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Now Sterling K. Brown Gets to Be the One Put on Trial, in Chadwick Boseman’s Thurgood Marshall Movie

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He just can’t escape the courtroom. Photo: Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images

How many times must one say the word defendant in fictional court before you become one yourself? Just ask Sterling K. Brown, your favorite part of The People v. O.J. Simpson, who has joined the Thurgood Marshall drama starring Chadwick Boseman as the titular Supreme Court justice, reports Deadline. This time, Brown gets to be put on trial: He’ll play Joseph Spell, a black chauffeur falsely accused of raping and attempting to murder a white Connecticut socialite in 1940, and later acquitted. Prior to becoming the first black Supreme Court justice, Marshall defended Spell alongside a Jewish lawyer named Sam Friedman (Josh Gad) in what would become a headline-grabbing trial marred by racism and anti-Semitism — not unlike the O.J. trial. For Brown’s sake, though, there were no gloves involved in this one.

Sterling K. Brown Joins Boseman’s Marshall