The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson

SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

This book is based principally on my observations and interviews during the two years I covered the Simpson case. During this time, I interviewed more than two hundred people for this book. Many of them spoke to me on the condition that I not report what they said until Simpson’s criminal trial had ended. All quotations from private conversations come either from the person who made the comment or a person who heard it. All quotations from court proceedings come from the official court transcript. In Chapter 2, all of the statements by the police officers come from their grand jury, preliminary hearing, or trial testimony, but my account is also based on my interviews with the participants and the internal police reports of the investigation.

In addition to my own efforts, I have steeped myself in the voluminous media coverage of the case. I wish to acknowledge my great debt to my colleagues in the Simpson press corps. In addition to the works cited by name below, I also studied the continuing coverage of the case by a number of journalists. The Los Angeles Times served as the newspaper of record on the case, and I learned a great deal from the work of Jim Newton, Andrea Ford, Henry Weinstein, Tim Rutten, Stephanie Simon, Ralph Frammolino, and especially Bill Boyarsky in his invaluable column, “The Spin.” Also in the Times, I profited from the conscientious and thoughtful analysis of the case by (and my own conversations with) Professors Peter Arenella and Laurie Levenson. My work as a magazine writer was made more difficult by David Margolick’s brilliant and witty daily coverage of the trial in The New York Times; my thanks to him nonetheless. I also express my appreciation to Linda Deutsch and Michael Fleeman of the Associated Press; Mark Miller and Donna Foote of Newsweek; Elaine Lafferty and Jim Willwerth of Time; Michelle Caruso of the New York Daily News; Ann Bollinger of the New York Post; Sally Ann Stewart of USA Today; Shirley Perlman and Joe Demma of Newsday; Lorraine Adams of The Washington Post; and the inimitable Dominick Dunne of Vanity Fair.

I watched a lot of television, too. I always learned a great deal from my friends Dan Abrams and Kristin Jeannette-Meyers and all of their colleagues at Court TV, as well as from Jack Ford at NBC, Cynthia McFadden at ABC, and Bill Whitaker at CBS. Thanks, too, to Jim Moret and the Simpson coverage team at CNN. For assisting me in tracking down videotapes and transcripts of television coverage of the case, I thank Tracy Day of ABC, Stacie Griffith of NBC, Tom Mazzarelli of CNN, and Sybil MacDonald of KCBS in Los Angeles.

I drew on the following books and articles in my analysis of the case and its context.