After O.J. Series, Ex-Prosecutor Chris Darden Reflects on Legacy

By Tori Richards, Special to Big Law Business

Two decades have passed since the deputy district attorney Chris Darden tried and failed to persuade a jury — as the world watched in nightly news clips — to convict O.J. Simpson on murder charges.

By now, everyone knows the story: Simpson, an all-star African-American football player, actor and television personality was accused of murdering his Caucasian ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. His sensational trial, acquittal and subsequent fall from grace in 1996 exposed fault lines in race relations that persist today, even with Simpson locked away on other convictions.

But what ever happened to Darden, who lost what many call the trial of the century? Still practicing law in Los Angeles, at Darden & Associates, the loss at trial hasn’t fully receded for Darden. This year, after an FX mini-series and an ESPN documentary series educated a whole new generation on a bloody crime scene glove that didn’t fit, Darden appeared on ET Online, The View, TODAY to reflect on the case.

“I’m not proud of the case — it wasn’t ready,” said Darden in a recent interview for this story. “We were not prepared for trial and I shouldn’t have been sitting there.”

The trial forever changed Darden’s life. Afterwards, he left his job at the District Attorney’s Office, his church, and found himself buried under an endless stream of hate mail.

He doesn’t deny Simpson’s legal team was remarkable.

“The most brilliant thing the defense did was to force a quick trial,” said Darden. “The miracle is that the prosecution was there and we stood up.”

It’s not all kind words though and Darden is still fuming about legal journalist Jeffrey Toobin, whose book formed the basis for FX’s The People v. O.J Simpson: American Crime Story .

“Toobin never once called me for comment, he had his own agenda,” Darden seethed, noting he refused to watch either the FX mini-series or ESPN documentary.

[caption id="attachment_25319" align="aligncenter” width="459"][Image " Jeffrey Toobin speaks during Bideawee Ball 2016 at The Pierre Hotel on May 23, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Bideawee, Inc.)” (src=https://bol.bna.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/GettyImages-533876676.jpg)]Jeffrey Toobin speaks during Bideawee Ball 2016 at The Pierre Hotel on May 23, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Bideawee, Inc.)[/caption]

Toobin said he was only a consultant on the show and said he had tried to contact Darden in the past, but had never received a response.

And Toobin offered this: “It’s ridiculous to blame Chris for losing that case. I think he is an honorable person and prosecutor put in a difficult position.”

Toobin isn’t the only one who feels that way, either.

John Barnett, an attorney who has defended many LAPD officers, said Darden’s trial skills were unfairly written off.

“I think he got completely misevaluated,” Barnett said. “The people who evaluated him don’t try serious high profile cases.”

Darden, for his part, would like to shake the legacy of the O.J. case or at least set the record straight from his point of view.

“What I wanted was a fair trial; I didn’t want a race trial,” he said, noting it wasn’t only the race of Simpson and his ex-wife that was noticed.

Leading lawyers on each side were black: Darden, who wrote in his memoir that he was branded an “Uncle Tom” and a sellout, and Simpson’s lawyer Johnnie Cochran, who made a name for himself as a civil rights activist litigating dozens of police abuse cases with African Americans.

After the trial, Darden recalled that he received thousands of letters in the mail that were a mixture of “I hate you” and “Die!” mixed in with some saying, “You did a great job.” Eventually he just stopped opening the letters.

“There were threats to me and to my family. It made it difficult to focus on the case,” Darden said. “I was not hurt by it, I was not wounded by it. I was pissed off.”

After the trial, Darden said he was forced out of his job as a prosecutor although the DA’s office has declined to comment.

He taught law for five years at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, wrote a best-selling autobiographical book “In Contempt” about the trial, and co-wrote four fictional legal thrillers. He went into civil practice for a few years then returned to criminal law in 2000.

Making the switch from prosecutor to defense attorney wasn’t as difficult as one would think, Darden said.

“It might have been hard if I didn’t go back to law school to teach, to reclaim that high gear that called me to become a lawyer,” he said. “When I was a kid growing up in the ‘60s, I saw the end of the Civil Rights Era, corrupt FBI agents, corrupt government and black people being framed and murdered. I admired the civil rights attorneys of the time.”

Post-Simpson, Darden said he has done 60 trials including a dozen murders — and he claims he has a higher percentage of wins than losses.

Still, for a lawyer, even losing under the spotlight has its benefits.

“I know what it’s like to be judged,” he said.

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