whatever it is, a blog if you will, and
Speaker 2: I don't even think that's a big deal, but substack
Speaker 2: if you will, and people get it right away. And
Speaker 2: so it does become their responsibility to be very careful
Speaker 2: about what they do, and a lot of them are.
Speaker 2: A lot of them are. They're very cognizant of the
Speaker 2: fact that there is integrity involved in here, and there's
Speaker 2: personal safety concerns of everybody you're talking about. In case
Speaker 2: of Nippy Nicolagabo, it was a particularly vexing problem for
Speaker 2: Anthony Dowsley, the journalist, because it was known that if
Speaker 2: you reveal who she is, her life is in danger.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, right, her life is in incredible danger, and
Speaker 2: so are the lives of her children, not to mention
Speaker 2: the fact that the cops are going to be furious
Speaker 2: because you're killing the golden goose. So there was a
Speaker 2: lot of there's a lot of litigation that happened to
Speaker 2: suppress this story for years. Anthony Dowsley had to fight
Speaker 2: for five years to finally publish the story and then
Speaker 2: fight for even longer than that to get her name out.
Speaker 2: And he had to balance those interests that you're talking about,
Speaker 2: the safety interest and the threat of danger that was
Speaker 2: so palpable, so real. The problem is too though, these
Speaker 2: are also an important thing that the public needs to know
Speaker 2: that the system of justice is being undermined by this.
Speaker 2: People will say, for sure, they'll say, oh, so what
Speaker 2: you know, the criminal the legal rights of these criminals,
Speaker 2: these drug lords is being trampled. Boo who it kills
Speaker 2: me for them? You know, I don't care. I want
Speaker 2: the police to get them, and she's helping them get them,
Speaker 2: so yeah, for her, Well, yeah, but it's not so
Speaker 2: clean and it's not so clear because if they can
Speaker 2: trample these guys' rights, they can trample other rights as well.
Speaker 2: It's because the slippery slope. What if it's your brother,
Speaker 2: your friend, your cousin who got busted for one minor
Speaker 2: thing and the cop knows that he can just tap
Speaker 2: a source that's completely unreliable. Because after all, we say
Speaker 2: that's okay, if you're going to bust crime, do whatever
Speaker 2: you we have to set those guardrails there important. So
Speaker 2: even though it's drug lords largely who got hurt by this,
Speaker 2: but now what's happening is their cases are getting reversed
Speaker 2: and getting thrown out, and these dangerous guys are getting
Speaker 2: out of prison because of what she did. So it
Speaker 2: matters that the cops weren't doing their job correctly and
Speaker 2: she wasn't doing her job correctly. In the system of justice,
Speaker 2: it's a three legged stool, and this is something I
Speaker 2: say in the podcast Prosecutors, cops and defense attorneys in court.
Speaker 2: Any one of those three doesn't do their job and
Speaker 2: the stool falls down, and that's what happened here. This
Speaker 2: is unusual. Usually it's one of the others but we
Speaker 2: have to be cognizant of the fact that it matters.
Speaker 2: There are ripple effects that occur as a result when
Speaker 2: someone doesn't do what they're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: And now a word from our wonderful sponsors. So I'm
Speaker 1: really curious this vantage of understanding all of this and
Speaker 1: the amount of media literacy people have now. Still more
Speaker 1: is needed, but we've come a long way, you know,
Speaker 1: since since the famous trial. What do you think would
Speaker 1: happen if the OJ Simpson trial were tried today? Do
Speaker 1: you think it would be different?
Speaker 2: I think it would. I think it would because now
Speaker 2: there are competing narratives that get to be heard, that
Speaker 2: get disseminated, and that's a very good thing. I think
Speaker 2: for all that we have been decrying can cancel culture
Speaker 2: and all that stuff, and I agree that we shouldn't
Speaker 2: have it. I in favor of having people have a voice,
Speaker 2: whether you agree with it or not. Let everyone speak,
Speaker 2: or just about everyone. You know, we have a First Amendment.
Speaker 2: It does have certain guidelines. They're loose, and they should
Speaker 2: be because I do want to hear from the right wing.
Speaker 2: I want to hear from the left wing. I want
Speaker 2: to hear from every wing. If I possibly can, as
Speaker 2: long as it doesn't do obvious harm. The old saw
Speaker 2: about crying fire in a crowded theater, well.
Speaker 1: Exactly, you can't incite hate speech or harm.
Speaker 2: But yeah, right, inciting a riot or that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: But other than that, competing points of view good thing,
Speaker 2: and I want to hear them, and I think you
Speaker 2: would today. Back then, things were so much more narrow,
Speaker 2: even though you had television that was showing all kinds
Speaker 2: of things. Television was kind of a distorting force too,
Speaker 2: because you have this moving picture, you see snapshots. You
Speaker 2: don't see the whole thing. You don't under you know,
Speaker 2: don't necessarily pay attention to all the things that are
Speaker 2: said in court and or could you. Everybody has lives.
Speaker 2: But as a result, when you only see me yelling
Speaker 2: in one in one two second sound bite, you don't
Speaker 2: see the whole other eight hours of very calm, reflective discourse.
Speaker 2: So that was kind of a distorting influence. Whereas today
Speaker 2: you would probably have people on both sides saying, well
Speaker 2: I think this or I think that. Back then, Howard
Speaker 2: Stern and I think Coralda Rivera were the only two
Speaker 2: willing to come out front and say I think that
Speaker 2: Simpson was guilty. I think he's did it. I think
Speaker 2: he should be found guilty. But everyone else was very
Speaker 2: afraid to say, oh, he did it. Yes, I think so.
Speaker 2: In fact, in the very beginning it was not divided
Speaker 2: by race. Everyone hated us. Everyone said I don't want
Speaker 2: to hear this, it's not true. I don't believe it.
Speaker 2: And then even when they started to believe it, I
Speaker 2: would hear things from people saying like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: I haven't seen all the evidence, so I can't form
Speaker 2: an opinion. But you're not on the jury. You can
Speaker 2: form an opinion today right now, in the next five minutes.
Speaker 2: No one cares. You get to say what you think.
Speaker 2: People were afraid to say what they thought, so I
Speaker 2: don't think that would be the case today. Even though
Speaker 2: we have a certain degree of worry about, you know,
Speaker 2: people being afraid to voice their opinions that are not popular,
Speaker 2: I think that's relaxing a lot. And I think people
Speaker 2: are more and more willing thanks to podcasts like yours,
Speaker 2: for example, podcast like The Fifth Column, More Blocked and Reported,
Speaker 2: or you Know or job Steps. You know, you have
Speaker 2: all these podcasts that are willing to be brave and
Speaker 2: say what they have, say what they think, whether it's
Speaker 2: popular or not. That's a really good thing, and people
Speaker 2: have access to it another very good things. So I
Speaker 2: do think it would probably be different. Would we have
Speaker 2: won a conviction, maybe not. It might have been a
Speaker 2: hung jury. I think that with even back then, had
Speaker 2: we had a judge who knew how to run a courtroom,
Speaker 2: we would have had hung jury then too, and it
Speaker 2: would have gone a lot faster as well. But but
Speaker 2: you know, that's just a just a guess.
Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, I think it must be so hard to
Speaker 1: speculate on that stuff. I mean, I know people have
Speaker 1: even asked you, oh, do you think if the you know,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor had been a man, that it might have
Speaker 1: gone differently, And it's like, how are you supposed to know?
Speaker 2: Well, how am I supposed to know? But it's also
Speaker 2: it ignores the much more important forces that were in play.
Speaker 1: Say more about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, race became a huge vocal issue. I was really
Speaker 2: more beside the point than people realize. And so there
Speaker 2: was four hundred years of social injustice being packed into
Speaker 2: that courtroom. Rodney King, As I said, whenever you have
Speaker 2: a case that's getting buried under all of these social
Speaker 2: issues that really have nothing to do with the evidence
Speaker 2: at all. He did not kill the goal because she's white.
Speaker 2: She did not divorce him because he's black. None of
Speaker 2: that mattered to them, and so none of that had
Speaker 2: anything to do with the case. Should never have been
Speaker 2: allowed in the courtroom, but once it is, it can't
Speaker 2: help but have a divisive and very distorting impact on
Speaker 2: the evidence and on the jurors as well. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, I think that's true, and that was true
Speaker 2: then and it's still true now in any case where
Speaker 2: you have that sort of thing happening. And I do
Speaker 2: think it may have had an impact, and it still
Speaker 2: having an impact on the lawyer X cases because there's
Speaker 2: a certain Nicola Gobbo herself is in hiding. But people
Speaker 2: are still wondering who's going to be held accountable. What
Speaker 2: about all the police who knew that they shouldn't be
Speaker 2: using a defense attorneys as an informant. They knew it,
Speaker 2: They knew this wasn't the right thing to do, but
Speaker 2: they still did it. But no one's been prosecuted yet.
Speaker 2: And I think that they're afraid because the public really
Speaker 2: doesn't want to see cops go and go to prison,
Speaker 2: or go to jail, or even get fired necessarily because
Speaker 2: they liked what they were doing. They cleaned up the streets.
Speaker 2: After all, of course, they did stop crying.
Speaker 1: And it's really hard to puncture the idea of the
Speaker 1: good guy coming to save you. We're dealing with this
Speaker 1: in our country all the time. You know, when you
Speaker 1: realize that a third of the people murdered in America
Speaker 1: die at the hands of a police officer, you go like,
Speaker 1: oh God, what does that mean? You know what a
Speaker 1: hold on? And it is really hard. And I say
Speaker 1: this as a person who grew up, you know, with
Speaker 1: my very favorite show on TV for a long time
Speaker 1: being On Order SVU and who played a cop on TV?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I've had to reckon with a lot.
Speaker 1: It's really complicated when you pierce the veil of the
Speaker 1: societal story of who's a hero, who's a bad guy who?
Speaker 1: It's deeply uncomfortable. And yeah, the question of this case,
Speaker 1: you know, this lawyer X thing that you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Did they need the information, yes, did they need to
Speaker 1: put the bad guys away?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Did they do it in potentially the wrong way that
Speaker 1: probably put a woman in her family at risk.
Speaker 2: Yes, what does it all mean?
Speaker 1: Because someone will also say, well, she chose to defend
Speaker 1: these people, and it's like, oh god, it's hard.
Speaker 2: It's hard, and it's very It's what's fascinates me about
Speaker 2: Lawyer X is also what leads a person to put
Speaker 2: themselves in this position where she's up against it. She's
Speaker 2: really she's an up and comer, and then she's a
Speaker 2: celebrated lawyer and she has all this power and all
Speaker 2: this fame and very successful and then turns on a
Speaker 2: dime to become an informant and suddenly turns on the
Speaker 2: very people who made her as successful as she is,
Speaker 2: and at the same time that makes her miserable, and
Speaker 2: she goes through all kinds of stress, and I, you know,
Speaker 2: I just think this is a psychological study that is
Speaker 2: endless because there's all these layers to it. Yes, she's
Speaker 2: a power player, but she's also a pleaser. She's someone
Speaker 2: who wants to be the very best lawyer possible for
Speaker 2: all these bad guys, but also wants to be the
Speaker 2: very best informant the police have ever seen it. She
Speaker 2: actually said that to them, I want to be the
Speaker 2: best informant you've ever had. Am I not the best?
Speaker 2: I mean, this is a person whose personality is so
Speaker 2: complex and so at odds with her with her self.
Speaker 2: It's like she chases her own tail all the time.
Speaker 2: Twenty four to seven. I you know, I did try
Speaker 2: to reach out to her a number of times.
Speaker 1: Did you get to her?
Speaker 2: I try and never got to, never got to. But
Speaker 2: that would be one of the interviews that I would
Speaker 2: really really love to have to find out why did
Speaker 2: you do it? What made you do it? How do
Speaker 2: you feel about it now? What are your regrets? I mean,
Speaker 2: because I can see you know, it's really hard. It's
Speaker 2: hard to actually weave your way through the path, the
Speaker 2: psychological path that she wound up in to find you know,
Speaker 2: she went this way and this way and this way
Speaker 2: and this way. It is the serpentine path, to put
Speaker 2: it mildly, And now you know she's I don't know
Speaker 2: where she is, and that's probably a very good thing
Speaker 2: for her and her children. But I mean, it's what
Speaker 2: a case study that is well, and what.
Speaker 1: An interesting thing too. I wonder how you obviously your
Speaker 1: circumstances are very different, but I wonder how you relate
Speaker 1: because even for you, you know, you mentioned earlier you
Speaker 1: were so disillusioned with the justice system after the acquittal,
Speaker 1: and you left the LA District Attorney's office afterwards, and
Speaker 1: your life has taken all these different twists and turns
Speaker 1: and the writing and the podcast and the lecturing and
Speaker 1: all the things you do. Do you miss anything about
Speaker 1: your old career? Are there things that you would do
Speaker 1: differently now? Or are you happy where it's all landed.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's also a little bit of both.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think I'm kind of a fatalist
Speaker 2: about that. Things happened the way they happened, you know,
Speaker 2: and so I'm here now, and it just it was
Speaker 2: what it was, and that's what I don't look back
Speaker 2: and say, Gee, I wish I were a prosecutor again.
Speaker 2: Then again, you know, I left the office because I
Speaker 2: had to at that time. I just couldn't envision going
Speaker 2: back into court, and then I did what I did
Speaker 2: after that, you know what I mean. It just kind
Speaker 2: of I've always been that way. I was that way
Speaker 2: before I became a prosecutor. This looks right, that looks right,
Speaker 2: and you know, whatever fits in at that time, as
Speaker 2: you say, when work in progress exactly. So, yeah, I
Speaker 2: do wonder about someone like Nicolagabo whose ambition was always
Speaker 2: the same. She wasn't like me. She was somebody who
Speaker 2: always wanted to be a lawyer. At one time even
Speaker 2: thought about being a prime minister. She was. She came
Speaker 2: from legal royalty, that was her background, and her uncle
Speaker 2: was a very famous barrister. So she came from, you know,
Speaker 2: a family that it makes it not surprising that she
Speaker 2: would want to be a high powered criminal lawyer, and
Speaker 2: so that she became one, and she succeeded to such great,
Speaker 2: such a great degree, only to throw it all away
Speaker 2: by becoming a notorious informant and becoming the focus of
Speaker 2: a huge legal scandal in Australia is so mind boggling
Speaker 2: to me. She yes, honestly, she threw away her own dream.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean her story is wild and it as
Speaker 1: you talk about it, and I think about all these stories.
Speaker 1: Why do you think we're all so obsessed with true crime?
Speaker 1: What do you think that is?
Speaker 2: You know, Sophia, I'm one of them so well, he
Speaker 2: do like this. This is a very good question. Why
Speaker 2: are we like the way we are? I just don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that ultimately true crime fanatics like
Speaker 2: us are curious. They're curious, they want to so all
Speaker 2: the mystery. They want to know the answer, they want
Speaker 2: to get the solution. You know, why did this happen?
Speaker 2: How did this happen? These are always they're puzzles to solve.
Speaker 2: And I don't mean to be that in a demeaning
Speaker 2: or just diminishing way, because often lives are on the line,
Speaker 2: serious issues are in play. Here, you're more serious, but
Speaker 2: at base, I think it is a curiosity and a
Speaker 2: need to know that fuels the True crime Society community.
Speaker 2: And I feel like it is a community, and it's
Speaker 2: one that I've been a member of for a long
Speaker 2: standing member of since childhood. And I don't see that
Speaker 2: ever changing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it's going to change for me either.
Speaker 2: I'm so sucked.
Speaker 1: So you know, we're on the the precipice of this
Speaker 1: new show, and there's such an incredible life and multifaceted
Speaker 1: career behind you, and you're looking forward with all these
Speaker 1: new projects as you look out at what excites you,
Speaker 1: you know, what comes next, what feels like you're work
Speaker 1: in progress in your life. It could be professional or personal.
Speaker 2: I feel like everything in my life is a work
Speaker 2: in progress on YouTube. You know, from day to day,
Speaker 2: I feel like I learned something new. I learned to
Speaker 2: improve about one thing or another, whether it's big or small,
Speaker 2: every single day. And that's why I related so much
Speaker 2: to your show. It's such a great idea work in progress.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, and I kind of think that if
Speaker 2: you're not a work in progress, then you're kind of
Speaker 2: treading water in not a good way. You want to
Speaker 2: be always in progress, developing, learning, improving if you can.
Speaker 2: That's what we trieded.
Speaker 1: That's absolutely I love that. Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: It's really it's just such an honor to have you
Speaker 1: on the show. I'm absolutely geeked about this, and I'm
Speaker 1: so excited for the new podcast and I'm so I'm
Speaker 1: just so excited to watch all of the next iterations
Speaker 1: of the work that you do. Thank you for taking
Speaker 1: the time today.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Sophia. It's been a pleasure. I
Speaker 2: hope you enjoy Lawyer X on Wondering Plus I can't
Speaker 2: wait