Arizona Attorney - September 2017

Clark drove the point home by advising attorneys to turn the question around. She recommended asking those who wield bias how they would feel if it were their child who was attacked. Or, better yet, ask if the victim deserved whatever happened to them simply based on what they were wearing.

But it isn’t always the public or the media scrutinizing victims. Sometimes, it’s the jury. And with the jury in mind, Clark suggested an idea that the audience seemed to appreciate: Courses—starting as early as grammar school—that teach people how to think their way through a case logically. Essentially, it would be a course teaching people how to be part of a jury, as it is our obligation as citizens.

When asked about the issue surrounding Arizona’s rape-kit backlog, Fairstein referenced New York in 1999, when 16,000 cases were eliminated by testing backlogged kits. Not only did testing a kit solve individual cases; it also often led to a resolution in other cases— proving the serial nature of many of these crimes.

The two former prosecutors closed by briefly discussing their new books: Fairstein’s Deadfall and Clark’s Moral Defense.

Change of Venue looks at unique legal happenings, trends or niche practices.

It takes you off the legal highways onto the legal byways.

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CHANGE OF VENUE

An opportunity to hear from attorneys who led some
of America’s most well-known prosecutions presented itself on July 26,
when Marcia Clark and Linda Fairstein spoke in Scottsdale. The State
Bar of Arizona and the Arizona Women Lawyer’s Association, in con-
junction with The Poisoned Pen Bookstore, hosted the event where the
two lawyers spoke on each of their biggest cases—for Marcia Clark the
1995 O.J. Simpson murder trial, and for Linda Fairstein the 1986
“Preppy Murder” case. After their separate remarks, they shared the stage
to discuss the main focus of the night: “We’ve Come a Long Way: The
Impact of Crime and Discrimination and the Voices of Change.”
In their opening remarks, Clark recalled her struggles in prosecuting
one of the most famous and well-liked athletes of all time, touching on
how going against a celebrity comes with its own unique obstacles.

Fairstein explained the legal challenges she faced when the media painted the Preppy-case murder victim as horrible, even suggesting Jennifer Levin asked for her violent end. Though the two are best known for these cases, they focused less on their roles, and more on the biases and discrimination faced by the victims.

The broader discussion then opened with a simple question from Clark: “With all that we’ve seen and known, can we not figure this out?” She was talking about domestic violence with one main question in mind: Why are victims often blamed for what happens to them?

When Fairstein graduated law school in 1972, she said the term “domestic violence” was not used. But by the mid-1980s, the offense began to be treated like a real issue. And along with that progress came new, significant issues faced by attorneys: Why do victims of domestic violence or assault tend to encounter bias? How, as an attorney, can you react to bias against a victim you represent?