Review of the O.J. Simpson - Case Study Example

Case Review of the OJ Simpson Case Introduction On June 12, 1994 OJ Simpson’s former wife Nicole and a friend called Ronald Goldman were found stabbed to death outside her condominium in Los Angeles. Simpson, famous as one of the greatest running backs in NFL history, and in more recent years as a successful actor, was charged with their murders. He failed to turn himself in, and a bizarre “slow-speed” car chase occurred along LA streets that was televised on national TV (Schiller, 1997). The resulting trial lasted more than six months, and on October 3, 1995 he was found not guilty of the murders. On February 4, 1997 a civil jury found Simpson liable for the wrong death of Goldman and the battery of his Nicole Brown. Simpson was ordered to pay to $35.5 million to the Goldman and Brown families but has yet to pay anything as his NFL pension is protected from such verdicts. He currently lives in Florida, where his house is protected from being forfeited for a civil judgment. Evidence The Prosecution did not have an eyewitness to the murder, but this was just about the only piece of evidence that was not submitted to the jury. There was an overwhelming amount of evidence linking OJ Simpson to the murder. Thus evidence as to Simpson’s violent nature vis-à-vis his ex-wife was presented, including a record of extensive domestic violence. A timeline was establishing using a limousine driver who was to drive Simpson to the airport and Kato Kaelin, Simpson’s housemate, who established that Simpson was away from the house at the time of the murders. The evidence tying Simpson to the murders was technical and circumstantial. It was related to blood, hair, fiber and footprint analysis from the crime scene and at Simpson’s home. Perhaps the most powerful piece of evidence was a DNA test of a blood sample found at the crime scene which found that there was a 1 in 170,000,000 chance that it was not Simpson’s blood. Evidence to show that the eventual not-guilty verdict was sound was never really introduced to the trial. Prosecution Case Evidence was provided, as already stated, as to a pattern of domestic violence that would logically lead to the eventual murder of Nicole Brown. The timeline of the night of the murder suggested that Simpson was abset from his house at the time of the murders. The forensic evidence taken from the murder scene and from Simpson’s house showed that his blood was at the scene and that Nicole Brown’s blood was found in a bloody footprint on the carpet outside Simpson’s bedroom. A bloody glove with the victims’ blood on it was found outside Kato Kaelin’s bedroom window on the night of the murder. The jury appears to have given little weight to any of this evidence. Any blood evidence that was found was apparently believed to have been “planted” by the detectives in the case. The defense argued that Mark Fuhrman, the racist detective on the case had taken the glove from the crime scene, rubbed it in Nicole Brown’s blood then deposited it at Simpson’s house in order to frame him. The speed and ease with which the jury came to its Not Guilty verdict seems to suggest that they did not really consider the mountain of evidence against OJ Simpson. Their judgment regarding the DNA evidence, other forensic evidence and the circumstantial evidence regarding a history of domestic violence appears to be unsound. Indeed, the speed with which the verdict was returned suggests that there interpretation of this evidence was neither “sound” nor “unsound” as to all intents and purposes they apparently did not interpret it at all. Defence Case The Defence case relied upon suggesting that the police officers involved with the case had deliberately framed Simpson because they were racist, and also on a discrediting of the apparently overwhelming forensic evidence. Thus a screenwriter testified that Mark Fuhrman had uttered the word “nigger” on numerous occasions within her hearing, thus, argued the defence, lending plausibility to the idea that he had deliberately framed Simpson with the glove. The Defence also provided evidence that the glove that Simpson supposedly used in the murders did not in fact fit him. This was the start of the famous “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” stage of the trial which would dominate the language of the rest of the proceedings (Cotterill, 2003). The most powerful defence evidence was supplied by a highly admired forensic expert, Henry Lee, who provided a plausible explanation for questioning the prosecution’s physical evidence. Lee raised doubts with some graphic blood spatter demonstrations, footprint analysis which suggested more than one assailant and by casting doubts on the then “new” science of DNA testing and matching. It is clear that the Defence did their job correctly as Simpson was acquitted in the face of overwhelming evidence of his guilt. Jury The evidence that most influenced the jury appears to have been any evidence that would cause reasonable doubt as to Simpson’s guilt. After the trial the Prosecution Attorney, Christopher Darden, suggested that the impressive performance from Henry Lee merely gave “permission” to the jury to do what they wanted to do anyway: acquit Simpson. One juror suggested that Lee was “the most credible witness . . . . who had a lot of impact on a lot of people.” (Hauf, 2001) The evidence of Detective Fuhrman’s racism was taken to be powerful enough to prove that he might have deliberately framed Simpson, thus risking his own career and even freedom for the sake of his supposed hatred of blacks (Fuhrman, 1997). As Dershowitz (2006) suggests whether the jury actually “believed” this to be the case was perhaps of secondary importance to the fact that such a scenario fitted in within their experience of a racist world. Conclusion The verdict was not sound. The basic way that the Prosecution could have at least raised the possibility of sound verdict would have been to hold the trial in Brentwood, the jurisdiction where the murders actually took place, rather than moving it to downtown Los Angeles. The reason for the move was, officially at least, to enable witnesses to get to the court more easily, but in reality occurred for a number of reasons quite divorced from this trial. A Brentwood trial would have assured an almost all-white jury of educated people who would probably have found Simpson guilty. Los Angeles authorities were worried that a guilty verdict would trigger race riots similar to those that occurred with the acquittal of police officers accused of beating Reginald Denny. A move downtown Los Angeles would ensure a most uneducated and black jury that, if they convicted Simpson, would not be accused of being part of a racist conspiracy and thus would be less likely to provoke riots. But this same jury pool produced a jury who apparently had little understanding of the DNA evidence and who took only 3 hours to consider a trial that had produced 150 witnesses and which had lasted 133 days. Thus trying OJ Simpson in Brentwood would have produced a different, and probably sound, verdict. Even with the downtown Los Angeles court setting, the Prosecutor’s office made numerous blunders in the course of the trial. They should have kept the trial as short and to the point as possible. They were not helped by Judge Ito, who became involved with the whole “Trial of the Century” designation for the proceedings. Ito allowed the “race card” to be played continuously by the Defence team, even when it had little of no probative value upon the actual case. The court-room was essentially run by the dream Team of Defence lawyers rather than Judge Ito (Rantala, 1996). The Prosecution also broke the first rule of trial lawyers in putting on a demonstration that they were not sure of the result of: OJ Simpson trying on the glove. Common sense should have told the Prosecutors that the glove, which had obviously been allowed to slowly dry after being wet, probably would have shrunk, but such sense did not appear to play any part in the decision to put on the demonstration (Bugliosi, 1997). The subsequent days attempting to alleviate this situation through putting on “glove experts” to show how the glove must have shrunk merely made the proceedings farcical, and constantly reminded the jury that the glove had not in fact fitted Simpson. ______________________________________ Works Cited Bugliosi, Vincent. Outrage: The Five Reasons Why OJ Simpson Got Away With Murder. Island, New York: 1997. Cotterill, Janet. Language and Power in Court: A Linguistic Analysis of the OJ Simpson Trial. Palgrave MacMillan, New York: 2005. Dershowitz, Alan. Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the OJ Simpson Case. Touchstone Reprint, New York: 2006. --------------------. The Best Defense. Vintage, New York: 1993. Fuhrman, Mark. Murder in Brentwood. Zebra, New York: 1997. Hauf, Adolf. OJ Simpson is Innocent: Almost a Perfect Crime. Hauf, New York: 2001. Rantala, ML. OJ Unmasked: The Trial, The Truth and the Media. Open Court, Los Angeles: 1996. Schiller, Lawrence. American Tragedy. Avon, New York: 1997. Read More