Did O.J Simpson kill his wife and friend?

[ronpaulisright]

I think OJ killed those people, and brutally I might add.

[Brainache]

I don't know. Maybe George W Bush did it...:duck:

[Garb]

Doesn't matter either way, he was acquitted by a jury of his peers in a court of law.

He can admit to it now and not face any charges.

[Arus808]

i dont see what the conspiracy theory is behind this, but Yes, I believe he got away with double murder.

[zorro99]

His jury believed he was framed in a conspiracy by the police. That's why he was acquitted.

[quixotecoyote]

I'm on my way to bed but I had to stop in and vote no, given how the question is elaborated on in the OP:

I'm certain that at the point O.J. decided to murder Ronald Goldman, Goldman ceased to be his friend. As that occurred prior to Goldman's murder, O.J. cannot have murdered his friend.

[ronpaulisright]

I'm on my way to bed but I had to stop in and vote no, given how the question is elaborated on in the OP:

I'm certain that at the point O.J. decided to murder Ronald Goldman, Goldman ceased to be his friend. As that occurred prior to Goldman's murder, O.J. cannot have murdered his friend.

goldman was nicoles friend. I worded it bad.

[jhunter1163]

Goldman and Simpson never met before Simpson killed him.

This is the part of the case I don't understand. Goldman's blood was found in the Bronco. How can anyone with two brain cells firing not conclude that Simpson had something to do with it?

[The Doc]

I haven't looked into it, and therefore have no idea.

[CFLarsen]

Ehhh....pardon me, but does anyone believe that O.J. Simpson didn't kill Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman?

[FM21.105]

Doesn't matter either way, he was acquitted by a jury of his peers in a court of law.

He can admit to it now and not face any charges.

Uh... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perjury)

[DC]

is there evidence that he did?

[Foolmewunz]

is there evidence that he did?

Yes, my son, there was quite a bit.
But if the glove doesn't fit...
You've got to acquit.

[Unsecured Coins]

No. OJ did not kill his wife.

He could not have.

They divorced in 1992.

[gumboot]

I honestly don't know. But I found the "trial by media" nature of the case to be abhorred.

[DC]

Yes, my son, there was quite a bit.
But if the glove doesn't fit...
You've got to acquit.

but i thaught he was not spoken guilty :confused:

[Foolmewunz]

but i thaught he was not spoken guilty :confused:

That's correct, although a lot of people actually spoke him guilty, in American criminal law it doesn't matter a hoot what the general public feels. What matters is what the jury decided. And they, IMHO, chose to follow the emotional strings being played by Mr. Cochrane and ignore the better evidence presented clumsily by the D.A.

[DC]

That's correct, although a lot of people actually spoke him guilty, in American criminal law it doesn't matter a hoot what the general public feels. What matters is what the jury decided. And they, IMHO, chose to follow the emotional strings being played by Mr. Cochrane and ignore the better evidence presented clumsily by the D.A.

wow not even the evidence made it able to get him spoken guilty.
sound like a very good system there in the US :D

[Ian Osborne]

Uh... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perjury)

But OJ didn't testify - he took the Fifth. How can he have perjured himself when he didn't speak at his own trial?

[Drudgewire]

A new book (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/10/national/main4085973.shtml?source=mostpop_story) is about to come out by a former friend who says OJ confessed to him while they were stoned one night, and that he gave Simpson the idea to make his hands bloated so the glove wouldn't fit.

Oh he did it, but I took a year off from life to watch that trial and there was no way any jury following proper instructions could have convicted him. His lawyers did their job, the prosecutors absolutely did not.

[JimBenArm]

I heard it was Ron Paul that was the real killer. O.J. has been trying to prove it for years.

[Alferd_Packer]

Yes, my son, there was quite a bit.
But if the glove doesn't fit...
You've got to acquit.


The idiots in the LA DA's office never bothered t check if it is posible to pull a tight leather isotoner glove on OVER latex gloves.

It isn't

[FM21.105]

But OJ didn't testify - he took the Fifth. How can he have perjured himself when he didn't speak at his own trial?

To be honest with you, I was not aware of that.


Now, more importantly, do you guys feel that I am guilty of this speeding ticket I was issued on Friday? I believe there is some sort of conspiracy there...

[CHF]

Has OJ found the real killer yet?

[deep]

No. OJ did not kill his wife.

He could not have.

They divorced in 1992.


I see what you did there.

[CFLarsen]

Has OJ found the real killer yet?

No, but we know that the real killer sure isn't found on golf courts. Otherwise, O.J. would have found him by now...

[Confuseling]

Doesn't matter either way, he was acquitted by a jury of his peers in a court of law.

He can admit to it now and not face any charges.

Erm... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Did_It)

[Wildy]

Erm... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Did_It)

The problem is that you have to prove that he perjured himself in writing a book that is "fictional".

[Brainache]

I did see an interesting doco a few years ago which suggested that it might have been OJ's eldest(?) son. It said the son had an uncontrollable temper, had recently been snubbed by Nicole and worked as a chef (used the same sort of knives as the murder weapon). It also had something to say about the slack way the Police handled the crime scene forensics and the blood samples from the car.

I have no idea what the documentary was called or how reliable the information in it was, but it did make me less convinced of OJ's guilt.


I think it was a conspiracy cooked up by Hal Holbrook and James Brolin...

[Confuseling]

I'm not claiming he perjured himself - quite the opposite.

To me that looks like a calculated PR move. He's coming as close as possible to admitting it without completely destroying his reputation, or suffering legal consequences. Surfing the notoriety, as it were.

Admittedly, you could make the case that that would be worth doing if you were innocent too, but from what I've heard it was pretty clear it was him. I don't know - celebrities bore me.

[Loss Leader]

Tr00ther Logic:

We all know OJ is guilty even though the people who reviewed the evidence said he was not. Thus, Bush is guilty of planning 9/11 even though the people who reviewed the evidence said he was not.

Sorry, but this is reasoning by analogy. It's a logical error. And a fairly obvious one, at that.

I may just as easily say: The jury in the Simpson case was able to see a conspiracy that no government official would admit. Thus, the fact that no expert has found a government conspiracy to create 9/11 means that no such conspiracy existed.

[Drudgewire]

I think it was a conspiracy cooked up by Hal Holbrook and James Brolin...

Wow, going with the obscure Capricorn 1 reference instead of the easy Naked Gun one. I'm impressed. :)

[Spindrift]

He did do it and there was a trial that said so.

He was found not guilty in the criminal trial, but in the civil case brought by Nicole Brown's family he was found liable for her death resulting in a large judgement against him. OJ lives off his football pension, which isn't much and under the table payments from autograph shows. Anything else he earns get garnished to pay off the judgement.

[Calcas]

OJ lives off his football pension, which isn't much...

A quick google finds his NFL pension being listed as anywhere between $22,000 a month ($264,000) and $400,000 a year.

If that "isn't much" then we live on different planets.

[I Ratant]

Goldman and Simpson never met before Simpson killed him.

This is the part of the case I don't understand. Goldman's blood was found in the Bronco. How can anyone with two brain cells firing not conclude that Simpson had something to do with it?
.
The amazingly incompetent prosecution managed to find 12 people without 2 brain cells among them.

[defaultdotxbe]

A quick google finds his NFL pension being listed as anywhere between $22,000 a month ($264,000) and $400,000 a year.

If that "isn't much" then we live on different planets.
its all relative, compared to the judgement of $33,500,000 22k a month isnt much at all (would take 127 years to pay the goldmans)

[Calcas]

its all relative, compared to the judgement of $33,500,000 22k a month isnt much at all (would take 127 years to pay the goldmans)

That's not the point.

The poster above said that his pension "isn't much." His pension is between 250 and 400k annually and the Goldmans can't touch it.

So, how does how much he "owes" the Goldmans relevant to money they can't touch?

[HENTAI DOUKYUSEI JP]

but i thaught he was not spoken guilty :confused:

time again to educate idiotic twoofers.....
what is the difference between found not guilty against found innocent?

[ronpaulisright]

and the jury members were black ! with no education.

[JimBenArm]

and the jury members were black ! with no education.
They were black? Oh, no wonder they couldn't do things right! Oh, my!

Racist much?

Nah, not a RuPaul supporter...

[defaultdotxbe]

That's not the point.

The poster above said that his pension "isn't much." His pension is between 250 and 400k annually and the Goldmans can't touch it.

So, how does how much he "owes" the Goldmans relevant to money they can't touch?
although they cant garnish it he is under a court order to only spend the money on "ordinary and necessary living expenses" even though they cant garnish his pension i suspect a large amount of it still goes to the goldmans

this has gotten me thinking, using the truther methods of cui bono and following the money, i think there was a conspiracy by the goldmans to bungle the investigation and prosecution, resulting in an acquittal, allowing the goldmans to sue for millions of dollars, and arguably make oj's life worse than if he had gone to prison

[BenBurch]

You know, "beyond a reasonable doubt" means that when a prosecution screws up as badly as they did in that case, killers are freed.

I'd rather that happen than, like what happened here in Illinois, totally innocent people are sent to Death Row because of prosecutors who hid key evidence from the defense, and public defenders who were simply phoning it in.

So, complain about OJ all you like, but if you actually want justice done, you'll try to help free the innocent our broken system sends to their deaths.

[Drudgewire]

They were black? Oh, no wonder they couldn't do things right! Oh, my!

Racist much?

Nah, not a RuPaul supporter...

Simpson Criminal Trial Jury (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Simpson/finaljury.html)


11 of the 12 had at least graduated high school, with most educational levels ranging between some college and having an undergraduate degree.

I can't tell if rpir was trying to be sarcastic there, but it certainly makes me think putting him ignore was not a bad idea.

[Ian Osborne]

i think there was a conspiracy by the goldmans to bungle the investigation and prosecution, resulting in an acquittal, allowing the goldmans to sue for millions of dollars, and arguably make oj's life worse than if he had gone to prison

Couldn't they have sued anyway,with OJ appearing in the dock wearing his prison flannels? If an acquittal in a criminal trial doesn't stop a case being brought to the civil courts, I don't see how a conviction can do so.

[Wolfman]

You know, "beyond a reasonable doubt" means that when a prosecution screws up as badly as they did in that case, killers are freed.

I'd rather that happen than, like what happened here in Illinois, totally innocent people are sent to Death Row because of prosecutors who hid key evidence from the defense, and public defenders who were simply phoning it in.

So, complain about OJ all you like, but if you actually want justice done, you'll try to help free the innocent our broken system sends to their deaths.
Just a quick question, Ben...

I am only posting a hypothetical question here, I admit I don't have any stats or figures upon which to base this, it is simply a question to determine your position in this regard:

Let us say that it could be demonstrated that the number of people who were killed or raped by people who had previously been charged, but found innocent by reason of reasonable doubt, exceeded the number of innocent people who were jailed (or executed).

Would you still hold your position -- and argue that the lives of the fewer innocent people who were unfairly imprisoned outweighed the lives of the greater number of innocent people who were murdered/raped at the hands of criminals who were let free because of technicalities, or prosecutorial incompetence?

I just find this question interesting -- in China, by far the majority of people feel that protecting the public from violent criminals is a greater priority than protecting individuals from unfair imprisonment. Their argument that that the damage that can be inflicted on society by a murderer/rapist far exceeds the damage that will be inflicted on society by imprisoning an innocent man.

[defaultdotxbe]

Couldn't they have sued anyway,with OJ appearing in the dock wearing his prison flannels? If an acquittal in a criminal trial doesn't stop a case being brought to the civil courts, I don't see how a conviction can do so.
its possible, but im sure he would have substantially less income in prison then outside, so the judgement would have been less

[BenBurch]

Just a quick question, Ben...

I am only posting a hypothetical question here, I admit I don't have any stats or figures upon which to base this, it is simply a question to determine your position in this regard:

Let us say that it could be demonstrated that the number of people who were killed or raped by people who had previously been charged, but found innocent by reason of reasonable doubt, exceeded the number of innocent people who were jailed (or executed).

Would you still hold your position -- and argue that the lives of the fewer innocent people who were unfairly imprisoned outweighed the lives of the greater number of innocent people who were murdered/raped at the hands of criminals who were let free because of technicalities, or prosecutorial incompetence?

I just find this question interesting -- in China, by far the majority of people feel that protecting the public from violent criminals is a greater priority than protecting individuals from unfair imprisonment. Their argument that that the damage that can be inflicted on society by a murderer/rapist far exceeds the damage that will be inflicted on society by imprisoning an innocent man.

Even if the number were 100X the total number of innocent people sent to jail, I wouldn't overturn the reasonable doubt standard. However, that WOULD cause me to have the police and prosecutors clean house in a significant way. If they are doing their jobs, you get a better conviction rate on actually guilty people than that. (And we do.)

Reasonable Doubt is one of the most important principles of the American system of rights. If you overturn it, and establish a standard of "preponderance of evidence" then you make it easy for prosecutors to railroad people into jail to spice up their chances in election years. It happens already, of course, but you would just have opened the doors to that abuse and welcomed it in.

MY standard is that I would rather 100 guilty men walk free than ONE innocent man be deprived of life or liberty.

[Loss Leader]

although they cant garnish it he is under a court order to only spend the money on "ordinary and necessary living expenses" even though they cant garnish his pension i suspect a large amount of it still goes to the goldmans


None of OJ's pension goes to the Goldmans. All of it is exempt. To date, they have collected about $500,000.00 through forcing the sale of his memorabilia. That's it.


this has gotten me thinking, using the truther methods of cui bono and following the money, i think there was a conspiracy by the goldmans to bungle the investigation and prosecution, resulting in an acquittal, allowing the goldmans to sue for millions of dollars, and arguably make oj's life worse than if he had gone to prison


The Goldman's would have been able to sue Simpson civilly even if he was found guilty. They would have gotten the same judgment and probably been able to recover about the same amount of money.


its possible, but im sure he would have substantially less income in prison then outside, so the judgement would have been less


Incorrect. The size of the civil judgment was not tied to how much the jury thought Simpson could afford.

[Spindrift]

A quick google finds his NFL pension being listed as anywhere between $22,000 a month ($264,000) and $400,000 a year.

If that "isn't much" then we live on different planets.

I stand corrected, I thought it was about $25,000 per year.

[Spindrift]

I stand corrected, I thought it was about $25,000 per year.

Maybe I wasn't wrong. That $22,000 amount is the total from his NFL pension and an annuity that OJ set up years ago.

Darrell Green retired in 2002 and will get $5805 per month (http://www.askmen.com/sports/business_100/109_sports_business.html) and he played for 20 years in the big money era, OJ did not play that long or earn as much.

So OJ's NFL money is no where near $22,000. His annuity is obviously a pretty good one.

[I Ratant]

...
MY standard is that I would rather 100 guilty men walk free than ONE innocent man be deprived of life or liberty.
.
I i i ,,,,, dunno about that as an absolute.
There's many a guilty person "framed" as it were who really must be kept away from society.
But, the standards for the DA 's office can be worked on.
Some of these guys are criminals themselves, the way they subvert the law, usually for something only political as a goal.
They have no regard for anyone's life but theirs.

[Lensman]

The idiots in the LA DA's office never bothered t check if it is posible to pull a tight leather isotoner glove on OVER latex gloves.

It isn't

I've made this point myself.

Has OJ found the real killer yet?

Everytime he looks in a mirror - if he can bring himself to do that.

[gc051360]

and the jury members were black ! with no education.
This gave me a chuckle.

About OJ...yeah, it was him. He did it.

And, to the overall conspiracy theory element....conspiracy theorists often try to draw a parallel between OJ, and 9-11. I am not sure why.

[Confuseling]

The same limited cultural repertoire that causes them to believe that The Matrix is a work of philosophical majesty?

[HENTAI DOUKYUSEI JP]

something interesting here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxBOeMv2cms&feature=related)

[steve s]

The idiots in the LA DA's office never bothered t check if it is posible to pull a tight leather isotoner glove on OVER latex gloves.

It isn't

You don't even need the latex glove. I mentioned this in a recent thread, it's very easy to fake like a leather glove won't fit. You just spread out your palm a bit and the glove won't slip over it. As soon as I saw O.J. do it during the trial, I got my own leather gloves and tried it for myself. Try it.

Steve S.

[Darth Rotor]

goldman was nicoles friend. I worded it bad.
Goldman was Nicole's friend. You worded it badly.

As to the jury, you can easily find it's ethnic composition on the web, go have a look.

Hint: not all black.

DR

[Hyperviolet]

Ehhh....pardon me, but does anyone believe that O.J. Simpson didn't kill Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman?
Indeed.

I don't think there has been a most obvious case of guilt in history where the accused is deemed innocent.


Firstly, to assume O.J Simpson didn't do it you'd have to accept the defence's ridiculous case that Officers from the LAPD, met at the crime scene (not all even from the same precinct), and decided "Hey, let's risk the death penalty by framing O.J Simpson for this murder. Let's just hope someone doesn't find evidence that points to the real killer."
There is no two ways about it.
It's either O.J Simpson is guilty, or he is innocent and there was an LAPD conspiracy.

Some of the evidence:


Here (http://youtube.com/watch?v=aNaDcpNrDL0) is a phone-call from Nicole to the police. (Not on the night of the murder.)

DNA showed that blood found at the scene of Brown's murder was the same as O.J. Simpson's.

DNA analysis of blood found on one of Simpson's socks identified it as Nicole Brown's.

Blood found on Simpson's driveway.

Simpson’s hair was found on Goldman’s shirt even though Simpson claims never to have seen, let alone met Ronald Goldman.

Goldman's DNA was found in Simpson's car.

Simpson had a fresh cut on his left hand. When questioned by the police where he got it. He answered "I don't know, man."

Simpson had written a suicide note (http://www.cnn.com/US/OJ/suspect/note/index.html).

After the murder, O.J tried to escape police in his Bronco. Footage of the car chase (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScDSZWCevhc). When he was arrested, inside his Bronco was: a fake beard, a passport, and more than $8,000 in cash.


In fact, there is just far too much to list. But i'll say this:
When blood stains were found in your white Bronco, on a pair of socks in your bedroom, at the crime scene, in your driveway and your house, well the jig is up.
Combine that with the getaway from the cops, the mysterious cut on his hand, amongst others, and it's a pretty straight forward case.


Unless some of these unacquainted LAPD Officers really did decide to risk the death penalty and frame Simpson, for some crazy reason....

[dudalb]

wow not even the evidence made it able to get him spoken guilty.
sound like a very good system there in the US :D

Do they have the jury system in your country?
If so, I bet I could find a few cases where juries behaved in just as stupid a manner as the OJ case.

[BenBurch]

.
I i i ,,,,, dunno about that as an absolute.
There's many a guilty person "framed" as it were who really must be kept away from society.
But, the standards for the DA 's office can be worked on.
Some of these guys are criminals themselves, the way they subvert the law, usually for something only political as a goal.
They have no regard for anyone's life but theirs.

At the bottom of that slippery slope live Josef Stalin and Wilhelm Frick...

[TexasJack]

You don't even need the latex glove. I mentioned this in a recent thread, it's very easy to fake like a leather glove won't fit. You just spread out your palm a bit and the glove won't slip over it. As soon as I saw O.J. do it during the trial, I got my own leather gloves and tried it for myself. Try it.

Steve S.

Plus in the new tell-all book, he was told not to take his arthritis medication so his hands would swell.

No doubt, guilty.

[defaultdotxbe]

Incorrect. The size of the civil judgment was not tied to how much the jury thought Simpson could afford.
the judgement i think is supposed to be based on medical costs (he had none since he was dead at the scene) burial costs, future earning potential (IIRC goldman didnt really seem on the fast track anywhere) and pain and suffering (which i can see wopuld be high) however 33 million still seems pretty excessive

[moon1969]

"If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit"

-Johnnie Cochran-

[applecorped]

MY standard is that I would rather 100 guilty men walk free than ONE innocent man be deprived of life or liberty.

Hypothetical:

100 child molesters going free over one hippie railroaded for pot is okay with you?

[applecorped]

I didn't mean to imply it was okay with you personally but I've always had a problem with that comment.

[gumboot]

"If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit"

-Johnnie Cochran-


The quote was "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit".

"It" referred to the prosecution case, not the glove.

[Bobert]

I have not read the book but a couple of years back saw an interview with the auther of
OJ Is Guilty But Not Of Murder
http://www.amazon.com/O-J-Guilty-But-Not-Murder/dp/0970205805
The auther argues that it was OJ's son that killed them.

[gumboot]

Firstly, to assume O.J Simpson didn't do it you'd have to accept the defence's ridiculous case that Officers from the LAPD, met at the crime scene (not all even from the same precinct), and decided "Hey, let's risk the death penalty by framing O.J Simpson for this murder. Let's just hope someone doesn't find evidence that points to the real killer."



I don't think this is necessarily true. All of the key evidence was uncovered by Mark Fuhrman so really you would only need him to plant evidence. When asked at trial if he had falsified police reports, or manufactured or planted evidence for the investigation he pleaded the 5th Amendment, which seems a very odd thing for a lead detective to do in such a case.

I think there are questions with some of the evidence - particularly the bloody sock, bloody glove and missing blood taken from O J Simpson.

Let's not forget that police departments (and specifically the LAPD) have been known to falsify evidence to gain a conviction in the past - so it's not an entirely fanciful scenario. I don't think it's necessarily a case of "framing" Simpson, more likely would be that detectives were convinced he had done it but didn't have enough evidence to prove it.

I find the O J Simpson case interesting because I see a lot of parallels to the Bain murder trial in New Zealand in which the conviction of David Bain relied heavily on DNA evidence that personally I feel is suspect. The Privy Council overturned the trial last year and he's going to be retried in what will probably be the most high profile murder case in New Zealand.

It's similar in that on the surface it looks like a slam dunk case, the police decided who was guilty at the outset, but certain aspects of the case bring this into doubt, yet the defense's alternative theories seem far-fetched.

I wonder what anyone's thoughts are on the two alternative theories - the "hitman" one (implying the two of them were involved over their head with drug dealers and that others close to them had been murdered in similar ways leading up to their murders) and the theory by William Dear that Jason Simpson committed the murders.

I'm not familiar with either alternative theory (and I haven't read Dear's book) was wondering if someone has.

ETA. It should also be pointed out that the book If I Did It was written by Pablo Fenjves who is a ghostwriter and was Nicole Simpson's neighbour, and was not written by O J Simpson.

[theprestige]

Hypothetical:

100 child molesters going free over one hippie railroaded for pot is okay with you?
I think a much more interesting hypothetical is, what if the Innocent Man is you?

Say you find yourself sitting in a cell, innocent of the crime of which you have been convicted, considering whether or not your conviction is worth it?

Is the system good enough, that you would accept your own incarceration as an innocent man (or even execution, in the case of a capital crime), as a reasonable tradeoff for ensuring that ten, or a hundred, or a thousand, or however many guilty men are brought to justice.

Even the best system isn't perfect. Even the best system will make mistakes. What if that mistake were you? Would the system still be good enough to meet your standards?

Personally, I'd say yes. I've thought it over many times, and I can't figure out any other way. If I'm going to urge an imperfect justice system on my fellow citizens, then I have to be willing to put my own life on the line, if that's what it takes. (Naturally, I'd fight my own wrongful conviction every step of the way.)

[BenBurch]

Hypothetical:

100 child molesters going free over one hippie railroaded for pot is okay with you?

If that is what it takes to ensure a government that assures Rights and Liberty, yes.

But you know that's a straw man; The system would be horrifically broken if the ratio were like that, and we'd find a means of fixing it within the Constitution.

[theauthor]

Hypothetical:

100 child molesters going free over one hippie railroaded for pot is okay with you?


It's very easy to talk about other people. If you were the innocent man being railroaded would you think "great, i'm glad im in jail with 100 child molesters, at least they didn't go free"?

[BenBurch]

It's very easy to talk about other people. If you were the innocent man being railroaded would you think "great, i'm glad im in jail with 100 child molesters, at least they didn't go free"?

And without children to molest in jail, who do we think the most likely molestation target would be, eh?

[gumboot]

Hypothetical:

100 child molesters going free over one hippie railroaded for pot is okay with you?


This is a really bad appeal to emotion.

How about 100 pot dealers going free over one loving father railroaded for child molestation?

[theauthor]

Personally, I don't think OJ was guilty. Just look at his reaction when the verdict is read out.

But even if he was guilty, the jury did the only thing they could do.

[TexasJack]

Personally, I don't think OJ was guilty. Just look at his reaction when the verdict is read out.

But even if he was guilty, the jury did the only thing they could do.

You can't be serious. The jury took a few hours to come to a verdict for a trial that took months, with the overwhelming evidence pointing to guilt. They had more physical and circumstantial evidence of any murder trial before or since. The defense to a great job hand-picking a jury that wouldn't have convicted him if he did it right in front him. The irony is that the prosecutors changed the jurisdiction, otherwise he would have fried. The civil trial was in the correct jurisdiction, Santa Monica, and he was found guilty.

[Drudgewire]

Man I hate it when I agree with Ben on social issues. :mad:

[Mr.Herbert]

Personally, I don't think OJ was guilty. Just look at his reaction when the verdict is read out.

But even if he was guilty, the jury did the only thing they could do.

1. I believe that OJ was tipped off by a guard prior to going back to the court room. (he knew he was found not guilty.)

2. The jury did exactly what Truthers do. Ignored evidence.

[Hyperviolet]

I don't think this is necessarily true. All of the key evidence was uncovered by Mark Fuhrman so really you would only need him to plant evidence. When asked at trial if he had falsified police reports, or manufactured or planted evidence for the investigation he pleaded the 5th Amendment, which seems a very odd thing for a lead detective to do in such a case.

I think there are questions with some of the evidence - particularly the bloody sock, bloody glove and missing blood taken from O J Simpson.

Let's not forget that police departments (and specifically the LAPD) have been known to falsify evidence to gain a conviction in the past - so it's not an entirely fanciful scenario. I don't think it's necessarily a case of "framing" Simpson, more likely would be that detectives were convinced he had done it but didn't have enough evidence to prove it.

I find the O J Simpson case interesting because I see a lot of parallels to the Bain murder trial in New Zealand in which the conviction of David Bain relied heavily on DNA evidence that personally I feel is suspect. The Privy Council overturned the trial last year and he's going to be retried in what will probably be the most high profile murder case in New Zealand.

It's similar in that on the surface it looks like a slam dunk case, the police decided who was guilty at the outset, but certain aspects of the case bring this into doubt, yet the defense's alternative theories seem far-fetched.



I wonder what anyone's thoughts are on the two alternative theories - the "hitman" one (implying the two of them were involved over their head with drug dealers and that others close to them had been murdered in similar ways leading up to their murders) and the theory by William Dear that Jason Simpson committed the murders.

I'm not familiar with either alternative theory (and I haven't read Dear's book) was wondering if someone has.


There is no evidence behind the flimsy theory that Fuhrman planted O.J.'s blood at the scene of the crime, or that he planted blood in O.J.'s car.
All the defence had was that Fuhrman lied about making a racist remark in the past 10 years. From there they derived: Fuhrman is a racist, and therefore framed O.J Simpson for the murder of his ex-wife by faking DNA at the crime scene.

It doesn't follow. Not even close.
But let's talk more about this idea that Fuhrman planted all this evidence.

Okay:
When questioned, the detectives told Simpson that they found blood in his car, in his home, and on the driveway, and when they asked him why that was so, he answered that he cut himself the previous night, and was dripping blood while he was getting ready to leave for Chicago, which we know was somewhere between 10:00pm and 11:00pm on the night on the murders. And we know from the testimony of several eyewitnesses that the murders occurred somewhere between 10:15 and 10:40 that very night. Simpson admits, then, that around the exact time of the murders - which was around 16 hours before the police removed blood from his arm and would have had any chance to sprinkle it (which is obviously flat out nonsense, anyway) - that he was dripping blood in his car and home and on his driveway. So even if we bought the defence's ridiculous conspiracy theory that the police bizarrely tried to frame Simpson by planting his blood here - which didn't happen, and there isn't a shred of evidence that it did - it still couldn't be more obvious he is guilty. Why?
Because whatever blood that would have to be planted had to be in addition to the blood of Simpson that was already in his car and home and his driveway on the night of the murders.
We know this, because Simpson, from his own mouth, told us so.

And when the Detectives asked him how he cut himself on the night of the murders, his words were: "I don't know."
So what we have is a deep cut on the night on the murder, deep enough that Detective Vannater and Detective Lange told us that it required bandaging. A cut on the night of the murders deep enough to spill blood all over his driveway, all over his car, and all over his house, and yet; he claims he has no idea where he got it?
What even is the likelihood of Simpson innocently cutting himself very badly around the very same time Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman were murdered?
When you cut yourself, unless you're in a frantic and frenzied state - which Simpson obviously was - you stop the bleeding with a handkerchief or you put on a bandage. You don't just bleed all over the place.

Within minutes of the time of the murders, there is blood over Simpson's car, home, and estate by his own admission.



All the evidence points to one man.
I'm sorry but it isn't possible for him to be innocent.

[theauthor]

You can't be serious. The jury took a few hours to come to a verdict for a trial that took months, with the overwhelming evidence pointing to guilt. They had more physical and circumstantial evidence of any murder trial before or since. The defense to a great job hand-picking a jury that wouldn't have convicted him if he did it right in front him. The irony is that the prosecutors changed the jurisdiction, otherwise he would have fried. The civil trial was in the correct jurisdiction, Santa Monica, and he was found guilty.

Ah right, so do you want to get rid of all juries or just pick and choose which ones to ignore?

[Drudgewire]

2. The jury did exactly what Truthers do. Ignored evidence.

They really didn't. They did what a jury was supposed to do, which was follow the judge's instructions and only weigh the evidence they had in front of them. Lots of things we saw on a daily basis were not allowed into evidence, the prosecution did a terrible job based in part on conceit ("slam dunk"), and there was a judge who cared more about how he'd be portrayed on late night television than he did with the rule of law.

The system failed, the jury didn't. And the fact OJ's legal team was AWESOME certainly helped a bit.

[Mr.Herbert]

The "Ugly Ass" Bruno Magli's


Remember the bloody footprints were identified as made from a pair of Bruno Magli shoes? These shoes are VERY expensive and pretty rare. The large size 12 prints matched Simpson’s shoe size.
Simpson swore under oath that "I never would have owned those ugly-ass shoes!"

Three weeks later, a reporter came forward with multiple exposures of Simpson wearing the shoes at a baseball game a few years earlier.

Yeah... he is SO innocent.

[Mr.Herbert]

Drudge,

I agree with you.... well most of it.

What the prosecution presented was more than MOST murder trials have.

[I Ratant]

...

The system failed, the jury didn't. And the fact OJ's legal team was AWESOME certainly helped a bit.
.
Yeah, that collection of slime has to be really proud.

[EventHorizon]

My favorite part of that trial is when OJ put on the gloves and held his gloved hands up to show the jury. So we have gloves, the gloves worn by the killer, being worn by OJ, fitting a bit snugly (understandable since he was wearing rubber gloves) but fitting on his hands nonetheless. And his defense team proceeds to tell the jury that the gloves that they have just seen on the defendant's hands did not fit on the defendant's hands. Brilliant defense! The "you didn't see what you actually saw" defense. What kind of Jedi mind tricks were they using?

[StoneWT]

The Prosecution Responds: An O.J. Simpson Trial Prosecutor Reveals What Really Happened
by Hank M. Goldberg

I would go with stupid jurors that didn't understand the difference between a reasonable doubt and a flimsy, conspiracy theory 'what if' doubt. Hank did a great job with his book and shows why the 'problems' raised by Bailey and others are simply hokum.

[Hyperviolet]

My favorite part of that trial is when OJ put on the gloves and held his gloved hands up to show the jury. So we have gloves, the gloves worn by the killer, being worn by OJ, fitting a bit snugly (understandable since he was wearing rubber gloves) but fitting on his hands nonetheless. And his defense team proceeds to tell the jury that the gloves that they have just seen on the defendant's hands did not fit on the defendant's hands. Brilliant defense! The "you didn't see what you actually saw" defense. What kind of Jedi mind tricks were they using?

Why O.J. was allowed to put the gloves on himself I have no idea.


I mean they were Simpson's actual glove size.
Had they shrunk, or had Simpson simply not pulled them on correctly, i'm not sure.

[TexasJack]

Ah right, so do you want to get rid of all juries or just pick and choose which ones to ignore?

No, I want an impartial jury to review the evidence in a responsible manner without bias. A verdict in a few hours is a jury that made up their minds without reviewing the evidence, which overwhelmingly pointed to his guilt. They chose to ignore DNA, footprints, etc. An impartial jury would have found him guilty, as the one did in Santa Monica.

[BenBurch]

Man I hate it when I agree with Ben on social issues. :mad:

The foundations of American Rights aren't a social issue!

How much to tax people? Whether we have public schools? THOSE are social issues.

[BenBurch]

.
Yeah, that collection of slime has to be really proud.

If some day you are accused of a crime you'll be wishing you had you a BUCKET of that sort of "slime."

Any criminal deserves the best defense the law allows no matter how vile they are.

[Whiplash]

The idiots in the LA DA's office never bothered t check if it is posible to pull a tight leather isotoner glove on OVER latex gloves.

It isn't

Ya know, it's not just that though. Anyone that's seen the footage can clearly see that he's spreading his fingers wide and making an physical effort to make it very hard to pull the glove on. Not at all in a subtle manner either. For years after I would do an "impression of OJ" for my friends when I'd put gloves on, mimicking his pathetic attempt to make it look like it was just impossible to pull them on at all. He may be a believable actor in some things, but that was just pathetic and over the top.

[I Ratant]

...

Any criminal deserves the best defense the law allows no matter how vile they are.
.
)The defendant isn't a criminal until convicted of a crime.)
That is a problem.
When must a lawyer distance himself from disgusting tactics to get a guilty man off?
The guilt oozed out of every piece of evidence.
The defense slimed underneath that to addle the retards on the jury, thru subterfuge, not thru legal argumentation.
The prosecution was so impressed with themselves they never bothered to point out the untruths the defense was presenting.
"Contaminated" for instance, doesn't mean "altered".

[Hyperviolet]

The "Ugly Ass" Bruno Magli's


Remember the bloody footprints were identified as made from a pair of Bruno Magli shoes? These shoes are VERY expensive and pretty rare. The large size 12 prints matched Simpson’s shoe size.
Simpson swore under oath that "I never would have owned those ugly-ass shoes!"

Three weeks later, a reporter came forward with multiple exposures of Simpson wearing the shoes at a baseball game a few years earlier.

Yeah... he is SO innocent.

He also lied when he said:
"Never once did I ever hit her with my fist, ever … Never once have I ever slapped Nicole."

New Year's Day 1989:
When after a frantic 911 call, Officer Edwards found a bruised and bleeding Nicole hiding in the bushes, wearing only a bra and sweatpants, crying: "He's going to kill me! He's going to kill me!"
This incident, despite seeing him prosecuted for spousal battery, obviously slipped Simpson's mind.

[applecorped]

This is a really bad appeal to emotion.

How about 100 pot dealers going free over one loving father railroaded for child molestation?

How about 100 serial killers vs. one loving father railroaded for child abuse? That wasn't really my point.

[Wolfman]

MY standard is that I would rather 100 guilty men walk free than ONE innocent man be deprived of life or liberty....even if having those 100 guilty mean walking around free means that even more people are deprived of their life and liberty, by those same criminals?

"I'd rather have five women raped and murdered than have one innocent man deprived of life and liberty"?

This is probably better suited to separate topic...

[defaultdotxbe]

He also lied when he said:
"Never once did I ever hit her with my fist, ever … Never once have I ever slapped Nicole."

New Year's Day 1989:
When after a frantic 911 call, Officer Edwards found a bruised and bleeding Nicole hiding in the bushes, wearing only a bra and sweatpants, crying: "He's going to kill me! He's going to kill me!"
This incident, despite seeing him prosecuted for spousal battery, obviously slipped Simpson's mind.
it could be a matter of semantics, did OJ use his fist in this incident? lol, it all depends on what the definition of the word "is" is :)

[TexasJack]

If some day you are accused of a crime you'll be wishing you had you a BUCKET of that sort of "slime."

Any criminal deserves the best defense the law allows no matter how vile they are.

Isn't the best defense the law allows dependent on the money you can fork out?

[ConspiRaider]

In 1994, I lived 3 miles (as the crow flies) from the Nicole / Ron murder scene. I still do today - just in a different place. What's odd about this is that one of the scumbag Simpson lawyers - Flea Bailey - was involved in another trial where the guilty man also got to go free (although he served prison time on the first trial with the Guilty verdict). That was the Sam Sheppard murder case of 1954, retried in '66 and the idiot jury returned a Not Guilty verdict. We lived 2 miles (as the crow flies) from that murder scene. So the crows followed me across the country.

The murders happened late Sunday night, June 12th, 1994.

That first week, really the first few days, almost no one in L.A. thought Simpson did this. If the cops did - no public indications. Just another one of those horrific murders, like the Tate-La Bianca murders by the Charles Manson group 25 years earlier. It was mentioned on the news, of course, and I was closely following the story in the L.A. Times. As the week wore on - especially by Thursday - major doubts of Simpson's non-involvement were becoming known. The TeeVee kept showing this scene that week of Simpson being handcuffed, but that was later claimed to be accidental or a misunderstanding. Nevertheless - it didn't take long to see where this was headed. Still - being skeptical and of course not wanting Simpson to be the culprit - I kept an open mind.

But that Friday when Simpson failed to turn himself in on his own recognizance, then took off south in his white Ford Bronco with the thousands in cash, the fake beard, the gun: How can anyone ignore those obvious actions of a guilty person? And then his discovery on the road and that totally freaky drive back to Brentwood, where he's holding the gun to his head. Only in L.A.

Still - I was looking forward to the trial. I suppose I was like a lot of people in Los Angeles and by that I mean, hoping to get picked for the jury. Lots of folks talking about that, wondering if it could happen.

This happened at the intersection of Bundy and Dorothy, and my acting teacher and friend lived a block away, on Dorothy. We immediately talked about it, of course, and she mentioned to me that through her connections she was informed that Simpson had already admitted to the killings to his first lawyer. Of course when the publicity seeking rat scumbag lawyer Dream Team came in, they put a plug in that immediately. Had him say "absolutely 100% not guilty", I think were the words he used at the pre-trial hearing.

But, the trial proceeded and I saw every bit of it on TeeVee, then the commentary. The prosecution didn't screw this up. Regardless of the mistakes they made - and every trial has mistakes - there was far far more than enough evidence for any objective jury to convict this guy. An absolute no-brainer.

However, other issues were involved as we all know. Mostly, race. Los Angeles was only 2 years further along from the lethal race riots of 1992. Still fresh on the mind of the city. You had the charismatic scumbag Johnny Cochrane who was going to exploit that to the hilt. He was adored by at least some members of the jury. I knew Simpson would go free after one of the jurors was let go about halfway through, and they interviewed her on TV that night. Black woman, absolutely gaga for Cochrane. Just in love with him, heaping praise on him while discounting every single piece of damning evidence from the prosecution. As if it was all completely meaningless. That's the day I knew he'd walk.

Ironically, Simpson never did much at all to give something back to the community from where he had come. I'd been reading Jim Brown's 1988 book Out Of Bounds just prior to this, and Brown nailed Simpson several times on snubbing Brown's requests to appear with him in the neighborhood help programs with which he was involved. Simpson never came. In Brown's words, he stayed solidly in the "white" world.

When the jury had their verdict but it was decided to prolong the drama over the weekend, most people thought it was a guilty verdict. Of all the "expert" people whom the pundits interviewed - it was only Ira Reiner (former D.A.) who declared with absolute certainty that Simpson would walk. Obviously he knew whereof he spoke. The guy who nearly cut off his ex-wife's head, and then killed the friend come to investigate / assist - reenters the world free and clear from prison.

A year to the day after the murders, my acting teacher and I walked down the street to that intersection. There was a streetlight right across from the building where it happened, but the front of the building was mostly shrouded by trees. So the shadows thrown by those trees dropped the whole front of the place in inky blackness. You could see how this happened to where, by sight anyway, it could go unnoticed even by someone walking by on the sidewalk.

Because of rubberneckers and gawkers and traffic tie-ups, that building was torn down some time ago. Same thing with Sam Sheppard's house - they levelled it.

[BenBurch]

Isn't the best defense the law allows dependent on the money you can fork out?

Not if we properly fund the public defender's office. I see a COMPETENT public defense to be what the framers intended, not a phoned-in one like we usually get now.

[BenBurch]

...even if having those 100 guilty mean walking around free means that even more people are deprived of their life and liberty, by those same criminals?

"I'd rather have five women raped and murdered than have one innocent man deprived of life and liberty"?

This is probably better suited to separate topic...

If we allow the government the power to imprison who they wish, which is really what you are asking for here, we allow a Gulag.

Now, maybe YOU want to live in the Alaskan equivalent of a Siberian Gulag, but I certainly don't!

[OldTigerCub]

It's not exactly evidence, but in a book that hit the stores today (May 12), Mike Gilbert, a memorabilia dealer and friend of O.J. Simpson, wrote of a virtual confession by Simpson which he made while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. From KBS Radio (http://www.kbsradio.ca/news/music/55/717241)website:

Memorabilia dealer Mike Gilbert, who has profited from O.J. Simpson over the years, has written a new tell-all book in which he claims that Simpson confessed to the 1994 murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, and that he helped the former football star beat his conviction for the crime. Gilbert's book, titled How I Helped O.J. Get Away With Murder: The Shocking Inside Story of Violence, Loyalty, Regret and Remorse, is due in stores today (May 12th).

One particular detail concerns where the knife came from:
In the book, Gilbert claims that weeks after the end of Simpson's sensational murder trial, he was at his former friend's Brentwood home when Simpson -- whom Gilbert says had smoked pot, took a sleeping pill and was drinking beer -- confided that on the night of June 12th, 1994, he went to his ex-wife's condominium but did not bring a knife. Simpson told him Nicole Brown Simpson had one in her hand when she opened the door.

According to Gibson, Simpson mumbled, "If she hadn't opened that door with a knife in her hand ... she'd still be alive."

Gilbert also addresses the glove that wouldn't fit:
Gilbert also claims to have helped Simpson bloat his hands so they wouldn't fit the notorious bloody gloves during the trial.

I'm not sure how much credibility I would give to Gilbert, as he has come under criticism for making a profit from the O.J. story, and there are claims that he, himself, has a drug problem:
Simpson lawyer Yale Galanter, who is representing Simpson in his upcoming Las Vegas robbery trial, said Gilbert's claims are patently false. He further told AP that Gilbert is "a delusional drug addict who needs money. He's fallen on very hard times. He is in trouble with the IRS."

But much of what appears in the reviews of the book seems to make sense and fill in a few missing details.

[Mr.D]

This is a really bad appeal to emotion.

How about 100 pot dealers going free over one loving father railroaded for child molestation?

Personally, I've always wondered what happens to the person who committed the crime that the hypothetical innocent was found guilty of. I mean are there really people who feel that letting a guilty man go free AND jailing an innocent is morally preferable to finding a guilty man not guilty?




(of course this assumes the kind of situation where the question is 'who did it?' and not 'was a crime committed?')

</derail>

Anyway, IIRC didn't one of the OJ criminal case jurors admit to ignoring the DNA evidence as "too complicated?"

[gumboot]

I find the contents of this thread quite disheartening. A person is innocent until proven guilty. Period. Arguments such as "in this case he was guilty and the jury were just idiots" (or similar) are outright rejections of the rule of law.

Only fourteen people on this planet have the legal right to declare O J Simpson guilty.

(Actually that makes we wonder... in the US legal system does a judge have the legal authority to tell the jury they must find a defendant guilty or not guilty? Under the British system this does happen, although it is rare. If it cannot happen under the US system only thirteen people have the legal authority to declare O J Simpson guilty.)

"Trial by media" is becoming a sickening reality in this day and age. I can cite examples in my own country of people condemned by the media and the populace regardless of the outcome of the trial.

Make no mistake here, I don't doubt for one second that people who did commit crimes have been found not guilty. My concern is that this media and public attitude that they can second guess the court, reject the court's decision if it does not suit them. We have rejected the rule of law in favour of mob rule, driven by that most immoral and dishonest of all institutions - the media.

What does it really matter now, if you are found not guilty in a court of law, if the media and your society has already condemned you and put the mark of Cain upon your head?

Let's pretend for a moment that O J Simpson did indeed get away with murder (let me reiterate here that I do not pretend to know the answer either way). This is indeed a disturbing prospect, but to my mind it pales in comparison with the millions of people who decided for themselves he was guilty based on the court of public opinion and the media.

Now that disturbs me more than 100 child molesters set free.

Modern western society has prostituted its ethics and integrity to the media.

[fuelair]

His jury believed he was framed in a conspiracy by the police. That's why he was acquitted.
I sincerely hope the members of that jury meet others similarly acquitted in dark alleys.

[fuelair]

goldman was nicoles friend. I worded it bad.actually, I had no interpretation problem with it, but can see how it might confuse.

[fuelair]

Goldman and Simpson never met before Simpson killed him.

This is the part of the case I don't understand. Goldman's blood was found in the Bronco. How can anyone with two brain cells firing not conclude that Simpson had something to do with it?Having seen a reasonable bit of the trial, I do not believe the jury had a collective IQ over 70.

[gumboot]

Anyway, IIRC didn't one of the OJ criminal case jurors admit to ignoring the DNA evidence as "too complicated?"


This wouldn't surprise me; DNA evidence was quite new at the time, and not well understood by laymen. For example I believe some jurors commented "lots of people have the same blood type", not understanding that DNA and blood type were very different things.

A similar situation occurred with the Bain murder trial I mentioned earlier where jurors revealed that they didn't really understand all of the evidence being offered. They basically dismissed a lot of the more technical evidence outright as they felt with the two expert witnesses it became a case of "he said, she said".

Personally were I ever charged with a serious crime that I had not committed I would choose to be tried by a judge and not by a jury of my peers. Were I to be tried for a crime that I had committed I would choose a jury trial.

[fuelair]

Has OJ found the real killer yet?

Every day when he looks at the mirror and sees a big steaming mass of santorum looking back at him.

[defaultdotxbe]

(Actually that makes we wonder... in the US legal system does a judge have the legal authority to tell the jury they must find a defendant guilty or not guilty? Under the British system this does happen, although it is rare. If it cannot happen under the US system only thirteen people have the legal authority to declare O J Simpson guilty.)
i dont think this can happen in the US, although i could be wrong


what interests me inthis thread is people saying OJs lawyers packed the jury with biased people, isnt this as much the prosecutions fault for allowing it to happen?

and blaming the jury for being swayed by by a "what if" hypothetical, rather than reasonable doubt, isnt this the judges fault for not properly explaining the juror's duties?

i mean, OJs defense team did their job, it was the prosectution that (assuming he is guilty) did not do thier job, why blame the defense team?

[BenBurch]

You can have a directed verdict of acquittal.

You can also have jury instructions that will appear to rule out a not guilty verdict (though that is absolutely cause for an appeal if that happens.)

[Mr.D]

(Actually that makes we wonder... in the US legal system does a judge have the legal authority to tell the jury they must find a defendant guilty or not guilty?

There are circumstances in which a judge can "set aside" a guilty verdict returned by a jury (I'm sure the rules, reasons and circumstances vary by jurisdiction etc)

A case in which that happened here in Hawaii a few years ago resulted in literally thousands of people phoning into the courts over the next few days asking if they could skip jury duty since "the judge can do whatever they want anyway."

[Hyperviolet]

I find the contents of this thread quite disheartening. A person is innocent until proven guilty. Period. Arguments such as "in this case he was guilty and the jury were just idiots" (or similar) are outright rejections of the rule of law.

Only fourteen people on this planet have the legal right to declare O J Simpson guilty.

Yes, the legal right. But because these people were in error does not mean we, the public, have to agree with their decision. Fred Goldman has the right to be angry that his son's murderer walked away free.
And Simpson is the murderer.


"Trial by media" is becoming a sickening reality in this day and age. I can cite examples in my own country of people condemned by the media and the populace regardless of the outcome of the trial.

Make no mistake here, I don't doubt for one second that people who did commit crimes have been found not guilty. My concern is that this media and public attitude that they can second guess the court, reject the court's decision if it does not suit them. We have rejected the rule of law in favour of mob rule, driven by that most immoral and dishonest of all institutions - the media.

What does it really matter now, if you are found not guilty in a court of law, if the media and your society has already condemned you and put the mark of Cain upon your head?

I'm not talking about what the media say.
I'm talking about Simpson, himself, admitting that he bled all over his home, car, and estate at the same time Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown were brutally murdered. This is a fact, whether the media report it or not.



Let's pretend for a moment that O J Simpson did indeed get away with murder (let me reiterate here that I do not pretend to know the answer either way).

Let's not pretend anything.
A murderer got away with a horribly callous crime. The supposed "real murderer" of two innocent Americans will never be brought to justice. That guy walked free from a Los Angeles courtroom with a yard-wide smile on his face.
There was no LAPD conspiracy, Mark Furhman did not secretly plant O.J.'s blood in the car that already held O.J.'s blood. Never happened.

This is indeed a disturbing prospect, but to my mind it pales in comparison with the millions of people who decided for themselves he was guilty based on the court of public opinion and the media.

Now that disturbs me more than 100 child molesters set free.

Modern western society has prostituted its ethics and integrity to the media.

I'm not talking about what the media think.
I'm talking about the evidence.
And it only ever pointed to one man.

[gumboot]

You can have a directed verdict of acquittal.

You can also have jury instructions that will appear to rule out a not guilty verdict (though that is absolutely cause for an appeal if that happens.)

There are circumstances in which a judge can "set aside" a guilty verdict returned by a jury (I'm sure the rules, reasons and circumstances vary by jurisdiction etc)

A case in which that happened here in Hawaii a few years ago resulted in literally thousands of people phoning into the courts over the next few days asking if they could skip jury duty since "the judge can do whatever they want anyway."

Thanks for that.

[fuelair]

i dont think this can happen in the US, although i could be wrong


what interests me inthis thread is people saying OJs lawyers packed the jury with biased people, isnt this as much the prosecutions fault for allowing it to happen?

and blaming the jury for being swayed by by a "what if" hypothetical, rather than reasonable doubt, isnt this the judges fault for not properly explaining the juror's duties?

i mean, OJs defense team did their job, it was the prosectution that (assuming he is guilty) did not do thier job, why blame the defense team?the judge was a total dork. Lost control of the court by the third or fourth day of trial.

[TexasJack]

Not if we properly fund the public defender's office. I see a COMPETENT public defense to be what the framers intended, not a phoned-in one like we usually get now.

Even if you have a well-funded public defender's office, the best defense in most instances comes from the defendant with the most dough, hence it will always be disproportional. In the case of O.J., he could afford a great defense team, and IMO, would have been found guilty by even the most competent public defender's office, even with the jury in the O.J. trial.

[gc051360]

i dont think this can happen in the US, although i could be wrong


what interests me inthis thread is people saying OJs lawyers packed the jury with biased people, isnt this as much the prosecutions fault for allowing it to happen?

and blaming the jury for being swayed by by a "what if" hypothetical, rather than reasonable doubt, isnt this the judges fault for not properly explaining the juror's duties?

i mean, OJs defense team did their job, it was the prosectution that (assuming he is guilty) did not do thier job, why blame the defense team?

Yes, it was the prosecutions fault. They completely botched it.

[Mr.D]

I find the contents of this thread quite disheartening. A person is innocent until proven guilty. Period. Arguments such as "in this case he was guilty and the jury were just idiots" (or similar) are outright rejections of the rule of law.

Now THIS is a conundrum.

What does one do when the rule of law, morality and scientific truth conflict?

In the legal sense, OJ Simpson is not guilty; a jury found reasonable doubt in the evidence presented to them by the prosecution.

On the other hand, I am aware of no credible argument in which the available evidence (which is a different set from what was presented to the jury) evaluated rationally supports any theory other than his guilt.

What is the skeptic to do morally? Discuss ... (but start a thread in the appropriate forum to do it)

[defaultdotxbe]

What is the skeptic to do morally? Discuss ... (but start a thread in the appropriate forum to do it)
what do you do? make sure you always show up when your summoned for jury duty, to make sure the guilty are found guilty :)

[David Wong]

Innocent Until Proven Guilty is the rule inside the courtroom. There is nothing that says we have to obey it in our private opinions and discussions.

All of the information I have seen about the case says OJ is guilty.

And don't be too hard on the prosecution. Any time you have a murder with 1) no witness and 2) no murder weapon, you've got a tough prosecution. All that circumstantial evidence is like a house of cards that a good defense attorney can bring tumbling down.

[ConspiRaider]

This wouldn't surprise me; DNA evidence was quite new at the time, and not well understood by laymen. For example I believe some jurors commented "lots of people have the same blood type", not understanding that DNA and blood type were very different things.

I watched the trial - all of it. And I lived in the city where this happened (still do). The prosecution, KNOWING that a jury could be overwhelmed by the sciency DNA evidence - went WAY out of their way to break it down into easily understandable terms. I remember that specifically, and I clearly recall the woman who provided the DNA testimony for the prosecution. She was impressive. She did a very good job to make DNA analysis comprehensible to anyone who had an average IQ and was paying attention. The jury understood the DNA evidence. They simply chose to ignore the whole lot of it.

There were other dynamics at work in this trial. That the trial got moved from the Santa Monica Courthouse to the downtown Los Angeles Courthouse was big, and a mistake by the prosecution. That took the concept of "jury by his peers" and threw it right out the window. Simpson was upscale, rich, a celebrity, knew the cops, had the kind of life most of us only read about. There was a greater chance of drawing a more resembling pool of jurors from the more tony Santa Monica than from the gritty city of Los Angeles. By getting this downtown and with a different economic class of potential jurors, the defense could rely upon the hero-worship concept, the awe of celebrity, and play to the black pre-conception that Simpson was set up by white cops.

Race was HUGE in this trial. It was an opportunity for "getback", for the Rodney King travesty up in Simi Valley 2 years earlier. The April 1992 riots were an immediately reactive getback. This was an official one, not to be squandered. And exploited fully by the Scum Team. That's the reason Flea Bailey was eventually allowed to say the N-word in the trial, and he made every utterance of such count.

The work situation: Cochran was formerly a BOSS over Ito the judge years before when Cochran was on the district attorney's team! And he slyly worked that in, to get rulings to go his way. Cochran was an exceedingly slick lawyer, skilled in all that political underplay. Probably no one else could have convinced the judge to let in some inflammatory race table-setting (re: Mark Fuhrman). Reminder: Defense attorneys are NOT interested in truth. They are ONLY interested in getting their client off, or getting charges knocked down, or plea bargaining a deal, or... by whatever means necessary. Lie, cheat, obscure - whatever they can get away with. Cochran was at the top of the game in that regard.

The jury's gender: That was a wrong guess by the prosecution. It was 10 women, 2 men. 9 blacks, 2 whites, 1 Hispanic. This was a crime based on a buildup of domestic violence over time, jealousy, Simpson's mindset that he "owned" Nicole regardless and forever, and so forth. The prosecution figured a largely female jury would be able to relate and be sympathetic to Nicole. Nope! In fact, female black jurors, according to the defense's projections, would discount the violence entirely and harbor negative thoughts towards Nicole. Cochran knew this - Marcia Clarke didn't. Advantage defense.

[Brainache]

@ David Wong: Yep. I think Rumpole would have gotten OJ off as well.

[TexasJack]

I watched the trial - all of it. And I lived in the city where this happened (still do). The prosecution, KNOWING that a jury could be overwhelmed by the sciency DNA evidence - went WAY out of their way to break it down into easily understandable terms. I remember that specifically, and I clearly recall the woman who provided the DNA testimony for the prosecution. She was impressive. She did a very good job to make DNA analysis comprehensible to anyone who had an average IQ and was paying attention. The jury understood the DNA evidence. They simply chose to ignore the whole lot of it.

There were other dynamics at work in this trial. That the trial got moved from the Santa Monica Courthouse to the downtown Los Angeles Courthouse was big, and a mistake by the prosecution. That took the concept of "jury by his peers" and threw it right out the window. Simpson was upscale, rich, a celebrity, knew the cops, had the kind of life most of us only read about. There was a greater chance of drawing a more resembling pool of jurors from the more tony Santa Monica than from the gritty city of Los Angeles. By getting this downtown and with a different economic class of potential jurors, the defense could rely upon the hero-worship concept, the awe of celebrity, and play to the black pre-conception that Simpson was set up by white cops.

Race was HUGE in this trial. It was an opportunity for "getback", for the Rodney King travesty up in Simi Valley 2 years earlier. The April 1992 riots were an immediately reactive getback. This was an official one, not to be squandered. And exploited fully by the Scum Team. That's the reason Flea Bailey was eventually allowed to say the N-word in the trial, and he made every utterance of such count.

The work situation: Cochran was formerly a BOSS over Ito the judge years before when Cochran was on the district attorney's team! And he slyly worked that in, to get rulings to go his way. Cochran was an exceedingly slick lawyer, skilled in all that political underplay. Probably no one else could have convinced the judge to let in some inflammatory race table-setting (re: Mark Fuhrman). Reminder: Defense attorneys are NOT interested in truth. They are ONLY interested in getting their client off, or getting charges knocked down, or plea bargaining a deal, or... by whatever means necessary. Lie, cheat, obscure - whatever they can get away with. Cochran was at the top of the game in that regard.

The jury's gender: That was a wrong guess by the prosecution. It was 10 women, 2 men. 9 blacks, 2 whites, 1 Hispanic. This was a crime based on a buildup of domestic violence over time, jealousy, Simpson's mindset that he "owned" Nicole regardless and forever, and so forth. The prosecution figured a largely female jury would be able to relate and be sympathetic to Nicole. Nope! In fact, female black jurors, according to the defense's projections, would discount the violence entirely and harbor negative thoughts towards Nicole. Cochran knew this - Marcia Clarke didn't. Advantage defense.

Great post, in a nutshell that sums up what happened. It was a relief to know that a couple of the "Dream Team" lawyers had a conscience. Shapiro, for one, stated that Cochran had pulled the race card "from the bottom of the deck".

[Kestrel]

This wouldn't surprise me; DNA evidence was quite new at the time, and not well understood by laymen. For example I believe some jurors commented "lots of people have the same blood type", not understanding that DNA and blood type were very different things.

A similar situation occurred with the Bain murder trial I mentioned earlier where jurors revealed that they didn't really understand all of the evidence being offered. They basically dismissed a lot of the more technical evidence outright as they felt with the two expert witnesses it became a case of "he said, she said".

It's a mistake to assume that an expert witness is always correct. We all assume that fingerprint matches are an exact science from watching TV crime dramas. But the experts don't always get it right.

For example, the FBI fingerprint experts that linked Brandon Mayfield (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi-0411140299nov14,0,3336405.story) to the Madrid Train Bombing.

Spanish police in May told the FBI that its examiners were wrong, the bureau immediately became defensive, sending the chiefs of its latent-print unit to Spain to explain how the FBI was correct.

"This was interesting," the report noted, "considering that the identification is filled with dissimilarities that were easily observed when a detailed analysis of the latent print was conducted."

The case of Stephan Cowans (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/02/02/a_blow_to_the_credibility_of_fingerprint_evidence/) is also interesting.

SEVEN YEARS ago a fingerprint left on a glass of water sent Roxbury resident Stephan Cowans to prison for 30-45 years for shooting a police officer.

Cowans was recently released after startling revelations made it clear that he was not the shooter. DNA tests on clothing left near the crime scene and on a saliva specimen from the glass did not match Cowans's DNA. The prosecution still insisted it had the right guy -- after all, his fingerprint was on that glass. But when that fingerprint was reanalyzed by experts, it turned out not to match Cowans after all.

[AZCat]

In 1994, I lived 3 miles (as the crow flies) from the Nicole / Ron murder scene. I still do today - just in a different place...We lived 2 miles (as the crow flies) from that <The Sam Sheppard murder of 1954 - ed> murder scene. So the crows followed me across the country.

Suuuuuure, "crows" followed you across the country. These wouldn't happen to be crows possessed by a 2000 year old demon?

Say, could you try on this pair of leather isotoner gloves for me? I just wanted to check something...


Because of rubberneckers and gawkers and traffic tie-ups, that building was torn down some time ago. Same thing with Sam Sheppard's house - they levelled it.

You wouldn't know a guy named "Larry" either -right? He also has a habit of "pulling" buildings that are causing him problems.








</sarcasm>, of course. ;)

[gumboot]

Now THIS is a conundrum.

What does one do when the rule of law, morality and scientific truth conflict?

In the legal sense, OJ Simpson is not guilty; a jury found reasonable doubt in the evidence presented to them by the prosecution.

On the other hand, I am aware of no credible argument in which the available evidence (which is a different set from what was presented to the jury) evaluated rationally supports any theory other than his guilt.


Have you read William Dear's book? I don't offer this as a counter argument, I'm just curious. I haven't read the book myself, but Dear obviously feels he offers a plausible explanation. It is worth pointing out that Dear places Simpson at the scene of the crime, but does not identify him as the murderer.

I agree that it is a conundrum. I suppose I am distinguishing between the attitude of society and the attitude of the individual. I have observed a tendency in highly publicised trials for the public to determine guilt or innocence based on media reports before the trial is complete. I have then observed people maintain this position regardless of the ultimate outcome of the trial.

Worse still I have observed society do this as a whole, and yet worse still I have seen society behave towards a defendant based on their own determination after the trial was complete. I cite the example of a teacher in New Zealand who was alleged to have pornography on his school computer. He was crucified in the media prior to the trial, fired from his job, and so forth. It was later concluded that students had put the images on the computer, and he was totally innocent. This finding had no impact on how he was treated by society. He did not get his job back, he was still, as far as society was concerned, a pervert unfit to teach.

Regarding the O J Simpson trial, can something clarify something for me...

It is my understanding that the trial itself was not broadcast on television, but that a reenactment of the trial was recorded each day and broadcast. Is this correct, or am I mistaken?

[ConspiRaider]

Great post, in a nutshell that sums up what happened. It was a relief to know that a couple of the "Dream Team" lawyers had a conscience. Shapiro, for one, stated that Cochran had pulled the race card "from the bottom of the deck".
Thanks TJ.

Yeah, that was a bit of a surprise, and probably was also motivated by the distaste Shapiro had for being the original star - and then being shouldered aside by Cochran. Remember Shapiro's expression when the verdict came in? That dude was PISSED. OFF.

I remember - I'm smiling now thinking about it - when Shapiro was the hero / star and was basking in the media limelight - gonna save the big Hollywood sports figure. Anyway he prominently went to a sporting event - had to be a Dodgers game - and the camera focused on him. There he is on DiamondVision, just smiling away - then the crowd saw him on the screen. And started BOOING. Louder and louder. Shapiro's smile dropped off his face like a three-foot putt. He wanted to crawl into a hole and pull it in after him. :)

[ConspiRaider]

Regarding the O J Simpson trial, can something clarify something for me...

It is my understanding that the trial itself was not broadcast on television, but that a reenactment of the trial was recorded each day and broadcast. Is this correct, or am I mistaken?
You're mistaken. It was the real deal.

[yodaluver28]

Regarding the O J Simpson trial, can something clarify something for me...

It is my understanding that the trial itself was not broadcast on television, but that a reenactment of the trial was recorded each day and broadcast. Is this correct, or am I mistaken?

The entire trial was televised live gavel-to-gavel in the US by CNN, CourtTV, and E! Entertainment Television. Red-letter days, like the opening statements, crucial testimony, and the verdict were carried live on the three major American TV networks. I don't remember which but one of the major networks had a one-hour recap in primetime almost daily which featured short clips of the day's most important moments in the trial.

[Kopji]

The OJ trial was broadcast live, or maybe slightly delayed and edited for the news.

And if I may make a prediction, he is a serial killer and will eventually kill again.

[gumboot]

You're mistaken. It was the real deal.

The entire trial was televised live gavel-to-gavel in the US by CNN, CourtTV, and E! Entertainment Television. Red-letter days, like the opening statements, crucial testimony, and the verdict were carried live on the three major American TV networks. I don't remember which but one of the major networks had a one-hour recap in primetime almost daily which featured short clips of the day's most important moments in the trial.


Thanks guys!

[ConspiRaider]

Suuuuuure, "crows" followed you across the country. These wouldn't happen to be crows possessed by a 2000 year old demon?

Say, could you try on this pair of leather isotoner gloves for me? I just wanted to check something...

You wouldn't know a guy named "Larry" either -right? He also has a habit of "pulling" buildings that are causing him problems.

</sarcasm>, of course. ;)
:) :D ;)

Oh, that F. Lee Bailey. Wish he'd stop following me. Flea really got his taste for celebrity when he did the Sheppard trial, then got involved in the Boston Strangler case with DiSalvo. Patty Hearst, OJ Simpson - Flea likes to land on big cases and suck 'em dry.

[TexasJack]

Thanks TJ.

Yeah, that was a bit of a surprise, and probably was also motivated by the distaste Shapiro had for being the original star - and then being shouldered aside by Cochran. Remember Shapiro's expression when the verdict came in? That dude was PISSED. OFF.

I remember - I'm smiling now thinking about it - when Shapiro was the hero / star and was basking in the media limelight - gonna save the big Hollywood sports figure. Anyway he prominently went to a sporting event - had to be a Dodgers game - and the camera focused on him. There he is on DiamondVision, just smiling away - then the crowd saw him on the screen. And started BOOING. Louder and louder. Shapiro's smile dropped off his face like a three-foot putt. He wanted to crawl into a hole and pull it in after him. :)

LOL, now Shapiro has relegated himself to wills and such http://www.legalzoom.com/

Actually the lawyer that pissed me off the most wasn't Cochran or Bailey, it was OJ''s favorite, Barry Scheck...he tore apart some witnesses, but he was so abrasive and annoying to me in his accusatory cross-examination. But he was effective.

[gumboot]

The OJ trial was broadcast live, or maybe slightly delayed and edited for the news.

And if I may make a prediction, he is a serial killer and will eventually kill again.



This seems highly unlikely. The murders display few characteristics of a serial killer. For example it is exceedingly rare for serial killers to kill people they have (or had) a close relationship with.

[ConspiRaider]

LOL, now Shapiro has relegated himself to wills and such http://www.legalzoom.com/

Actually the lawyer that pissed me off the most wasn't Cochran or Bailey, it was OJ''s favorite, Barry Scheck...he tore apart some witnesses, but he was so abrasive and annoying to me in his accusatory cross-examination. But he was effective.
Well that certainly, that LegalZoom, seems a more respectable endeavor for Bob. Where are they now, indeed.

You nailed it on Scheck. I hated him with a passion. Lying weasel. Then let's see there was Peter Neufeld I think was his name? He was sparingly used. You know the weird thing about Cochran is that I did NOT hate him, even though I hated what he was doing. I guess that was simply part of Cochran's charm - that likability - none of the others on the defense team had it. I didn't even like Clarke, she didn't handle this nearly as well as she was expected to. I liked Chris Darden, and in fact his book, In Contempt, is the only one I ever bought on the Simpson trial. He referred to Simpson simply as A**hole, throughout. Once in the hallway of the courthouse, he and A**hole were kind of body-butting each other, like a couple of rams knocking heads! :)

[TexasJack]

This seems highly unlikely. The murders display few characteristics of a serial killer. For example it is exceedingly rare for serial killers to kill people they have (or had) a close relationship with.

I don't think he is serial killer either, though I believe he is a sociopath, which has landed him in trouble again in Vegas. His extreme narcissism, and the feeling that he is above the law, will land him in trouble again and again.

[Mr.D]

Have you read William Dear's book? I don't offer this as a counter argument, I'm just curious.


I have not, but if it's decently reviewed it may make it to the bottom of my (way too big) to-read pile.

I agree that it is a conundrum. I suppose I am distinguishing between the attitude of society and the attitude of the individual.


I'm wasn't disagreeing with you, merely expanding on the point that opining or commenting on the verdict and rational discussion on what the "correct" one was is not necessarily a "rejection of the rule of law."


I have observed a tendency in highly publicised trials for the public to determine guilt or innocence based on media reports before the trial is complete.


For me, the distaste comes from the seeming attitude of some of the media and society that the publics "right to know" somehow translates to "right to know this very second in every sordid detail along with ill-informed, salacious, specious, vacuous and inflammatory commentary." And that said right trumps the rights of those directly involved to justice.

There are surely better ways to balance everyone's rights than epitomized by some of the highly publicized trials and cases of recent years.

[BenBurch]

Even if you have a well-funded public defender's office, the best defense in most instances comes from the defendant with the most dough, hence it will always be disproportional. In the case of O.J., he could afford a great defense team, and IMO, would have been found guilty by even the most competent public defender's office, even with the jury in the O.J. trial.

Well, by all means! We can save a lot of money and just let the police decide who to jail and for how long and who to execute.

:sarcasm:

[gumboot]

For me, the distaste comes from the seeming attitude of some of the media and society that the publics "right to know" somehow translates to "right to know this very second in every sordid detail along with ill-informed, salacious, specious, vacuous and inflammatory commentary." And that said right trumps the rights of those directly involved to justice.


Very well said.

[timhau]

I loved reading your accounts of the case, Conspi, but I must take exception to this:


But that Friday when Simpson failed to turn himself in on his own recognizance, then took off south in his white Ford Bronco with the thousands in cash, the fake beard, the gun: How can anyone ignore those obvious actions of a guilty person?

I think they're the actions of a guy who is in panic (and probably not overly bright). Panic is consistent with guilt, but doesn't necessarily imply it (we have plenty of other evidence that does, though). I don't think there's 'guilty behavior' and 'innocent behavior' as such -- that is, behavior that we can use to determine innocence or guilt when we're dealing with people we don't know.

[Drudgewire]

I watched the trial - all of it. And I lived in the city where this happened (still do). The prosecution, KNOWING that a jury could be overwhelmed by the sciency DNA evidence - went WAY out of their way to break it down into easily understandable terms. I remember that specifically, and I clearly recall the woman who provided the DNA testimony for the prosecution. She was impressive. She did a very good job to make DNA analysis comprehensible to anyone who had an average IQ and was paying attention. The jury understood the DNA evidence. They simply chose to ignore the whole lot of it.

Despite the explanation, the defense did a wonderful job of portraying DNA evidence as a lot less reliable as it really is. In fact, at one point they were planning on calling the guy who basically invented the DNA test (got a lot of press here in SC because he's a local boy) who was going to testify FOR OJ.

As it turned out, they ended up not using him because he had a tendency to take a lot of LSD and they were worried the prosecution would seize on that. :cool:

[Hyperviolet]

LOL, now Shapiro has relegated himself to wills and such http://www.legalzoom.com/

Actually the lawyer that pissed me off the most wasn't Cochran or Bailey, it was OJ''s favorite, Barry Scheck...he tore apart some witnesses, but he was so abrasive and annoying to me in his accusatory cross-examination. But he was effective.

Indeed.

The same can be said of Scheck during the Defence's final summation, where he and Cochran (though almost all Scheck) interrupted the defence an amazing 71 times during their closing argument. In fact, the objections were so frivolous that circus Judge Lance Ito only managed to sustain 2 of the 71 called.

Scheck was trying every underhand trick during that trial. Most of his objections were flat-out stupid, and he knew it. He just wanted to break the flow, and minimise the impact of their speech, by calling an objection (no matter how baseless) at every powerful moment in the closing argument.

[Hyperviolet]

I loved reading your accounts of the case, Conspi, but I must take exception to this:



I think they're the actions of a guy who is in panic (and probably not overly bright). Panic is consistent with guilt, but doesn't necessarily imply it (we have plenty of other evidence that does, though). I don't think there's 'guilty behavior' and 'innocent behavior' as such -- that is, behavior that we can use to determine innocence or guilt when we're dealing with people we don't know.

Had he just drove away, then i'd be inclined to agree.

But an "innocent man" defiantly driving from a police chase in a car filled with his blood; with a gun, disguise, passport, and thousands of dollars in cash?

I think you'd have to scour the Earth to find such a man.

[Drudgewire]

Had he just drove away, then i'd be inclined to agree.

But an "innocent man" defiantly driving from a police chase in a car filled with his blood; with a gun, disguise, passport, and thousands of dollars in cash?

I think you'd have to scour the Earth to find such a man.

The worst part was he did it during a fantastic NBA playoff game. Stupid Californians, not caring about the Knicks at all. :mad:

[timhau]

Had he just drove away, then i'd be inclined to agree.

But an "innocent man" defiantly driving from a police chase in a car filled with his blood; with a gun, disguise, passport, and thousands of dollars in cash?


Innocent man? In this case, definitely not. But still, it sounds like he just plain freaked out. He freaked out because he's guilty, but people can and do freak out for other reasons as well.


In this case it's neither here nor there, but in general I hate to see people labeled guilty because of the way they conduct themselves. It reminds me of the worst aspects of the media coverage on the Lake Bodom triple murder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Bodom_murders) trial over here. The trial was probably the most public ever in Finland because the case is our national classic mystery -- the Britons have Jack the Ripper, we have the Lake Bodom murders.

Anyway, as soon as the prosecution's papers were made public on the net, it became clear that they didn't have a case. That didn't stop the yellow press from speculating wildly, and it appeared that there just wasn't anything the defendant could do that wouldn't be considered suspicious. If he arrived to the courthouse in a visibly good mood, he was a cold-blooded killer who knew he'd walk; if he seemed subdued, it was because he knew that he was finally getting what's coming to him, etc. etc.

[Hyperviolet]

In this case it's neither here nor there, but in general I hate to see people labeled guilty because of the way they conduct themselves.

No, no, he isn't guilty because of the way he conducted himself. That is mere circumstantial evidence (admittedly powerful circumstantial evidence, when put next into context).
He is guilty because his blood was at the scene, and his victims blood in his car. He is guilty because he had an unexplained wound, bad enough that it spilled blood all over his expensive home, car, and estate, that he admitted himself occured at the time of the murders.
Circumstantial evidence like O.J running from the cops, or the the fact that he had a history of violence towards Nicole, simply strengthen the already iron-clad DNA evidence.

[Hyperviolet]

Sorry!
Double post.

[Brainache]

Innocent man? In this case, definitely not. But still, it sounds like he just plain freaked out. He freaked out because he's guilty, but people can and do freak out for other reasons as well.


In this case it's neither here nor there, but in general I hate to see people labeled guilty because of the way they conduct themselves. It reminds me of the worst aspects of the media coverage on the Lake Bodom triple murder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Bodom_murders) trial over here. The trial was probably the most public ever in Finland because the case is our national classic mystery -- the Britons have Jack the Ripper, we have the Lake Bodom murders.

Anyway, as soon as the prosecution's papers were made public on the net, it became clear that they didn't have a case. That didn't stop the yellow press from speculating wildly, and it appeared that there just wasn't anything the defendant could do that wouldn't be considered suspicious. If he arrived to the courthouse in a visibly good mood, he was a cold-blooded killer who knew he'd walk; if he seemed subdued, it was because he knew that he was finally getting what's coming to him, etc. etc.


Reminds me of what the Australian Press did to Lindy Chamberlain ("that dingo's got my baby!").

My mother was convinced Lindy was guilty because of what she was wearing when she went to court.

[theauthor]

No, I want an impartial jury to review the evidence in a responsible manner without bias. A verdict in a few hours is a jury that made up their minds without reviewing the evidence, which overwhelmingly pointed to his guilt. They chose to ignore DNA, footprints, etc. An impartial jury would have found him guilty, as the one did in Santa Monica.

The Santa Monica jury had a different burden of proof. They only needed guilt on a preponderance of the evidence.

The criminal trial jury had to acquit, because of reasonable doubt introduced by the racist scumbag policeman.

[ConspiRaider]

I loved reading your accounts of the case, Conspi, but I must take exception to this:

I think they're the actions of a guy who is in panic (and probably not overly bright). Panic is consistent with guilt, but doesn't necessarily imply it (we have plenty of other evidence that does, though). I don't think there's 'guilty behavior' and 'innocent behavior' as such -- that is, behavior that we can use to determine innocence or guilt when we're dealing with people we don't know.
Hi Tim -

Yep, I do understand what you're saying, but this was very context-based. He WAS in panic mode, to be sure. Panicked because he knew they had him, and the whole horror of loss of his lifestyle, loss of freedom, loss of reputation, maybe even loss of life (this was a death penalty eligible case - "special circumstance - lying in wait" was I think the qualifier for the DP here).

If you were wrongly accused of this, would you run, try to escape to Mexico with thousands in cash, a gun, fake beard? You wouldn't and neither would I and very few "regular" people would. Not in this country where, still so far, you're going to get a trial, your day in court. And then you get to sue the police department for something - wrongful arrest or whatever.

But Simpson wasn't like us at all. He was a celebrity and all the rules change - to the advantage of the celebrity. How many murder suspects do we know who are kindly asked to turn themselves in for arrest - at their convenience even? He got that kid glove treatment, but you and I never would. They'd yank us out of the sack at 3:30 in the AM if they felt like it, probably have SWAT poking M-16s through the bedroom windows, breaking vases and chandeliers for the sheer fun of it. And if you're the cops in Los Angeles, with its accompanying burbs of Beverly Hills and Bel Air and Brentwood and Malibu and all that "royalty" around - you can NEVER afford to be reckless in issuing an arrest warrant for murder - to a celebrity. You'd better have EVERY duck in a row, perfectly, slam-dunk and bulletproof - because what you stand to lose if you're wrong is enormous. Celebrities can bring a lot of hell to bear on you if you screw up. Money, power, influence and an automatic sympathetic public mindset for the celeb.

So with all that (and more, of course), Simpson's actions that Friday blared out to the world: "I did this, my world is destroyed, and escape is the only option." Simpson never could have dreamed, that Friday, that this case would be perverted into a - excuse me - RACE case. He didn't know the motivations and skills of publicity-seeking, grandstanding lawyers who knew everything there was to know about twisting a case into a half dozen new shapes. Once he was convinced of that reality - notice how he metamorphosized into the quiet, well-behaved, confident, wrongly-accused black victim of racist white coppers.

[Drudgewire]

But Simpson wasn't like us at all. He was a celebrity and all the rules change - to the advantage of the celebrity. How many murder suspects do we know who are kindly asked to turn themselves in for arrest - at their convenience even? He got that kid glove treatment, but you and I never would. They'd yank us out of the sack at 3:30 in the AM if they felt like it, probably have SWAT poking M-16s through the bedroom windows, breaking vases and chandeliers for the sheer fun of it. And if you're the cops in Los Angeles, with its accompanying burbs of Beverly Hills and Bel Air and Brentwood and Malibu and all that "royalty" around - you can NEVER afford to be reckless in issuing an arrest warrant for murder - to a celebrity. You'd better have EVERY duck in a row, perfectly, slam-dunk and bulletproof - because what you stand to lose if you're wrong is enormous. Celebrities can bring a lot of hell to bear on you if you screw up. Money, power, influence and an automatic sympathetic public mindset for the celeb.

Chris Rock summed it up nicely: "This trial wasn't about race, it was about money. Because if OJ wasn't a rich football player we'd never have heard about this case. He wouldn't even be OJ, he'd be 'Orenthal the wife-murdering bus driver.'"

[ConspiRaider]

Chris Rock summed it up nicely: "This trial wasn't about race, it was about money. Because if OJ wasn't a rich football player we'd never have heard about this case. He wouldn't even be OJ, he'd be 'Orenthal the wife-murdering bus driver.'"
10-roger that, Drudge. It may not even have come to trial. Probably would have been pled out to 2nd degree murder, with maybe a 15-to-life sentence, perhaps 25-to-life.

[fuelair]

I don't think he is serial killer either, though I believe he is a sociopath, which has landed him in trouble again in Vegas. His extreme narcissism, and the feeling that he is above the law, will land him in trouble again and again.
Hopefully, next time will be his last.

[Hyperviolet]

Hi Tim -

Yep, I do understand what you're saying, but this was very context-based. He WAS in panic mode, to be sure. Panicked because he knew they had him, and the whole horror of loss of his lifestyle, loss of freedom, loss of reputation, maybe even loss of life (this was a death penalty eligible case - "special circumstance - lying in wait" was I think the qualifier for the DP here).

If you were wrongly accused of this, would you run, try to escape to Mexico with thousands in cash, a gun, fake beard? You wouldn't and neither would I and very few "regular" people would. Not in this country where, still so far, you're going to get a trial, your day in court. And then you get to sue the police department for something - wrongful arrest or whatever.

But Simpson wasn't like us at all. He was a celebrity and all the rules change - to the advantage of the celebrity. How many murder suspects do we know who are kindly asked to turn themselves in for arrest - at their convenience even? He got that kid glove treatment, but you and I never would. They'd yank us out of the sack at 3:30 in the AM if they felt like it, probably have SWAT poking M-16s through the bedroom windows, breaking vases and chandeliers for the sheer fun of it. And if you're the cops in Los Angeles, with its accompanying burbs of Beverly Hills and Bel Air and Brentwood and Malibu and all that "royalty" around - you can NEVER afford to be reckless in issuing an arrest warrant for murder - to a celebrity. You'd better have EVERY duck in a row, perfectly, slam-dunk and bulletproof - because what you stand to lose if you're wrong is enormous. Celebrities can bring a lot of hell to bear on you if you screw up. Money, power, influence and an automatic sympathetic public mindset for the celeb.

So with all that (and more, of course), Simpson's actions that Friday blared out to the world: "I did this, my world is destroyed, and escape is the only option." Simpson never could have dreamed, that Friday, that this case would be perverted into a - excuse me - RACE case. He didn't know the motivations and skills of publicity-seeking, grandstanding lawyers who knew everything there was to know about twisting a case into a half dozen new shapes. Once he was convinced of that reality - notice how he metamorphosized into the quiet, well-behaved, confident, wrongly-accused black victim of racist white coppers.

Another great post by Conspi.

[ConspiRaider]

The Santa Monica jury had a different burden of proof. They only needed guilt on a preponderance of the evidence.

The criminal trial jury had to acquit, because of reasonable doubt introduced by the racist scumbag policeman.
No - the criminal trial jury did NOT have to acquit, and of course should have returned a guilty verdict. That is, if they were interested in objectively judging this very straightforward case, based on the evidence presented. They weren't, however.

There was no reasonable doubt. None. The introduction of race into this trial was simply a defense tactic that should have been disallowed as completely immaterial. A huge and embarrassing error by the judge, Lance Ito. I think he felt intimidated by Cochran, and relented to Cochran's subtle but effective pressure.

I don't know if you've been on jury duty, but I have. Your job back there in the deliberation room is to pull apart what's been presented to you over the course of the trial, and decide what is and is not relevant. If Cochran had argued that a Giant Invisible Moose From Neptune had done these crimes, it would have had as much credibility as racist scumbag cops setting up The Juice. Race was totally irrelevant in this case. If the jury decided to view this for what it was - a long history of domestic-violence finally culminating into a jealousy-and-rage-based murder by a very privileged celebrity - then of course "guilty" would have been the only rational outcome of their deliberations. Because even though racism was introduced into the trial proceedings? The jury still should have seen it as a red herring. So painfully obvious.

[Drudgewire]

It's funny, both of us watched the trial gavel-to-gavel and couldn't disagree more about whether the jury weighed the evidence correctly.

Of course, I have to admit to some bias since I couldn't :rule10ing stand Fred Goldman, Denise Brown, or Geraldo during the whole fiasco and wanted OJ to win primarily for that reason.

[BenBurch]

I agree, had I been on the jury, seeing only the evidence they saw, CONSIDERING only the evidence the judge told me not to ignore, I would have found a reasonable doubt too and been forced to acquit. EVEN though I might have thought it LIKELY that he did the crime!

Are all of you who argue otherwise so wholly ignorant of Civics? Did you never study the American system of justice in High School?

And you ignore the fact that evidence that could have and SHOULD have convicted him, the carpet fibers, was ruled out because Christopher Darden and his gang of incompetents did not do a proper disclosure of the information to the defense.

And the Prosecution's DNA case fell apart from the standpoint of the Jury when their expert could not even get his maths right.

How can you be sure, as a jury, that he didn't make the rest of that up?

Doubt.

Reasonable Doubt.

Live with it

It is the price of Liberty.

Were is the barely-restrained-contempt smiley?

[TexasJack]

Innocent man? In this case, definitely not. But still, it sounds like he just plain freaked out. He freaked out because he's guilty, but people can and do freak out for other reasons as well.


In this case it's neither here nor there, but in general I hate to see people labeled guilty because of the way they conduct themselves. It reminds me of the worst aspects of the media coverage on the Lake Bodom triple murder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Bodom_murders) trial over here. The trial was probably the most public ever in Finland because the case is our national classic mystery -- the Britons have Jack the Ripper, we have the Lake Bodom murders.

Anyway, as soon as the prosecution's papers were made public on the net, it became clear that they didn't have a case. That didn't stop the yellow press from speculating wildly, and it appeared that there just wasn't anything the defendant could do that wouldn't be considered suspicious. If he arrived to the courthouse in a visibly good mood, he was a cold-blooded killer who knew he'd walk; if he seemed subdued, it was because he knew that he was finally getting what's coming to him, etc. etc.


There was similar behavior by convicted murderer Scott Peterson, who was found with disguises, money, etc. before he was arrested. I agree, on its own it doesn't point to guilt, but, as in both cases, it was another brick in the wall, and when put together with all the other evidence, pointed toward guilt.

[negativ]

Had he just drove away, then i'd be inclined to agree.

But an "innocent man" defiantly driving from a police chase in a car filled with his blood; with a gun, disguise, passport, and thousands of dollars in cash?

I think you'd have to scour the Earth to find such a man.

Eh. It's just another day in the life of a pizza delivery driver in south Dallas.

[TexasJack]

No - the criminal trial jury did NOT have to acquit, and of course should have returned a guilty verdict. That is, if they were interested in objectively judging this very straightforward case, based on the evidence presented. They weren't, however.

There was no reasonable doubt. None. The introduction of race into this trial was simply a defense tactic that should have been disallowed as completely immaterial. A huge and embarrassing error by the judge, Lance Ito. I think he felt intimidated by Cochran, and relented to Cochran's subtle but effective pressure.

I don't know if you've been on jury duty, but I have. Your job back there in the deliberation room is to pull apart what's been presented to you over the course of the trial, and decide what is and is not relevant. If Cochran had argued that a Giant Invisible Moose From Neptune had done these crimes, it would have had as much credibility as racist scumbag cops setting up The Juice. Race was totally irrelevant in this case. If the jury decided to view this for what it was - a long history of domestic-violence finally culminating into a jealousy-and-rage-based murder by a very privileged celebrity - then of course "guilty" would have been the only rational outcome of their deliberations. Because even though racism was introduced into the trial proceedings? The jury still should have seen it as a red herring. So painfully obvious.

Also, as pointed out before, OJ was friends with the cops.

[BenBurch]

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin

[ConspiRaider]

It's funny, both of us watched the trial gavel-to-gavel and couldn't disagree more about whether the jury weighed the evidence correctly.

Of course, I have to admit to some bias since I couldn't :rule10ing stand Fred Goldman, Denise Brown, or Geraldo during the whole fiasco and wanted OJ to win primarily for that reason.
I guess my problem is that I can put myself into the place of someone like Fred Goldman - even though I'm not a father. Fred Goldman has to get through the rest of his life, had to bury his son - because of a pair of glasses. His son died horribly because a pair of eyeglasses fell out of the purse of Nicole's mother onto the pavement, as she was leaving the restaurant up the street from Nicole's place. Something that trivial? Yep. That's what brought Ron Goldman to Nicole's apartment at the same time she was being brutally murdered.

If Goldman did anything at all - he nailed the lid shut on this case, with Simpson as the murderer. He solved his own case as well as Nicole's. It was the unexpected arrival of Goldman that threw Simpson completely off his tight timetable and caused him to panic at the scene. He left behind blood, footprints, gloves - his little plan for the perfect alibi ("I was in Chicago!") fell apart. If Goldman doesn't come - I'm not sure there even would have been a trial or an arrest. If so - it certainly would have been different. But it could have ended up like Jon-Benet Ramsey. Unsolved, unsolvable. Goldman solved this case definitively, despite having to die for the effort.

[BenBurch]

ConspiRaider,

Justice is never black and white.

We'd all love to have that perfect system where all crooks are jailed and all of the not guilty are exonerated.

But we're human beings.

Witness testimony is often based on cognitive failures.

Crime labs are overloaded and screw up tests.

Prosecutors do bad jobs.

Judges interpret the law inconstantly.

But even with all of the above we decide we need a system of laws and a system of courts.

So, we bias our system towards the presumption of innocence and the concept that guilt must be proven by the prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt.

And STILL, we in Illinois filled up our Death Row with provably innocent people.

This is why Governor Ryan, in an amazingly progressive move for a Republican, emptied Death Row by commuting all the sentences to life.

Would you rather have a system that failed on the side of convicting the innocent even worse than the one we now have???

-Ben

[boloboffin]

Drudge,

I agree with you.... well most of it.

What the prosecution presented was more than MOST murder trials have.

There was one other thing that trial had that most murder trials don't - a battery of competent and well-compensated lawyers arguing for the defense.

[Drudgewire]

And STILL, we in Illinois filled up our Death Row with provably innocent people.

I've been with you up til now Ben, but both "filled up" and "provably innocent" are stretching it. Misconduct yes, questionable tactics yes, maybe even A guy who didn't do it on there (which would be one too many, but unless he was really fat he didn't fill up death row).

Beyond that, the terminology becomes less fact than emotion-based.

[BenBurch]

I've been with you up til now Ben, but both "filled up" and "provably innocent" are stretching it. Misconduct yes, questionable tactics yes, maybe even A guy who didn't do it on there (which would be one too many, but unless he was really fat he didn't fill up death row).

Beyond that, the terminology becomes less fact than emotion-based.

Look it up!

The number of cases in which the DNA evidence was exculpatory was alarming.

A Governor would never do what Ryan did under any other circumstance.

[Drudgewire]

Look it up!

The number of cases in which the DNA evidence was exculpatory was alarming.

A Governor would never do what Ryan did under any other circumstance.

I did look it up. Yes, a whole slew of new trials were called for, and the governor made the right decision to kill the process based on their disgusting methods...

...but while the convictions were overturned in a lot of cases, that was a far cry from them being found provably innocent. The retrials thus far seem to suggest they had the right guy in almost every instance.

[Disbelief]

I am like Conspi on this, as I watched almost the entire trial on TV. However, I felt that he was going to go free (though I thought he did it), and even had a bet with one of my professors (who is a lawyer). Going into the trial, I was sure he was innocent and being railroaded, but that changed as more and more evidence was presented.

While others have given Cochran a ton of credit (a lot of which he deserves), to me it was the aforementioned Barry Sheck who secured the not guilty verdict. While the prosecution made the DNA evidence easy to understand, Sheck did an incredible job of then making it incomprehensible. he may be a slime or scumbag or whatever else, but he did what he was supposed to do under the law.

[ConspiRaider]

ConspiRaider,

Justice is never black and white.

We'd all love to have that perfect system where all crooks are jailed and all of the not guilty are exonerated.

But we're human beings.

Witness testimony is often based on cognitive failures.

Crime labs are overloaded and screw up tests.

Prosecutors do bad jobs.

Judges interpret the law inconstantly.

But even with all of the above we decide we need a system of laws and a system of courts.

So, we bias our system towards the presumption of innocence and the concept that guilt must be proven by the prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt.

And STILL, we in Illinois filled up our Death Row with provably innocent people.

This is why Governor Ryan, in an amazingly progressive move for a Republican, emptied Death Row by commuting all the sentences to life.

Would you rather have a system that failed on the side of convicting the innocent even worse than the one we now have???

-Ben
But that's not what we're discussing at all, Ben. And you can pack it in on the law and order and civics lesson - I require no such lessons. Perhaps others do, and you can direct your illustrative posts to them.

We are discussing this particular case. This is a dead-bang case, were it not for the fact that the murderer's status, money and celebrity drew a crew of greedy self-aggrandizing lawyers as his defense - a Dream Team. THEIR dreams, not his. And that a jury forgot its responsibility to stay focused on the particular crimes before them - and not be swayed by the fact that F. Lee Bailey was allowed to gleefully use the N-word over and over in his questioning. A tactic, by the way, aimed directly at the fact that the makeup of the jury was largely black. The Simpson jury was ruthlessly used by Cochran and Company, and the jury probably didn't even realize it. They served as pawns to the Dream Team's own resulting celebrity. I'd have liked to have seen the jury turn the tables on them - that was MY dream.

If you do not discern that the prosecution, in spite of everything, proved WAY beyond a reasonable doubt that OJ Simpson committed premeditated murder upon his ex-wife, and incidental murder upon Ron Goldman: Then you have lost, or perhaps never grasped in the first place, the concept of that which is reasonable doubt. What you're discussing is any doubt. You are essentially saying: It really might have been the Giant Invisible Moose From Neptune did these crimes.

[BenBurch]

No, you argue from what is nearly an "omniscient author" point of view. The jury was not party to much of the evidence we saw.

[Dumb All Over]

But an "innocent man" defiantly driving from a police chase in a car filled with his blood; with a gun, disguise, passport, and thousands of dollars in cash?

To be clear, I don't remember the "low-speed chase" vehicle as being the same as the blood-stained vehicle. I could be wrong, but I think the "chase" vehicle belonged to O.J.'s friend, Al Cowlings. I'm almost positive that O.J.'s "blood vehicle" had already been impounded as evidence at the time of the low-speed chase. Does anyone else recall for sure?

[Dumb All Over]

After looking at just a couple of websites, it seems the vehicle was O.J.'s afterall. My mistake.

If blood evidence had been found in O.J.'s Bronco, why did they release the vehicle back to him? Or was it ever impounded at all before the chase?

[defaultdotxbe]

To be clear, I don't remember the "low-speed chase" vehicle as being the same as the blood-stained vehicle. I could be wrong, but I think the "chase" vehicle belonged to O.J.'s friend, Al Cowlings. I'm almost positive that O.J.'s "blood vehicle" had already been impounded as evidence at the time of the low-speed chase. Does anyone else recall for sure?
A sheriff's patrol car saw a white Ford Bronco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Bronco) belonging to Simpson's friend, Al Cowlings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Cowlings), going south on Interstate 405 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_405_%28California%29). When the officer approached the Bronco, Cowlings, who was driving, yelled that Simpson had a gun to his own head. The officer backed off but followed the vehicle with Simpson in a slow-speed chase.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_murder_case

[Dumb All Over]

Thanks, defaultdotxbe. I didn't think my memory was that poor. Wow, it's amazing how much crap is on the internet. It was a simple, casual Google search whose first couple of hits were pages that both stated it was O.J.'s Bronco. I thought I was losing my mind.

[Hyperviolet]

To be clear, I don't remember the "low-speed chase" vehicle as being the same as the blood-stained vehicle. I could be wrong, but I think the "chase" vehicle belonged to O.J.'s friend, Al Cowlings. I'm almost positive that O.J.'s "blood vehicle" had already been impounded as evidence at the time of the low-speed chase. Does anyone else recall for sure?

I've mistaken the two Broncos.
I apologise. It's been a while since i've looked at the case and some things are rusty.

Thank you.

I'll retract that and clarify: that the car which contained blood was not the same Bronco in the chase.

[pomeroo]

His jury believed he was framed in a conspiracy by the police. That's why he was acquitted.


He was acquitted because the jury was incapable of understanding how definitive the DNA evidence was, and if that particular jury had understood it, it would have acquitted him anyway.

[I Ratant]

.., Sheck did an incredible job of then making it incomprehensible. he may be a slime or scumbag or whatever else, but he did what he was supposed to do under the law.
.
I disagree!
Engaging in disingenuous behavior for the sole purpose of -not- finding guilt or innocence, but for the purpose of making a difficult process incomprehensible is NOT ethical!
It's sleaze at the very least, and criminal as conducted in this instance!

[I Ratant]

Watching that chase live, I had fears for the life of any cop that might have to shoot what's-his-face in self defense.
He'd likely not live out the rest of the day.

[timhau]

Hi Tim -

Yep, I do understand what you're saying, but this was very context-based. He WAS in panic mode, to be sure. Panicked because he knew they had him, and the whole horror of loss of his lifestyle, loss of freedom, loss of reputation, maybe even loss of life (this was a death penalty eligible case - "special circumstance - lying in wait" was I think the qualifier for the DP here).

If you were wrongly accused of this, would you run, try to escape to Mexico with thousands in cash, a gun, fake beard? You wouldn't and neither would I and very few "regular" people would.

Alll very true. What I was really trying to say that if this was the only evidence or even just an important part of the case against OJ, he'd have legitimate reasons to complain. But it wasn't, so it isn't a big deal in this case. But in general, abstracted away from this particular case, if your ex-wife (towards whom you still have some feelings) and the mother of your children is found brutally murdered, acting a bit weird may not be unexpected even if you had nothing to do with it.

Back when that creep made the false confession to the JonBenet Ramsay murder, I saw on the net a clip from a documentary where the police officer initially in charge of the murder scene was interviewed. She said she knew right then and there that the father had done it, because of the look in his eyes and the way he acted after he found the body. That sort of crap creeps me out; how exactly are you supposed to act after you find the dead body of your daughter?

[gumboot]

I think the DNA evidence was definitive, and the prosecution hinged much of their case on that evidence. Yet the conduct of the investigation allowed reasonable doubt:

Some of OJ Simpson's sample blood was missing, and the prosecution could not account for it.

A detective carried around OJ Simpson's sample blood (including having it at O J Simpson's house while evidence was being collected) for hours before registering it as evidence.

The blood markings on the socks indicated contamination.

Reporters were allowed to come into physical contact with the vehicle in which some of the evidence was recovered, prior to said evidence being collected.

One of the victims had another unknown person's blood under their fingernails.

One of the gloves was found soaked in blood, yet no blood was found in the area the glove was recovered.

Some of the blood samples at the murder scene were collected several weeks after the initial forensic examination of the scene.

Some evidence was collected by forensics staff while not wearing gloves.

None of the above actually proves anything of course, but that's not my point. They allow doubt. Exploited by talented defense lawyers, they constitute reasonable doubt. You have a consistent pattern of forensic evidence (upon which the prosecution case was based) being improperly handled and collected.

Finally, I think one of the most damning pieces is in relation to Mark Fuhrman. No I'm not talking about the race thing. I agree that was a pretty weak and irrelevant tactic by the defense to try and discredit him. I only take objection to the notion that this was the sole reason the jury acquitted Simpson. It certainly might have been - okay. But it might not. It might have been the points I mentioned above.

Finally, the sealing point for me is that Fuhrman was directly asked if he had planted or manufactured evidence, or falsified police reports during the case. This was asked while the jury was absent, so it wouldn't have had a bearing on their deliberations, but it's fundamentally relevant to the overall case.

Fuhrman responded by pleading the 5th to avoid incriminating himself. The implications of this, in conjunction with the points mentioned above, are profound.

Now, consider, you have a pattern of potentially contaminated or mishandled forensic evidence. The prosecution case rests on this evidence. One particular detective discovered much of this evidence. That detective refuses to deny planting or manufacturing evidence or falsifying police reports in the investigation.

Given these facts, I cannot see how anyone could claim the evidence pointed to guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Like I said, absolutely NONE of the points I've mentioned above actually prove anything concrete. NONE of them are robust evidence of the defense's claim that evidence was planted. But they don't have to. The defense have no obligation to provide an alternative theory, nor to prove that theory correct. The points I have mentioned absolutely DO open the door to reasonable doubt, and I cannot see how anyone could claim otherwise.

[gumboot]

.
I disagree!
Engaging in disingenuous behavior for the sole purpose of -not- finding guilt or innocence, but for the purpose of making a difficult process incomprehensible is NOT ethical!
It's sleaze at the very least, and criminal as conducted in this instance!


This is incorrect. A defense lawyer has a legal and ethical obligation to do everything they can to ensure their client is acquitted. The lawyer may even know for a fact that their client is guilty - their client may even have confessed to them. This does not relieve them of their duty.

[jhunter1163]

My $.02US on this:

I believe that it's possible that the jury considered the potential repercussions of a guilty verdict. Remember, the Rodney King case was still fresh in people's minds, and there was definitely a ratcheting up of racial tension. If OJ had been found guilty, Los Angeles would have burned for days. It could be that the jury thought something like "is it better to acquit a guilty man and defuse a racially charged situation, or convict him and set off a full-blown race riot?"

[gumboot]

Thought people might be interested...

here (http://pbs.gen.in/wgbh/pages/frontline/oj/themes/jury.html) is a page in which various people discuss their thoughts on what the jury saw in this case, how it differed from what television audiences saw, and some thoughts on why the jury came to the decision they did.

[Disbelief]

.
I disagree!
Engaging in disingenuous behavior for the sole purpose of -not- finding guilt or innocence, but for the purpose of making a difficult process incomprehensible is NOT ethical!
It's sleaze at the very least, and criminal as conducted in this instance!

What do ethics have to do with it? Sheck did exactly what he was supposed to do under the law, as pointed out by gumboot. Just because you find it morally revolting does not make it criminal.

[ConspiRaider]

This is incorrect. A defense lawyer has a legal and ethical obligation to do everything they can to ensure their client is acquitted. The lawyer may even know for a fact that their client is guilty - their client may even have confessed to them. This does not relieve them of their duty.
May even know for a fact their client is guilty?

I think: ALWAYS knows for a fact whether their client is innocent or guilty. That knowledge gives the defense lawyer a referent, helps define a strategy by which to proceed. Another thing with criminal defense lawyers is that they really WANT their client to be guilty. They'd rather NEVER defend an innocent client, specifically when they know that it's entirely possible they won't be able to prove innocence.

When you know your client is guilty - all you can do is improve your client's lot from there. Without a lawyer - the full weight of the law can be thrown at the client. So everything you do is a step towards betterment of the situation for your client. That takes some of the pressure off, gives you a reason to proceed, provides a sense of accomplishment in your job. But if he or she is innocent, and you know it? There is no middle ground, no ambiguity, no give and take, no "we lost these battles but we won these others". If you make a misstep - your client is going to be sitting inside a steel cage. Maybe even executed. That is one helluva lot of pressure.

A defense lawyer is actually an officer of the court - in this country anyway. They are bound by rules of ethics and standards just like the lawyers at the district attorney's table. Doesn't mean they'll necessarily follow them though, especially if the defense lawyers are sleazy, lying, deceiving, cheating scumbags.

What this disgusting, self-aggrandizing Dream Team did, is use all of their deceptive skills to let a killer not only walk free - but take custody of the very children whose mother he viciously murdered! "Hey kids, I'm Dad, the one who nearly cut your mom's head off! Let's go to the mall!" Maybe these lawyers are called the Dream Team because they do their dreaming during the day. Difficult to see how they can sleep at night.

[gumboot]

May even know for a fact their client is guilty?

I think: ALWAYS knows for a fact whether their client is innocent or guilty.


Unless lawyers in the United States have developed some profound ability to read a person's mind, your comment above is absurd on the face of it.


Another thing with criminal defense lawyers is that they really WANT their client to be guilty. They'd rather NEVER defend an innocent client, specifically when they know that it's entirely possible they won't be able to prove innocence.

Again, nonsensical. A defense lawyer is not required to prove their client is innocent. The innocence of their client is a given, before the trial even commences.

[Brainache]

I think the DNA evidence was definitive, and the prosecution hinged much of their case on that evidence. Yet the conduct of the investigation allowed reasonable doubt:

Some of OJ Simpson's sample blood was missing, and the prosecution could not account for it.

A detective carried around OJ Simpson's sample blood (including having it at O J Simpson's house while evidence was being collected) for hours before registering it as evidence.

The blood markings on the socks indicated contamination.

Reporters were allowed to come into physical contact with the vehicle in which some of the evidence was recovered, prior to said evidence being collected.

One of the victims had another unknown person's blood under their fingernails.

One of the gloves was found soaked in blood, yet no blood was found in the area the glove was recovered.

Some of the blood samples at the murder scene were collected several weeks after the initial forensic examination of the scene.

Some evidence was collected by forensics staff while not wearing gloves.

None of the above actually proves anything of course, but that's not my point. They allow doubt. Exploited by talented defense lawyers, they constitute reasonable doubt. You have a consistent pattern of forensic evidence (upon which the prosecution case was based) being improperly handled and collected.

Finally, I think one of the most damning pieces is in relation to Mark Fuhrman. No I'm not talking about the race thing. I agree that was a pretty weak and irrelevant tactic by the defense to try and discredit him. I only take objection to the notion that this was the sole reason the jury acquitted Simpson. It certainly might have been - okay. But it might not. It might have been the points I mentioned above.

Finally, the sealing point for me is that Fuhrman was directly asked if he had planted or manufactured evidence, or falsified police reports during the case. This was asked while the jury was absent, so it wouldn't have had a bearing on their deliberations, but it's fundamentally relevant to the overall case.

Fuhrman responded by pleading the 5th to avoid incriminating himself. The implications of this, in conjunction with the points mentioned above, are profound.

Now, consider, you have a pattern of potentially contaminated or mishandled forensic evidence. The prosecution case rests on this evidence. One particular detective discovered much of this evidence. That detective refuses to deny planting or manufacturing evidence or falsifying police reports in the investigation.

Given these facts, I cannot see how anyone could claim the evidence pointed to guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Like I said, absolutely NONE of the points I've mentioned above actually prove anything concrete. NONE of them are robust evidence of the defense's claim that evidence was planted. But they don't have to. The defense have no obligation to provide an alternative theory, nor to prove that theory correct. The points I have mentioned absolutely DO open the door to reasonable doubt, and I cannot see how anyone could claim otherwise.

Well said Gumboot. If you'd put a few jokes in there, I might have nominated it.

As for the posts following: If a client confesses guilt to his defense lawyer, then that lawyer is bound by professional ethics to either plead guilty or withdraw from the case (IANAL: all I know about this subject comes from reading Rumpole of The Bailey). Thus spake Horace. I await correction from actual lawyers...

[Drudgewire]

Well said Gumboot. If you'd put a few jokes in there, I might have nominated it.

As for the posts following: If a client confesses guilt to his defense lawyer, then that lawyer is bound by professional ethics to either plead guilty or withdraw from the case (IANAL: all I know about this subject comes from reading Rumpole of The Bailey). Thus spake Horace. I await correction from actual lawyers...

All the dream team lawyers say OJ professed his innocence to them from day one through the end of the trial.

[TexasJack]

All the dream team lawyers say OJ professed his innocence to them from day one through the end of the trial.

Perhaps, but from what I can remember he failed miserably a lie detector test conducted by Shapiro.

[Drudgewire]

Unless the client comes out and says "I did it," the lawyer is duty-bound to represent the stance he's being paid to defend.

And don't get me started on polygraphs. :D

[ConspiRaider]

Unless lawyers in the United States have developed some profound ability to read a person's mind, your comment above is absurd on the face of it.

Again, nonsensical. A defense lawyer is not required to prove their client is innocent. The innocence of their client is a given, before the trial even commences.
Your naive state of mind is glaringly apparent. Do you view life in absolutes? No ability to discern the subtleties? Maybe that will come with age. Have patience. Because there is what's written in the books and the laws and the torts and the codes. And then there is the everyday grind of the criminal justice system and what ACTUALLY goes on, by the people who operate within that system.

Are you actually going to try and convince me that Shapiro, Neufeld, Sheck, Cochran, Dershowitz and Bailey DIDN'T all know that OJ Simpson committed these murders? HAH! HA! HA! HA! Every one of them knew from the get-go. That foreknowledge allowed them to design a defense strategy to circumvent the subject of the case and put the LAPD on trial. Make it all about inflammatory race issues, within a city where the incessant battles of police versus minority communities was as familiar to Los Angeles residents as shrugging into a well-worn leather jacket.

Take a look at Shapiro's face when the Not Guilty verdict was pronounced. That's the face of a man who knew justice was NOT done. And he was on the defense team!

[BenBurch]

Thought people might be interested...

here (http://pbs.gen.in/wgbh/pages/frontline/oj/themes/jury.html) is a page in which various people discuss their thoughts on what the jury saw in this case, how it differed from what television audiences saw, and some thoughts on why the jury came to the decision they did.

My point exactly. Thanks!

[gumboot]

Your naive state of mind is glaringly apparent. Do you view life in absolutes? No ability to discern the subtleties? Maybe that will come with age. Have patience. Because there is what's written in the books and the laws and the torts and the codes. And then there is the everyday grind of the criminal justice system and what ACTUALLY goes on, by the people who operate within that system.

Are you actually going to try and convince me that Shapiro, Neufeld, Sheck, Cochran, Dershowitz and Bailey DIDN'T all know that OJ Simpson committed these murders? HAH! HA! HA! HA! Every one of them knew from the get-go. That foreknowledge allowed them to design a defense strategy to circumvent the subject of the case and put the LAPD on trial. Make it all about inflammatory race issues, within a city where the incessant battles of police versus minority communities was as familiar to Los Angeles residents as shrugging into a well-worn leather jacket.

Take a look at Shapiro's face when the Not Guilty verdict was pronounced. That's the face of a man who knew justice was NOT done. And he was on the defense team!



You claimed that defense lawyers always know for a fact if their client is guilty or not. This is utter garbage.

You also claimed that defense lawyers prefer guilty clients because they might not be able to prove their client is innocent. This is also utter garbage.

I don't know why you're now trying to tie what are general remarks about lawyers in general to one specific group of lawyers in one specific case.

What you said about the Simpson defense team might just be absolute 100% truth. It wouldn't change the fact that you made the two claims I've cited, and that these two claims are utter garbage.

You remarked:

Your naive state of mind is glaringly apparent. Do you view life in absolutes? No ability to discern the subtleties? Maybe that will come with age.

And yet it was you who claimed:

I think: ALWAYS knows for a fact whether their client is innocent or guilty. That knowledge gives the defense lawyer a referent, helps define a strategy by which to proceed. Another thing with criminal defense lawyers is that they really WANT their client to be guilty. They'd rather NEVER defend an innocent client, specifically when they know that it's entirely possible they won't be able to prove innocence.

I don't even need to bold the points at which you made absolute statements, because you already capitalised them yourself. It's seems like you're the one dealing in absolutes here, not me.

[Brainache]

Your naive state of mind is glaringly apparent. Do you view life in absolutes? No ability to discern the subtleties? Maybe that will come with age. Have patience. Because there is what's written in the books and the laws and the torts and the codes. And then there is the everyday grind of the criminal justice system and what ACTUALLY goes on, by the people who operate within that system.

Are you actually going to try and convince me that Shapiro, Neufeld, Sheck, Cochran, Dershowitz and Bailey DIDN'T all know that OJ Simpson committed these murders? HAH! HA! HA! HA! Every one of them knew from the get-go. That foreknowledge allowed them to design a defense strategy to circumvent the subject of the case and put the LAPD on trial. Make it all about inflammatory race issues, within a city where the incessant battles of police versus minority communities was as familiar to Los Angeles residents as shrugging into a well-worn leather jacket.

Take a look at Shapiro's face when the Not Guilty verdict was pronounced. That's the face of a man who knew justice was NOT done. And he was on the defense team!

While I agree with you to a certain extent about how the world works as opposed to how the books say it should work, I have to also disagree with your absolutism regarding OJ's guilt. There IS room for reasonable doubt in this case. Not much room, I'll grant you, but it is there. We can't disregard that, no matter how much we want to.

We may hate the defendent's guts, we may think him totally capable of brutally murdering those victims, but if the evidence is not totally convincing beyond any reasonable doubt, he can and should walk away a free man.

Why? Because you would hope for the same, if you found yourself accused.

[ConspiRaider]

I think the DNA evidence was definitive, and the prosecution hinged much of their case on that evidence. Yet the conduct of the investigation allowed reasonable doubt:

Some of OJ Simpson's sample blood was missing, and the prosecution could not account for it.

A detective carried around OJ Simpson's sample blood (including having it at O J Simpson's house while evidence was being collected) for hours before registering it as evidence.

The blood markings on the socks indicated contamination.

Reporters were allowed to come into physical contact with the vehicle in which some of the evidence was recovered, prior to said evidence being collected.

One of the victims had another unknown person's blood under their fingernails.

One of the gloves was found soaked in blood, yet no blood was found in the area the glove was recovered.

Some of the blood samples at the murder scene were collected several weeks after the initial forensic examination of the scene.

Some evidence was collected by forensics staff while not wearing gloves.

None of the above actually proves anything of course, but that's not my point. They allow doubt. Exploited by talented defense lawyers, they constitute reasonable doubt. You have a consistent pattern of forensic evidence (upon which the prosecution case was based) being improperly handled and collected.

Finally, I think one of the most damning pieces is in relation to Mark Fuhrman. No I'm not talking about the race thing. I agree that was a pretty weak and irrelevant tactic by the defense to try and discredit him. I only take objection to the notion that this was the sole reason the jury acquitted Simpson. It certainly might have been - okay. But it might not. It might have been the points I mentioned above.

Finally, the sealing point for me is that Fuhrman was directly asked if he had planted or manufactured evidence, or falsified police reports during the case. This was asked while the jury was absent, so it wouldn't have had a bearing on their deliberations, but it's fundamentally relevant to the overall case.

Fuhrman responded by pleading the 5th to avoid incriminating himself. The implications of this, in conjunction with the points mentioned above, are profound.

Now, consider, you have a pattern of potentially contaminated or mishandled forensic evidence. The prosecution case rests on this evidence. One particular detective discovered much of this evidence. That detective refuses to deny planting or manufacturing evidence or falsifying police reports in the investigation.

Given these facts, I cannot see how anyone could claim the evidence pointed to guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Like I said, absolutely NONE of the points I've mentioned above actually prove anything concrete. NONE of them are robust evidence of the defense's claim that evidence was planted. But they don't have to. The defense have no obligation to provide an alternative theory, nor to prove that theory correct. The points I have mentioned absolutely DO open the door to reasonable doubt, and I cannot see how anyone could claim otherwise.
Your astounding ignorance of the proceedings of this case is something to marvel at. You're sitting over there in New Zealand making these bold pronouncements as if your views actually had any real credibility. But that is the "magic" of the innernetz. The innernetz can make it seem like someone who is totally clueless about a topic - you in this instance - actually knows what they are talking about. You were 12 or 13 when this crime happened, correct? You didn't even know - TODAY - that the trial was televised live back then in 1995. You thought it was reenacted on a daily basis! So how can anyone - other than Brainache - give your posts on this topic any credence whatsoever? All those points you made above? You are simply parrotting what someone else said. You did NOT discern those points yourself.

[Brainache]

Your astounding ignorance of the proceedings of this case is something to marvel at. You're sitting over there in New Zealand making these bold pronouncements as if your views actually had any real credibility. But that is the "magic" of the innernetz. The innernetz can make it seem like someone who is totally clueless about a topic - you in this instance - actually knows what they are talking about. You were 12 or 13 when this crime happened, correct? You didn't even know - TODAY - that the trial was televised live back then in 1995. You thought it was reenacted on a daily basis! So how can anyone - other than Brainache - give your posts on this topic any credence whatsoever? All those points you made above? You are simply parrotting what someone else said. You did NOT discern those points yourself.

It must be the southern hemisphere lighting... Or the fact that an actual Jury found him not guilty. I dunno...

[gumboot]

Your astounding ignorance of the proceedings of this case is something to marvel at. You're sitting over there in New Zealand making these bold pronouncements as if your views actually had any real credibility. But that is the "magic" of the innernetz. The innernetz can make it seem like someone who is totally clueless about a topic - you in this instance - actually knows what they are talking about. You were 12 or 13 when this crime happened, correct? You didn't even know - TODAY - that the trial was televised live back then in 1995. You thought it was reenacted on a daily basis! So how can anyone - other than Brainache - give your posts on this topic any credence whatsoever? All those points you made above? You are simply parrotting what someone else said. You did NOT discern those points yourself.


My views have about as much credibility as yours. Which is to say very little. But then I'm not the one claiming to know the answer to this case. In my first post in this thread I said I don't know. You're the one who is claiming to know all the answers here. You're the one who thinks - just because you happened to live in the same city that this crime occured - that your opinion carries extra weight. You're the one who can apparently read the mind of jurists and knows for a fact why they came back with the verdict they did. I don't know. I've said repeatedly I don't know. I don't pretend to know.

You, also, don't know. You cannot know. But unlike me, you're pretending you can. You're pretending you do.

[ConspiRaider]

It must be the southern hemisphere lighting... Or the fact that an actual Jury found him not guilty. I dunno...
You understand so little about the dynamics of this case, about Los Angeles, about celebrity, even about the concept of reasonable doubt. Which is fine - you don't live here. You are viewing this as from a long, narrow tube, just like the guy from New Zealand who didn't even know that the OJ Simpson murder case was televised live.

[gumboot]

Found what it was that confused me about the reenactment thing. E! TV reenacted the civil trial as a nightly TV series called "The O.J. Civil Trial" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397181/).

[gumboot]

You understand so little about the dynamics of this case, about Los Angeles, about celebrity, even about the concept of reasonable doubt. Which is fine - you don't live here. You are viewing this as from a long, narrow tube, just like the guy from New Zealand who didn't even know that the OJ Simpson murder case was televised live.


You have to live in Los Angeles to understand the legal concept of reasonable doubt?

:eye-poppi

Are you for real?

[defaultdotxbe]

maybe in the future we can subject criminals to trial by conspiraider, since he apparently knows better than the jury

[ConspiRaider]

You have to live in Los Angeles to understand the legal concept of reasonable doubt?

:eye-poppi

Are you for real?
Son -

Your twooferism concerning the OJ Simpson case is of interest to me, so let's just cut to the chase, put you directly on the spot and have you answer the OP: Did OJ kill his wife and friend?

Forget about the criminal trial, the civil trial, everything else. I realize you have extremely limited knowledge about this case but you must have your own opinion regardless, right? Did OJ do it?

[Drudgewire]

Forget about the criminal trial, the civil trial, everything else. I realize you have extremely limited knowledge about this case but you must have your own opinion regardless, right? Did OJ do it?

I have extensive knowledge of the case. Like you I watched every day. I also watched the talk shows every night. Read most of the books from the lawyers on both sides, plus Dominic Dunn's and the other talking heads who cashed in after the fact. Also read "If I Did It."

The answer is "yes, he did it." The point everyone else is making is "the jury didn't shirk their responsibilities by ruling otherwise, and the lawyers didn't violate their code of ethics for defending him the way they did."

[TexasJack]

maybe in the future we can subject criminals to trial by conspiraider, since he apparently knows better than the jury

This jury, he definitely knows better. This jury, with months and mountains of evidence deliberated for a few hours...total absurdity.

[I Ratant]

Son -

Your twooferism concerning the OJ Simpson case is of interest to me, so let's just cut to the chase, put you directly on the spot and have you answer the OP: Did OJ kill his wife and friend?

Forget about the criminal trial, the civil trial, everything else. I realize you have extremely limited knowledge about this case but you must have your own opinion regardless, right? Did OJ do it?
.
Me, me, ask me!
Damn right he did!

[timhau]

You also claimed that defense lawyers prefer guilty clients because they might not be able to prove their client is innocent. This is also utter garbage.


I don't think so. I've heard that from people who actually practice law. If your client is guilty and you make a mistake, he goes away for longer than he has to; some of it is on you, but he could have avoided it all by not committing the crime. If your client is innocent and you make a mistake, his trip to the big house is all on you.

[ConspiRaider]

This jury, he definitely knows better. This jury, with months and mountains of evidence deliberated for a few hours...total absurdity.
That's a great point about the brevity issue, Tex, which I was eventually going to raise.

I believe the figure given was 90 minutes of deliberation. But it may have been less than that. And that is a huge tell as to the irrationality of the jury's verdict. An hour and a half - THAT'S IT???

I was on a jury, a civil case, and we took A DAY AND A HALF in our deliberations. Two days of case presentation, and a day and a half of deliberations. The 12 of us back there, hashing it out.

There are so many things presented in the criminal trial that nail Simpson. Including the testimony by the cops that Simpson DID NOT INQUIRE about how his ex-wife was killed when he was informed in Chicago. Never did. It's just another piece of the mosaic, but it's important. That question will ALWAYS be asked by a person receiving news that someone they intimately know was killed. Even after the intitial shock passes. The only reasonable conclusion to not asking "How?" is that the person has foreknowledge. And it was presented as testimony, meaning that the jury was supposed to evaluate its relevance. Somehow I don't think they did, Tex.

[defaultdotxbe]

There are so many things presented in the criminal trial that nail Simpson. Including the testimony by the cops that Simpson DID NOT INQUIRE about how his ex-wife was killed when he was informed in Chicago. Never did. It's just another piece of the mosaic, but it's important. That question will ALWAYS be asked by a person receiving news that someone they intimately know was killed. Even after the intitial shock passes. The only reasonable conclusion to not asking "How?" is that the person has foreknowledge. And it was presented as testimony, meaning that the jury was supposed to evaluate its relevance. Somehow I don't think they did, Tex.
argument from incredulity, now whos being the truther?


they way you guys talk im guessing you probably wouldnt have deliberated 90 seconds, just foudn him guilty and got on with your lives

[ConspiRaider]

argument from incredulity, now whos being the truther?

they way you guys talk im guessing you probably wouldnt have deliberated 90 seconds, just foudn him guilty and got on with your lives
If you are actually - I mean actually really - suggesting that OJ Simpson did NOT kill his ex-wife (by nearly sawing her head off with a knife) and her friend Ron Goldman (who was stabbed to death in a struggle with Simpson) - then the label of Twoofer is stuck on you. You're the one who has to explain why you don't accept the blatantly obvious. And you are required to put forth credible theories of your own, as to the nature and manner of the perp or perps who did this. Nicole and Ron did NOT kill themselves: This was done TO them. By whom?

[defaultdotxbe]

If you are actually - I mean actually really - suggesting that OJ Simpson did NOT kill his ex-wife (by nearly sawing her head off with a knife) and her friend Ron Goldman (who was stabbed to death in a struggle with Simpson) - then the label of Twoofer is stuck on you. You're the one who has to explain why you don't accept the blatantly obvious. And you are required to put forth credible theories of your own, as to the nature and manner of the perp or perps who did this. Nicole and Ron did NOT kill themselves: This was done TO them. By whom?
its not for me to decide OJ's guilt or innocence, the 12 people who could do that already did

looking at the information i have i feel the prosecution did not adaquately make their case, and the defense was able to produce reasonable doubt, whether OJ did it or not is immaterial, his guilt was not proven in a court of law, so unless you feel our legal system should allow for double jeopardy or a presumption of guilt the discussion is moot

[gumboot]

Son -

Your twooferism concerning the OJ Simpson case is of interest to me, so let's just cut to the chase, put you directly on the spot and have you answer the OP: Did OJ kill his wife and friend?

Forget about the criminal trial, the civil trial, everything else. I realize you have extremely limited knowledge about this case but you must have your own opinion regardless, right? Did OJ do it?



Reiterating my many-times noted position that I do not know, if you're asking me what I believe is the more likely scenario, I would say that I personally feel it is most likely that he did commit the murders.

[gumboot]

I don't think so. I've heard that from people who actually practice law. If your client is guilty and you make a mistake, he goes away for longer than he has to; some of it is on you, but he could have avoided it all by not committing the crime. If your client is innocent and you make a mistake, his trip to the big house is all on you.


That's not what I was taking issue with. I was taking issue with the remark "prove him innocent". A lawyer does not have to prove their client innocent. Their client is innocent, until proven otherwise.

[gumboot]

This jury, he definitely knows better. This jury, with months and mountains of evidence deliberated for a few hours...total absurdity.


One of the things I've seen brought up is that the length of the trial may have actually worked against the prosecution. A comparison was given to the Timothy McVeigh trial - a much more complex trial - but conducted in far less time.

The prosecution really had a pretty straight forward case against Simpson, and the suggestion was that they laboured the point, if you want to use that phrase, which may have worked against their favour.

I found this to be another interesting notion regarding the decision the Jury came to.

[Kestrel]

That's a great point about the brevity issue, Tex, which I was eventually going to raise.

I believe the figure given was 90 minutes of deliberation. But it may have been less than that. And that is a huge tell as to the irrationality of the jury's verdict. An hour and a half - THAT'S IT???

I was on a jury, a civil case, and we took A DAY AND A HALF in our deliberations. Two days of case presentation, and a day and a half of deliberations. The 12 of us back there, hashing it out.

There are so many things presented in the criminal trial that nail Simpson. Including the testimony by the cops that Simpson DID NOT INQUIRE about how his ex-wife was killed when he was informed in Chicago. Never did. It's just another piece of the mosaic, but it's important. That question will ALWAYS be asked by a person receiving news that someone they intimately know was killed. Even after the intitial shock passes. The only reasonable conclusion to not asking "How?" is that the person has foreknowledge. And it was presented as testimony, meaning that the jury was supposed to evaluate its relevance. Somehow I don't think they did, Tex.


Do you have a scientific study to back up your claim on how people always react? Or is this just a bit of pop psychology you picked up someplace?

[Kestrel]

One of the things I've seen brought up is that the length of the trial may have actually worked against the prosecution. A comparison was given to the Timothy McVeigh trial - a much more complex trial - but conducted in far less time.

The prosecution really had a pretty straight forward case against Simpson, and the suggestion was that they laboured the point, if you want to use that phrase, which may have worked against their favour.

I found this to be another interesting notion regarding the decision the Jury came to.

At least the trail didn't last as long as the McMartin preschool trial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial), which lasted years instead of months.

[Cicero]

You know, "beyond a reasonable doubt" means that when a prosecution screws up as badly as they did in that case, killers are freed.

I'd rather that happen than, like what happened here in Illinois, totally innocent people are sent to Death Row because of prosecutors who hid key evidence from the defense, and public defenders who were simply phoning it in.

So, complain about OJ all you like, but if you actually want justice done, you'll try to help free the innocent our broken system sends to their deaths.

Please name anyone executed in the U.S. that was innocent of the crime at the time, or later found innocent?

[defaultdotxbe]

Please name anyone executed in the U.S. that was innocent of the crime at the time, or later found innocent?
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?&did=2238

[gumboot]

At least the trail didn't last as long as the McMartin preschool trial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial), which lasted years instead of months.


Ugh, those preschool sexual abuse trials are a dark period in the history of the western legal system. The epidemic of alleged cases in the USA during that time resulted in it spreading to New Zealand and triggered the most shameful tale in our judicial history. A tale that is still not complete, and may just get even more shameful.

A blatantly innocent man found guilty of crimes that quite obviously never happened, and multiple appeals failing to do justice.

[Cicero]

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?&did=2238

Wow! Zero.

[BenBurch]

Please name anyone executed in the U.S. that was innocent of the crime at the time, or later found innocent?

Trick question.

Because the courts stop considering the matter once the convict is dead.

[Cicero]

Jeffrey Toobin, then writing for The New Yorker, is the one who was used by Alan Dershowitz to turn the focus of the trial from OJ to Mark Fuhrman. That led to Laura McKinney and her tapes. Tobin always says he didn't think there was any reasonable doubt regarding OJ's guilt, but he was the one instrumental in derailing the prosecution's cases.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/oj/interviews/toobin.html

[Drudgewire]

Trick question.

Because the courts stop considering the matter once the convict is dead.

Didn't stop them from proving anti-death penalty poster child Roger Keith Coleman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Keith_Coleman) really did it. :p

[Cicero]

Why O.J. was allowed to put the gloves on himself I have no idea.


I mean they were Simpson's actual glove size.
Had they shrunk, or had Simpson simply not pulled them on correctly, i'm not sure.

Memorabilia dealer and OJ's ex manager Mike Gilbert admitted this week that he advised OJ a week before the glove demonstration to go off his arthritis meds so his knuckles would swell. It seems nobody on OJ's team figured he was innocent.

[TexasJack]

One of the things I've seen brought up is that the length of the trial may have actually worked against the prosecution. A comparison was given to the Timothy McVeigh trial - a much more complex trial - but conducted in far less time.

The prosecution really had a pretty straight forward case against Simpson, and the suggestion was that they laboured the point, if you want to use that phrase, which may have worked against their favour.

I found this to be another interesting notion regarding the decision the Jury came to.

The case was overly long not just because the prosecution (There was actual criticism for evidence the prosecution didn't present
), but because Judge Ito allowed everything under the sun into the trial. It forced the prosecution to bring in one rebuttal witness after another, thus the prosecution was going on the defense trying to put out fires.

I watched the entire trial; I still believe there was a plethora of evidence against Simpson, that just couldn't be ignored now matter how you spun it. Marcia Clarke even stated that it was the most evidence she ever had against a defendant in a murder trial. The defense did a great job mudding the waters, but IMO, did not come close to creating reasonable doubt. And the Jury, deliberating for only 90 minutes, failed to consider anything other than what the defense presented.

[Drudgewire]

Even though it usually means the opposite, when they announced there was a verdict already I absolutely knew they'd found him not guilty. Because there was absolutely no way 12 people were ALL going to think the prosecution had proved that case beyond a reasonable doubt.

I do agree that the prosecution made a terrible mistake in not presenting their case as quickly as possible. But then a quick trial wouldn't have given the chance to be the biggest TV stars in the world for half a year.

[gumboot]

I watched the entire trial; I still believe there was a plethora of evidence against Simpson, that just couldn't be ignored now matter how you spun it. Marcia Clarke even stated that it was the most evidence she ever had against a defendant in a murder trial. The defense did a great job mudding the waters, but IMO, did not come close to creating reasonable doubt. And the Jury, deliberating for only 90 minutes, failed to consider anything other than what the defense presented.



See, this is what I have issue with. How can you possibly know what the jury did or did not consider? None of us know what the jury did or did not consider. The length of deliberation certainly suggests that the jury had already decided their decision before retiring, but that's hardly surprising considering their verdict and the length of the trial.

If, for example, the jury felt there was reasonable doubt about the very first piece of crucial evidence the prosecution presented, they have their decision from the outset.

Some of the jury members have come out in public and stated the reason for the verdict - they said they felt that OJ Simpson probably did commit the murders but that the prosecution botched their case against him. I don't know if they speak for all jurors, and I wouldn't assume they did. But until all twelve members on on record stating why they came to the decision they did, we cannot know why they came to that decision. So the interesting thing for me is looking at possible explanations for why.

And frankly, the explanations offered up here "their decision was racist, they were idiots, they were awe struck by celebrity" just don't hold up to scrutiny. It's a cop out to blanket all 12 jurors as being incompetent in their duty.

[TexasJack]

OK, I see, if they feel there's reasonable doubt about one piece of evidence, let's say the bloody glove, then they are to dismiss all the other evidence and a defendant walks free. So there is no need to discuss the shoe prints, the blood evidence, etc. Wow, with that criteria, virtually every murderer should walk free.

[Cicero]

It's a cop out to blanket all 12 jurors as being incompetent in their duty.

But that is why the defense hired Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, the jury consultant, to insure that all 12 jurors, and alternates, had the IQ of house plants. Even with the prosecution's challenges, the defense had a bottomless barrel of moronic potential jurors to select from.

[ConspiRaider]

Do you have a scientific study to back up your claim on how people always react? Or is this just a bit of pop psychology you picked up someplace?
If there was NOTHING to this logic, then why was it brought up in the criminal trial, as provided by Detective Lange? Not sure if Detective Vannatter provided identical testimony, but I specifically remember Lange giving his testimony on this subject. I believe Marcia Clarke was providing the questions.

Pop psychology? What? How about normal human reaction, regardless of time period?

Let's just reverse this, shall we? Makes it so much easier.

You're somewhere out of town, doing something standard. In a business meeting, at a bar, at a party, in your hotel watching TV, reading, whatever. Just doing something rather routine and non-extraordinary.

Cell phone rings, you answer.

"Mr. Kestrel? This is Detective Lange from Your City Police Department. We're very sorry to have to inform you, sir, that your (ex-wife) has been killed."

Substitute for ex-wife any person whom you have, or have had, a very deep and close personal relationship. A relatively young adult person (Nicole was, after all, 32).

You do: What? You might carry on a bit. You might even faint. You might gibber awhile. You might scream and you might cry. You might be shocked, for several moments, into silence. But at some point, you WILL ask how this person was killed, where, by whom, when - one or more of those interrogatives. The biggest is HOW, because this death is not like cancer or being in a hospice or someone being gravely ill. This is a completely unexpected death - the last thing you'd imagine. Something you don't even think about, a total shock. But it's happened - now. Are you seriously going to try and convince me that you would NOT ask HOW this person was killed - ever? And that by assuming you should - I'm engaging in "pop psychology"?

It is a part of the mosaic, Simpson's non-interrogative. Give me a realistic situation whereby an adult person who is still in control of his vocal faculties (hasn't fainted, for example) and has the time to interact in a dialogue about this shocking news: Does. Not. Ask. HOW.

[fezzic]

I have been reading the course (in part) the thread has taken and would like to ask:

Is this a subject for Conspiracy Theories?

The discussion revolves around how the jury failed or didn't fail, and how justice was served or not served, but I don't see much in the way of discussion regarding any underlying conspiracy.

[gumboot]

OK, I see, if they feel there's reasonable doubt about one piece of evidence, let's say the bloody glove, then they are to dismiss all the other evidence and a defendant walks free. So there is no need to discuss the shoe prints, the blood evidence, etc. Wow, with that criteria, virtually every murderer should walk free.

No, this is not what I said. Except in very rare cases, successful prosecutions rely on a chain of circumstantial evidence. No one piece of this chain actually proves the defendant guilty - it is the collective evidence that proves their guilt. If a key piece of evidence in this chain is in doubt, it brings the entire chain of evidence into doubt. There's a reason I specified "crucial evidence". Obviously different pieces of circumstantial evidence carry a different weight in proving overall guilt.

It is not that reasonable doubt on one piece of evidence renders all other evidence false, but more that other circumstantial evidence, no matter how compelling cannot undo the fact that a particular piece cannot be trusted beyond a reasonable doubt.

The way circumstantial evidence works is that the prosecution argues that if A+B+C+D+E are true, therefore Z. However if the defense can raise reasonable doubt that A is true, this brings Z into doubt. The greater the significance the prosecution gives to A, the greater the doubt against Z. This does not prove B, C, D or E wrong, but it doesn't have to, because neither B nor C nor D nor E proves Z.

Taking a hypothetical case as a juror; if you're first presented A, and the defense manage to raise reasonable doubt in your mind that A is true, that doesn't mean you'll totally ignore all other evidence in the case. But if the prosecution consistently tie B, then C, then D, then E back to A, or if you personally feel that B, C, D and E are closely linked back to A, you're going to have already determined by the time you retire that there's reasonable doubt that Z is true.

Once again, I'm not trying to claim this was necessarily the case in the O J Simpson trial - I'm merely trying to understand possible explanations for the Jury's decision.

[gumboot]

"Mr. Kestrel? This is Detective Lange from Your City Police Department. We're very sorry to have to inform you, sir, that your (ex-wife) has been killed."

Substitute for ex-wife any person whom you have, or have had, a very deep and close personal relationship. A relatively young adult person (Nicole was, after all, 32).

You do: What? You might carry on a bit. You might even faint. You might gibber awhile. You might scream and you might cry. You might be shocked, for several moments, into silence. But at some point, you WILL ask how this person was killed, where, by whom, when - one or more of those interrogatives. The biggest is HOW, because this death is not like cancer or being in a hospice or someone being gravely ill. This is a completely unexpected death - the last thing you'd imagine. Something you don't even think about, a total shock. But it's happened - now. Are you seriously going to try and convince me that you would NOT ask HOW this person was killed - ever? And that by assuming you should - I'm engaging in "pop psychology"?

It is a part of the mosaic, Simpson's non-interrogative. Give me a realistic situation whereby an adult person who is still in control of his vocal faculties (hasn't fainted, for example) and has the time to interact in a dialogue about this shocking news: Does. Not. Ask. HOW.


How about if they already knew how the person had been murdered, but had not done it them self? How about if they had actually already been to the murder scene, but had not committed the murder? How about if they actually didn't care much about the victim at all? How about if they were the person that killed them?

That's all the realistic situations that I can think of at the moment. I count four so far.

[Hyperviolet]

Gumboot, you were earlier saying how Mark Fuhrman alone (that is, not an LAPD conspiracy) could have possibly manufactured the blood evidence.

My question: Do you honestly even entertain the ridiculous notion that Fuhrman risked planting O.J.'s blood in a car which already contained O.J.'s blood (by O.J.'s own admission) knowing full well that he [Fuhrman] would be risking the Death Penalty, if caught, for this, frankly, bizarre plan?
Or do you accept that the DNA evidence is, in fact, accurate?

[TexasJack]

No, this is not what I said. Except in very rare cases, successful prosecutions rely on a chain of circumstantial evidence. No one piece of this chain actually proves the defendant guilty - it is the collective evidence that proves their guilt. If a key piece of evidence in this chain is in doubt, it brings the entire chain of evidence into doubt. There's a reason I specified "crucial evidence". Obviously different pieces of circumstantial evidence carry a different weight in proving overall guilt.

It is not that reasonable doubt on one piece of evidence renders all other evidence false, but more that other circumstantial evidence, no matter how compelling cannot undo the fact that a particular piece cannot be trusted beyond a reasonable doubt.

The way circumstantial evidence works is that the prosecution argues that if A+B+C+D+E are true, therefore Z. However if the defense can raise reasonable doubt that A is true, this brings Z into doubt. The greater the significance the prosecution gives to A, the greater the doubt against Z. This does not prove B, C, D or E wrong, but it doesn't have to, because neither B nor C nor D nor E proves Z.

Taking a hypothetical case as a juror; if you're first presented A, and the defense manage to raise reasonable doubt in your mind that A is true, that doesn't mean you'll totally ignore all other evidence in the case. But if the prosecution consistently tie B, then C, then D, then E back to A, or if you personally feel that B, C, D and E are closely linked back to A, you're going to have already determined by the time you retire that there's reasonable doubt that Z is true.

Once again, I'm not trying to claim this was necessarily the case in the O J Simpson trial - I'm merely trying to understand possible explanations for the Jury's decision.

The bottom line is this jury did not deliberate in a proper fashion. It's impossible to go through all the evidence that was presented in 90 minutes.
If they found him guilty, I would still say this jury was incompetent.

There was no one piece of evidence that was crucial to this case.
The DNA, blood, shoe prints, etc. was powerful, and any jury who would have taken the time to deliberate would not be able to dismiss it.

Sorry, this jury failed miserably.

[applecorped]

The jury had their verdict long before deliberations began.

[defaultdotxbe]

The jury had their verdict long before deliberations began.
after an 8 month trial i would think it unreasonable to expect the individual jurors to not have decided guilt or innocence before deliberations

and if they are all basically on the same page, why shoudl lengthy deliberations be necessary?

[Hyperviolet]

Vincent Bugliosi [author of Outrage and JFK:Reclaiming History] makes his feelings quite obvious re: the verdict.

Part 1:
eWhP7Jq2J-Y


Part 2:
Vd-NtRbbYB0&feature=related


Part 3:
jtCSlMWT7to&feature=related

Pretty much hits the nail on the head, in my opinion.

[Kestrel]

If there was NOTHING to this logic, then why was it brought up in the criminal trial, as provided by Detective Lange? Not sure if Detective Vannatter provided identical testimony, but I specifically remember Lange giving his testimony on this subject. I believe Marcia Clarke was providing the questions.

Pop psychology? What? How about normal human reaction, regardless of time period?

You are assuming that you would react in a certain way and so would everyone else. Following the cliches we see in TV crime dramas and Hollywood movie. Even if you and I would react that way, even if most people would react that way, assuming that not reacting that way proves guilt is daytime talk show reasoning. Humans don't always follow the script. Any respectable psychologist will tell you that reactions during stressful situations can be all over the map.

This was actually discussed during the first OJ trial, quoting from the Feb 17, 1995 transcript (http://walraven.org/simpson/feb17.html):

Q: YOU'RE AN EXPERIENCED OFFICER?

A: 28 YEARS.

Q: AND YOU'VE HAD THIS TASK BEFORE, TO GIVE INFORMATION TO PEOPLE WHO'VE LOST A LOVED ONE; HAVE YOU NOT?

A: FAR TOO MANY TIMES, YES.

Q: AND IT'S ALWAYS A TOUGH SITUATION, ISN'T IT?

A: YES, IT IS.

Q: DIFFERENT PEOPLE REACT DIFFERENTLY, DON'T THEY?

A: YES, THEY DO.

Q: AND THERE'S NO BOOK ANYWHERE ABOUT HOW ANYBODY ACTS WHEN THEY GO INTO A STATE OF SHOCK; ISN'T THAT CORRECT?

A: I DON'T HAVE ANY KNOWLEDGE OF HOW PEOPLE GO INTO A STATE OF SHOCK.


The same transcript gives some details of OJ's response when told that Nichole had been killed.

Q: I UNDERSTAND. I UNDERSTAND. IT'S BEEN SOMETIME, RIGHT? ALL RIGHT. AND THEN THEREAFTER, YOU THEN AT SOME POINT IN THE CONVERSATION SAID TO MR. SIMPSON THAT, "YOUR EX-WIFE, NICOLE HAD BEEN KILLED"; IS THAT CORRECT?

A: YES, SIR.

Q: AND WHEN YOU SAID THAT, MR. SIMPSON BECAME VERY, VERY UPSET ON THE PHONE; ISN'T THAT CORRECT?

A: YES, HE DID.

Q: IN FACT, YESTERDAY, YOU SAID THAT HE BECAME UNDERSTANDABLY OR YOU EXPECTED THAT HE WOULD BE UPSET BY THIS INFORMATION; ISN'T THAT CORRECT?

A: THAT'S CORRECT.

Q: AND IN BECOMING UPSET, HE SAID TO YOU, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S BEEN KILLED?" HE ASKED YOU THAT RIGHT OFF, DIDN'T HE? "WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S BEEN KILLED," HE SAID THAT?

A: HE KEPT REPEATING HIMSELF AND TALKING TO HIMSELF OVER AND OVER AND OVER --


If OJ had gotten his act together and asked for details, he wouldn't have gotten them from this officer.

Q: OKAY. AND WHEN HE SAID, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S BEEN KILLED," DID YOU SAY, "MR. SIMPSON, I'M GOING TO TELL YOU ALL ABOUT THIS. I'M GOING TO TELL YOU EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED, HOW THE PEOPLE WERE KILLED"? YOU DIDN'T SAY THAT, DID YOU?

A: I NEVER HAD A CHANCE.

Q: ALL RIGHT. BUT YOU NEVER SAID THAT, DID YOU?

A: I NEVER HAD A CHANCE AND NEVER SAID IT.

Q: YOU NEVER SAID IT AND YOU DIDN'T KNOW AT THAT POINT, DID YOU? YOU COULDN'T HAVE TOLD HIM?

A: I DID NOT KNOW THE MEANS BY WHICH THEY HAD BEEN KILLED.

[gumboot]

Gumboot, you were earlier saying how Mark Fuhrman alone (that is, not an LAPD conspiracy) could have possibly manufactured the blood evidence.

My question: Do you honestly even entertain the ridiculous notion that Fuhrman risked planting O.J.'s blood in a car which already contained O.J.'s blood (by O.J.'s own admission) knowing full well that he [Fuhrman] would be risking the Death Penalty, if caught, for this, frankly, bizarre plan?
Or do you accept that the DNA evidence is, in fact, accurate?


Well it depends how you define "entertain". I acknowledge the "possibility" of this, just as I acknowledge the "possibly" that invisible midgets destroyed the WTC. I find both possibilities to be incredibly unlikely to the point of being irrelevant. I do accept that O J Simpson's blood was in the vehicle in question, yes, and the explanation for that blood - that he had a cut hand - seems to make sense given he did indeed have a cut hand.

I just want to clarify that when I offered the hypothetical that Mark Fuhrman alone could have manufactured evidence this was purely in response to the fallacious argument that if evidence was planted it had to be an LAPD conspiracy. I didn't intend to claim that Fuhrman did plant evidence, and in particular I didn't intend to claim that he planted the specific evidence of O J Simpson's blood in the vehicle.

[gumboot]

The bottom line is this jury did not deliberate in a proper fashion. It's impossible to go through all the evidence that was presented in 90 minutes.
If they found him guilty, I would still say this jury was incompetent.

There was no one piece of evidence that was crucial to this case.
The DNA, blood, shoe prints, etc. was powerful, and any jury who would have taken the time to deliberate would not be able to dismiss it.

Sorry, this jury failed miserably.



You're assuming the jury made no effort to process the evidence during the months of trial. This is simply illogical. A jury is not even legally required to retire to deliberate at all - they can offer a verdict in court immediately if they wish. The sole purpose of them retiring is to enable them to come to a unanimous decision. It is logical that upon retiring a jury will immediately determine what each member feels is the appropriate verdict. If all members agree on the verdict there is nothing further to discuss and the verdict can be returned.

[ConspiRaider]

You are assuming that you would react in a certain way and so would everyone else. Following the cliches we see in TV crime dramas and Hollywood movie. Even if you and I would react that way, even if most people would react that way, assuming that not reacting that way proves guilt is daytime talk show reasoning. Humans don't always follow the script. Any respectable psychologist will tell you that reactions during stressful situations can be all over the map.
Yes - but this non-interrogative by Simpson does NOT prove guilt in and of itself. It is a factor, something awry, a hint. It fits into the mosaic of many other factors and evidence, all of which, when taken together, point unswervingly at Simpson as the perp.

The jury - which didn't do this, by the way - is supposed to go through the evidence and collectively determine that which is, and is not, relevant. This handpicked, stacked jury did exactly what the defense team planned. They forgot about the case, the evidence, and let themselves be emotionally seduced into believing that racist police officers framed OJ Simpson for these 2 killings. They forgot what being a jury was all about. They blew it - big time. But they are not entirely to blame.

There is 100% of blame to parcel out in this grand failure of the American justice system. Let's say we have 5 entities involved:

1. Judge - 20%
2. Jury - 30%
3. Prosecution - 15%
4. Defense - 20%
5. Media - 15%

My wild guesstimate.

[Hyperviolet]

Well it depends how you define "entertain". I acknowledge the "possibility" of this, just as I acknowledge the "possibly" that invisible midgets destroyed the WTC. I find both possibilities to be incredibly unlikely to the point of being irrelevant. I do accept that O J Simpson's blood was in the vehicle in question, yes, and the explanation for that blood - that he had a cut hand - seems to make sense given he did indeed have a cut hand.

I just want to clarify that when I offered the hypothetical that Mark Fuhrman alone could have manufactured evidence this was purely in response to the fallacious argument that if evidence was planted it had to be an LAPD conspiracy. I didn't intend to claim that Fuhrman did plant evidence, and in particular I didn't intend to claim that he planted the specific evidence of O J Simpson's blood in the vehicle.

Thanks for the clarification.

However, let's just cut to the chase: even though we both know that while, technically, you must still leave yourself open to the mere possibility that invisible midgets destroyed the WTC, i'm sure we can agree with a high degree of certainty that this is not what happened. Likewise, can we agree that Fuhrman did not seize this unexpected (and frankly ridiculous) opportunity to frame O.J Simpson by planting additional blood at the crime scene?
And if so, can we assume that, then, the DNA evidence is indeed accurate?

If so, with accurate DNA evidence, historical precedent (violence towards Nicole), motive, and mountains of circumstantial evidence, can we agree with a high degree of certainty that O.J. Simpson is, indeed, the murderer these two innocent people?
Bearing in mind that there is precisely zero evidence - zero - pointing to anyone else, at all.


Is that fair to say?
If not, can you elaborate.

[gumboot]

Two articles in which jurors talk a bit about why they came to their decisions:

First one (http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/nns070.htm) and second one (http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/nns047.htm).

Some interesting stuff there.

Panelist Brenda Moran doesn't think they decided a moment too soon.

"We've taken this case serious for nine months," she told reporters Oct. 4, 1995, the day after Simpson's acquittal was announced. "It didn't take us nine more months to figure it out. We're not that ignorant."

Cooley was forewoman of the long-sequestered Simpson jury. Jurors deliberated less than four hours before clearing Simpson of two counts of murder.

Cooley and other jurors said they were impressed by defense efforts to raise reasonable doubts that Simpson committed the killings, with Detective Mark Fuhrman's role proving critical.

In the eyes of Cooley, Fuhrman was either a Ku Klux Klansman or a skinhead with hair. And she said she didn't believe a word he said.

Although she didn't like Fuhrman from the start, Cooley wrote in a new book, "Madame Foreman," the former detective's initial testimony "did not look good for O.J."

But as Fuhrman underwent cross-examination by defense attorney F. Lee Bailey, his demeanor changed, said Cooley, the juror who sat closest to the witness box.

"His breathing patterns shifted and, from where I was sitting, you could see him squirming," she wrote. "Fuhrman kept pushing his feet up against the back board of the stand. You could tell there was just a little anger building up in him. I'm thinking, 'This man is lying."'

Jurors Carrie Bess and Rubin-Jackson collaborated with Cooley on the book, which comes out this week.

The book plays down the importance of the now-infamous glove demonstration, however, in which prosecutor Christopher Darden had Simpson try on the evidence gloves found at his estate and at the crime scene. The gloves appeared not to fit, but the jurors said they weren't convinced.

"Those gloves fit," Bess wrote. "He wasn't putting them on right."

"Sure," added Rubin-Jackson, "you know, they fit. ... I must have had an expression on my face because as he stood there, it was like he was talking to me, and he went, 'They don't fit.' They would have fit anybody."

I found the comments that Fuhrman was either "a Ku Klux Klansman or a skinhead with hair" rather silly (that's putting it mildly), but what I find very interesting is their observations of Fuhrman's behaviour under cross examination. This is of course precisely the sort of thing that the jury can see but TV audiences cannot.

Another interesting point...

The forewoman and another juror who voted to acquit O.J. Simpson of murder said they likely would decide against him if they were on a civil jury, where the burden of proof is lighter.

"Given that standard and based on the amount of evidence that was presented, ... then yes, you would have to say that yes, he is guilty," Armanda Cooley told Dateline NBC Tuesday.

These people don't sound like incompetent morons to me, personally.

[gumboot]

Thanks for the clarification.

However, let's just cut to the chase: even though we both know that while, technically, you must still leave yourself open to the mere possibility that invisible midgets destroyed the WTC, i'm sure we can agree with a high degree of certainty that this is not what happened.


Absolutely.



Likewise, can we agree that Fuhrman did not seize this unexpected (and frankly ridiculous) opportunity to frame O.J Simpson by planting additional blood at the crime scene?

Hang on, I thought we were talking about the vehicle?


And if so, can we assume that, then, the DNA evidence is indeed accurate?

I think it would be reasonable to assume it was accurate, but I also think it's totally inappropriate for jurors to make their decisions based on assumptions, however reasonable.


If so, with accurate DNA evidence

As per above, yes.


historical precedent (violence towards Nicole)

This is inadmissible evidence.


motive, and mountains of circumstantial evidence, can we agree with a high degree of certainty that O.J. Simpson is, indeed, the murderer these two innocent people?

I would defer to the jury on this point. I agree that there is a high degree of certainty that O J Simpson was the murderer, however I do not agree that this certainty was beyond reasonable doubt, based on the evidence as presented at trial.



Bearing in mind that there is precisely zero evidence - zero - pointing to anyone else, at all.

William Dear believes otherwise. Without having read his book I wouldn't like to comment on the above point. You may be right. I don't know.

[Cicero]

... however I do not agree that this certainty was beyond reasonable doubt, based on the evidence as presented at trial.


You are confusing "beyond reasonable doubt" with "beyond any doubt." Whether Marcia Clarke made numerous errors in her presentation and had a demeanor not appealing to the jury, the case presented by the prosecution not only met the standard, but exceeded it. I will defer to Vincent Bugliosi and his book "Outrage" where he lays out the tonnage of evidence that only pointed to Simpson's incontrovertible guilt.

[TexasJack]

Two articles in which jurors talk a bit about why they came to their decisions:

First one (http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/nns070.htm) and second one (http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/nns047.htm).

Some interesting stuff there.





I found the comments that Fuhrman was either "a Ku Klux Klansman or a skinhead with hair" rather silly (that's putting it mildly), but what I find very interesting is their observations of Fuhrman's behaviour under cross examination. This is of course precisely the sort of thing that the jury can see but TV audiences cannot.

Another interesting point...



These people don't sound like incompetent morons to me, personally.

Fuhrman was a racist? What does that prove? Racist does not equal planting evidence and not only risking his career, but his life. This is not reasonable doubt, this is a jury with pre-conceived ideas who were unwilling to discuss the evidence in a reasonable fashion. I just don't buy into the "process" excuse, this was a lengthy trial, and whether your initial thoughts were toward guilt or not guilty, reasonable, responsible people would have reviewed it thoroughly.

[ConspiRaider]

See, this is what I have issue with. How can you possibly know what the jury did or did not consider? None of us know what the jury did or did not consider. The length of deliberation certainly suggests that the jury had already decided their decision before retiring, but that's hardly surprising considering their verdict and the length of the trial.

If, for example, the jury felt there was reasonable doubt about the very first piece of crucial evidence the prosecution presented, they have their decision from the outset.

Some of the jury members have come out in public and stated the reason for the verdict - they said they felt that OJ Simpson probably did commit the murders but that the prosecution botched their case against him. I don't know if they speak for all jurors, and I wouldn't assume they did. But until all twelve members on on record stating why they came to the decision they did, we cannot know why they came to that decision. So the interesting thing for me is looking at possible explanations for why.

And frankly, the explanations offered up here "their decision was racist, they were idiots, they were awe struck by celebrity" just don't hold up to scrutiny. It's a cop out to blanket all 12 jurors as being incompetent in their duty.
This is, yet again, an example of the deceptive nature of the innernetz. And also an illustrious display of ego on your part.

Here you are - didn't even know until yesterday that this trial was broadcast live on television - and you are actually trying to argue your points as if you knew what you were talking about! You've done what - a day or two scanning information on the friggin' innernetz? That miniscule effort somehow qualifies you to boldly and recklessly comment on this very complex case?

Hey - you can comment all you wish, but don't expect anyone who is actually familiar with this case, while it was happening in real time, the aftermath, the subsequent civil trial and so forth - to take you seriously in any way. You're a guy over in New Zealand gleaning information from what others - who fit your predetermined mindset - have spoken or written about this case. If you actually cared about credibility - you'd say essentially NOTHING about this case until you'd at least done an exhaustive amount of research. And that's only to get you partway to where many of us have already been for years. Because this case happened to some of us, day in, day out, for more than a year. A tremendous amount of input - hundreds and hundreds of hours from various sources. Not stuff that was funneled through the lousy innernetz, which is all you have to go on, today.

Ego does not allow you to step back a bit. Instead, you reactively skim a bit, then recklessly post what OTHERS have said or written - as if it actually meant something. We've seen that stuff they've written - years ago.

On the OJ Simpson case? You, Gumboot, don't really know what you're talking about. Agree?

[Kestrel]

Fuhrman was a racist? What does that prove? Racist does not equal planting evidence and not only risking his career, but his life. This is not reasonable doubt, this is a jury with pre-conceived ideas who were unwilling to discuss the evidence in a reasonable fashion.

Fuhrman proved during the trail that he was willing to lie on the witness stand to make things a bit easier for the prosecution. So was he also willing to alter the evidence to assure a conviction?

The jury probably didn't like Fuhrman's response to a direct question about that issue. Quoting the Sept. 6 trail transcript (http://walraven.org/simpson/sep06.html):

MR. UELMEN: I only have one other question, your Honor.
THE COURT: What was that, Mr. Uelmen?
MR. UELMEN: Detective Fuhrman, did you plant or manufacture any evidence in this case?
DET. FUHRMAN: I assert my 5th amendment privilege.

[gc051360]

These people don't sound like incompetent morons to me, personally.

I can't find the quote, but I recall one of the jurors being questioned about the DNA evidence. She claimed to not take any of it into account, because more than one person can have the same blood type.

eta: found this as a link:

http://www.presentersuniversity.com/Courses_content_technically_speaking.php

Only mentions them anecdotally though.

[gumboot]

This is, yet again, an example of the deceptive nature of the innernetz. And also an illustrious display of ego on your part.

Here you are - didn't even know until yesterday that this trial was broadcast live on television - and you are actually trying to argue your points as if you knew what you were talking about! You've done what - a day or two scanning information on the friggin' innernetz? That miniscule effort somehow qualifies you to boldly and recklessly comment on this very complex case?

Hey - you can comment all you wish, but don't expect anyone who is actually familiar with this case, while it was happening in real time, the aftermath, the subsequent civil trial and so forth - to take you seriously in any way. You're a guy over in New Zealand gleaning information from what others - who fit your predetermined mindset - have spoken or written about this case. If you actually cared about credibility - you'd say essentially NOTHING about this case until you'd at least done an exhaustive amount of research. And that's only to get you partway to where many of us have already been for years. Because this case happened to some of us, day in, day out, for more than a year. A tremendous amount of input - hundreds and hundreds of hours from various sources. Not stuff that was funneled through the lousy innernetz, which is all you have to go on, today.

Ego does not allow you to step back a bit. Instead, you reactively skim a bit, then recklessly post what OTHERS have said or written - as if it actually meant something. We've seen that stuff they've written - years ago.

On the OJ Simpson case? You, Gumboot, don't really know what you're talking about. Agree?



You should really try read my posts instead of letting your own arrogant confidence ignore it and jump straight to the insults. All I'm interested in is understanding why the jury came to the conclusions they did.

You say:

"recklessly post what OTHERS have said or written - as if it actually meant something"

The "others" I'm talking about are ARE THE FRIKKEN JURORS IN THE CASE. Given that I'm interested in why they came to the decision they did, you can bet your ass it matters. It's ALL that matters.

You don't agree on the verdict. I got that. I got that a long time ago. But I couldn't care less what YOU think about the verdict. You weren't on the jury, last time I checked. You think your opinion actually matters. News flash. It doesn't. What matters is what the jury thought.

[TexasJack]

Fuhrman proved during the trail that he was willing to lie on the witness stand to make things a bit easier for the prosecution. So was he also willing to alter the evidence to assure a conviction?

The jury probably didn't like Fuhrman's response to a direct question about that issue. Quoting the Sept. 6 trail transcript (http://walraven.org/simpson/sep06.html):

Do you really think Fuhrman would risk a death penalty conviction by planting evidence? I don't. Fuhrman had an opportunity to pop OJ on a domestic battery against Nicole, but he didn't even write up a police report on the incidence. Again, proving someone is racist does not prove that he planted evidence, and Fuhrman being a racist is the onlyt hing the defense proved.

[gumboot]

Fuhrman was a racist? What does that prove? Racist does not equal planting evidence and not only risking his career, but his life. This is not reasonable doubt, this is a jury with pre-conceived ideas who were unwilling to discuss the evidence in a reasonable fashion. I just don't buy into the "process" excuse, this was a lengthy trial, and whether your initial thoughts were toward guilt or not guilty, reasonable, responsible people would have reviewed it thoroughly.



I like how you jump on the "he was a racist" bit (which I agreed was a dumb and irrelevant observation) and ignore the forewoman's observations about his behaviour on the stand which led her to believe he was lying.

Fuhrman being a racist is definitely not relevant. Fuhrman lying under oath certainly is.

Now before you get your panties in a twist, obviously we don't know if he actually lied under oath - he said himself he was quite nervous about testifying because of all the media attention before the trial and so forth. Anyone whose been cross examined can feel quite uncomfortable while telling the truth.

But that's not the point. At least one member of the Jury concluded (right or wrong) from his behaviour that he was lying under oath. Now, assume you're a juror. Assume you conclude a given witness is lying under oath. Your duty is to disregard that person's testimony in full. You have to. And if that witness happened to discover almost all of the key material evidence in the trial, that brings all of that material evidence into question.

A juror discharging their duty as required might just have to rule in favour of reasonable doubt in such a situation. They might not of course - it depends how that juror perceives the importance of that witness.

But if we take the specifics that the jury in this case has provided to the press, we have the following:

1. Some regarded Mark Fuhrman as the central pillar of the prosecution case:

"Fuhrman was the trial. Fuhrman found the hat. Fuhrman found the glove. Fuhrman found the blood. Fuhrman went over the gate. Fuhrman did everything. When you throw it out, what case do you have? You've got reasonable doubt right before you even get to the criminalists."

2. Some felt Fuhrman lied under oath:

"His breathing patterns shifted and, from where I was sitting, you could see him squirming. Fuhrman kept pushing his feet up against the back board of the stand. You could tell there was just a little anger building up in him. I'm thinking, 'This man is lying'."

3. Some also questioned the credibility of the lead Detective:

The jurors also said they didn't believe the lead detective, Philip Vannatter, when he said he didn't initially consider Simpson a suspect the morning after the murders.

4. Some also felt that race didn't play a part in their decision:

But in "Madam Foreman," the three black jurors denied race played a role in their decision and contended their ultimate - and speedy verdict - was shaped mostly by their lack of confidence in the police department and the evidence it handled.

Okay, now assuming that the Associated Press haven't misquoted or misrepresented the Jurors and their book, can we accept that the above four points are true? That is to say, the Jurors really did think or believe these things?

I guess this is the distinction I'm trying to make here. What I'm interested is why the Jurors came to the decision they did - I want to get inside their heads.

Now either the Jurors just outright lied in their book (a possibility), or they genuinely felt there was reasonable doubt as expressed in the points above (also a possibility).

You're denying the second point. You are, essentially, accusing these jurors of lying. Are you willing to acknowledge that they might not be lying, and that they might have genuinely felt there was reasonable doubt?

(To be clear, I don't want to hear any arguments about whether there was reasonable doubt or not, we're talking about what the jury thought)

In case you're missing it, I'm trying to keep this thread on a topic that fits with this subforum. Discussing the specifics of the O J Simpson trial doesn't actually fit into the Conspiracy Theory topic. It's one for Politics or History.

But if we're talking about the Jury conspiring to return a verdict they know to be false (and that's what you're saying here) well that does fit into the Conspiracy Theory sub forum, so let's stick to that, yes?

And just pre-empting a likely response here... ConspiRaider? Shut up. I'm not talking to you.