KILLING TIME
OJ prosecutor Marcia Clark ‘Investigates the First 48’ in new true crime series
“Marcia Clark Investigates the First 48” 8 p.m. Thursday on A&E
DON’T expect OJ prosecutor Marcia Clark to rehash the Simpson murder case on her new A&E series, “Marcia Clark Investigates the First 48.”
“Well, why?” says Clark, 64. “The thing is, it’s been done by somebody else. The FX series [‘The People v. OJ Simpson’] did it and Ezra Edelman did it brilliantly in ‘OJ: Made in America.’ There’s just nothing left to say. I kind of feel that maybe the story has been written ... how much more can you do?” Fair enough. Instead, “The First 48,” which premiered March 29, will focus on those crucial hours following a murder, with Clark diving headlong into controversial cases including Robert Blake, Drew Peterson, Chandra Levy, Jam Master Jay and the Billionaire Boys Club.
In each episode, Clark — who spent over 15 years as a prosecutor (and several years as a defense attorney) — visits the scene of the crime, interacting with local law enforcement, sifting through the evidence, positing various theories and conducting interviews. “It’s kind of an axiom of law investigation that if the evidence is not found within the first 48 hours ... the chance of solving the case drops by 50 percent,” she says. “More likely than not that’s true.
“These cases, to me, are fascinating to step into because I really do set aside my opinion and I go in there thinking, ‘Hey, I don’t know. I read this, saw that,’ and we all know the coverage isn’t necessarily accurate,” she says. “You form an opinion as a member of the public that’s relaxed — you’re not sitting in the jury box and you’re not required to think about ‘Beyond a reasonable doubt.’ So I go into [these cases] thinking, ‘Maybe they got it right’ or ‘Maybe there really wasn’t enough evidence. Let’s go find out.’
“I hope the series provides viewers with a solid sense of what happened in a case, the truth about a case and gives then all the information it takes to make a reliable and justified judgment about the case — the sense that they’ve finally been given the unvarnished and unbiased truth.”
Clark says the flurry of OJ-related programming vaulted her back into the spotlight; she’s also developing an ABC drama pilot, “The Fix,” a fictionalized version of her life story in which a DA (Robin Tunney) loses a high-profile case, retreats to a horse farm and is called back into action when the defendant kills again.
“I feel like I kind of go with the flow,” she says. “Who knew that Ryan Murphy would decide to do ‘The People v. OJ Simpson’? Who knew that he would cast Sarah Paulson, that genius actress [as Clark]? Who knew he would want to shine a light on the sexism? I don’t think that if I wrote it in a novel anyone would buy it. Opportunities came my way, and I don’t know if they would have without the [FX] series.”