Every time I write a nonfiction book I get sued.

As a cop, I dealt with every kind of bum and criminal. They all have more integrity than some Hollywood people.

I certainly believe it's over for the jury system, but we won't admit it for a while.

Today, lawyers are attacking more; they're attacking everything. A good example is the O.J. Simpson case.

No one I know of has ever had this experience-where you had to sit and wait and wait for a DNA test to come back just so you can write the last page of the book.

The Onion Field, that one got pretty close to me because I was a cop when it happened. I saw some of the indifference that my police department showed to the surviving officer.

The Onion Field made a real writer. And then I knew it was over, I couldn't be a cop anymore.

The O.J. Simpson case, they had no understanding of that DNA evidence, and didn't want to.

What I didn't know was that if I didn't stand with my back to the wall, Hollywood people would unscrew my ass and sell it down the river.

I enjoy adapting my own work, or anybody's work. I like to adapt books.

I enjoy doing the research of nonfiction; that gives me some pleasure, being a detective again.

I hadn't done anything in six years; I was just vegetating.

I'm sure I took some licks at the system, and at trials and lawyers in general. I've seen enough of them for so many years both as a cop and a defendant in defamation cases.

If you take 67 brush fires times 10 years, that's almost 700 right there. Those brush fires are incredibly dangerous, all those homes going down proved that.

Jury selection is strictly an emotional process. They're looking for people they can manipulate. Both sides are.