O.J. Simpson’s Murder Trial: The Clues That Changed Everything

Episode Notes

Transcript

Christopher Darden:

Your Honor, apparently Mr. Simpson seems to be having a problem putting the glove on his hand. Your Honor, I object to counsel statements. Sustained. Mr. Simpson is indicating that his fingers aren’t all the way into the gloves, your Honor.

Judge Lance Ito:

Alright, thank you counsel.

Christopher Darden:

Mr. Simpson told the jury that the gloves are too small.

Johnnie Cochran Jr. :

The announcement that shocked everyone now, the new world OJ Simpson,

J. Craig Williams:

Crying on brutally killed on Sunday, June 12th, 1994, sometime after 10:00 PM 30 5-year-old Nicole Simpson Brown and 25-year-old Ronald Lyle Coleman were fatally stabbed outside Brown’s two story condominium in Brentwood, California. Then around 12:10 AM a neighbor found Brown’s dog barking and with blood on its paws, the neighbor walked with a dog and followed it to Nicole’s condo to discover the two bodies describing the scene as a river of blood. Bloody footprints were found leading from the crime scene down the north walkway to the alley behind her condo. Nicole’s head had almost been severed and Ron Goldman’s body had been stabbed nearly 30 times. Both bodies showed defensive wounds around 2:00 AM that night police began investigating the double murder scene. They found five drops of blood along the sidewalk, bloody shoe prints a cap with hairs on it and a left hand glove outside Nicole’s condo. The police covered Nicole’s body with a blanket from inside her condo.

At 4:30 AM police left the primary crime scene and went to O j’s Rocky cam estate. There they found blood drops on O J’s driveway and in his white Ford Bronco at 6:00 AM Detective Mark Furman walked down a path at the Rocky Gamma state and found a second bloody right-handed glove that seemed to match the one found at the crime scene. He located other officers and took them to the glove to point it out. No bloody drops or footprints were found near the second. Neither of the two gloves bore any cuts. The police also discovered bloody socks in O J’s bedroom by 8:30 AM not even 10 hours after the murders, I media learned about the killings and the celebrity status of those involved and immediately flocked to both houses.

The media circus had come to town and would not leave until after the famous verdict in September the following year, five days later on Friday, June 17th, the LAPD alleged that it had found O J’s blood in samples taken from Nicole’s crime scene and issued an arrest warrant for him that evening. About 6:20 PM a motorist south of Los Angeles spotted OJ in a white Ford Bronco, which turned out to be driven by his friend Al Cowlings in what can only be described as surreal. A low speed chase began from Orange County and ended at O J’S Rockingham Estate. Every local media helicopter was in the air following cowling and OJ in the Bronco. People lined the freeways and bridges to watch Cowlings drive by slowly followed by dozens of black and whites. More people reportedly watched the OJ Chase than saw Neil Armstrong take his first step on the moon. OJ ultimately surrendered inside his Rocky gamma state. After an hour long cell phone negotiation with police in their search of the Bronco after the arrest, police found a fake goatee, beard and mustache, a change of clothes, $8,750 in cash, a loaded 3 57 Magnum family photos and a passport. The police took OJ downtown and booked him for double murder, both in the first degree. Simpson would spend the next 474 days at the Los Angeles County men’s jail where he was held without bail throughout the court proceedings.

The OJ Simpson trial for the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman has affected opinions of the judicial system more than any other case in this miniseries and perhaps any other famous trial in history. You may think you know the story of the OJ trial because you watched it on television and undoubtedly formed a strong opinion about it. But in a 40 minute podcast, what you’re going to hear is a trial lawyer’s perspective on why things happened the way they happened. We’ll break down the trial into the core pillars that defined it so that you can better understand how the jury came to its famous verdict.

Marcia Clark:

There is a path of blood where there should be no blood,

Johnnie Cochran Jr. :

The evidence being contaminated, compromised and corrupted.

Professor William Thompson:

When defense experts examine the bindals containing the Bundy swatches, they made two startling discoveries. It killed her out of jealousy.

Christopher Darden:

It killed her because they couldn’t have her. If it doesn’t fit, you must equip.

J. Craig Williams:

Please pull up a chair and have a seat with me at the counsel table. You’re going to sit right next to the lawyers while they cross-examine witnesses, fight off objections from opposing counsel and deal with anxious defendants facing big fines, long jail terms, and even death sentences. You’ll also have a front row seat in the jury box as you listen to the testimonies straight from the witnesses, and then after hearing the final verdict, you can decide whether the rulings were correct or not. Hi everyone. My name is Jay Craig Williams and welcome to In Dispute. In this podcast miniseries, we will look back at 10 famous court cases that stand out for their historical importance, their contrast with today’s modern criminal trials and their unusual outcomes.

As with all felony criminal trials, the court held a preliminary hearing to determine whether there was probable cause to believe the crimes had been committed. The prosecution, which included Marsha Clark and Christopher Darden presented 22 witnesses including Los Angeles Police Department detectives, Philip Van Nater and Mark Furman, as well as criminalist Dennis Fung. The defense represented by Robert Shapiro and Gerald Ulman presented no witnesses, a typical defense tactic in preliminary hearings. Preliminary hearings are notoriously easy for prosecutors to win and conversely, very difficult for defendants to win. Defense counsel instead used the hearing as a means of free discovery. Since defendants are not allowed to depose criminal witnesses and prosecutors must put on a passable case in order to bind the defendant over and proceed to trial. In addition, most criminal defense attorneys prefer to play their cards close to the vest and not reveal their case strategy to the prosecutors.

The defense filed and argued a motion to suppress all evidence found at O J’S Rockingham Estate in such a motion, the defense needs to prove that there was no emergency and no reason to enter O j’s property, which if true would allow into evidence things found in plain sight. They noted that the police did not enter with guns drawn. They weren’t wearing bulletproof vests and they didn’t call for backup. The defense likewise pointed out that Furman had simply jumped the fence and turned his back on the house in order to buzz the rest of the team through the electronic gate, attempting to prove that there was no emergency. Only after discovering the blood drops and bloody glove that the police managed to get a search warrant. Despite the defense’s best arguments, the judge denied the motion and instead admitted the evidence. The OJ preliminary hearing took just six days At its conclusion on July 8th, 1994, judge Kathleen Kennedy Powell bound OJ over for trial where he would face the death sentence.

Ultimately, several significant developments occurred in this case. By the time the trial started, the special allegations for the death sentence had been removed and the prosecutors were no longer seeking death for oj instead asking the court to impose life in prison as the punishment. By withdrawing the death penalty, the prosecution gave up the opportunity to have what’s known as a death qualified jury. That’s a jury that would be willing to find him guilty knowing that he might face the death penalty. Juries that are death qualified on the one hand are not categorically opposed to the death penalty, but on the other hand will consider life in prison as an acceptable alternative. These qualified juries, however, have disproportionately fewer women and minorities and standard criminal juries. Members of a death penalty qualified jury are also more likely to convict than other jurors. If the prosecution had kept the special allegations for a death sentence in place and they could have ensured that they impaneled death qualified jury at the very start of the case. At any later time during the case, the prosecutors could have withdrawn the death penalty but still kept the death qualified jury intact, increasing their chances for conviction. However, withdrawing the possibility of a death penalty in the middle of a trial is usually viewed as an acknowledgement by the prosecutor of a weakness in the evidence.

In another unusual move, the prosecution elected not to file this case in Santa Monica, which would’ve been the proper venue for the trial because the crime occurred in that district. Los Angeles has 38 districts. Santa Monica is largely white and wealthy. The case was instead filed in downtown Los Angeles at the Stanley Mosque Courthouse where the jury pool would more accurately reflect the racial and financial makeup of the entire city. This decision may have arisen out of the prosecution’s concern to avoid a repeat of the six days of riots looting an arson that broke out in LA after the practically still fresh April, 1992, jury decision that acquitted four police officers for beating Rodney King. Looking at the OJ case overall, the prosecution had several things in its favor, two dead bodies, a lot of evidence, both physical and circumstantial motive and opportunity. It did not, however, have a direct eyewitness. It didn’t have a weapon and it didn’t have the bloody clothes that were supposedly warned by the murderer. That night.

Judge Lance Ito called the trial to order on January 13th, 1995. Pretrial proceedings started with the prosecution team of Marsha Clark, Christopher Darden and William Hodgman in place along with others in the Los Angeles DA’s office. On the other side was the so-called dream team of defense lawyers, Johnny Cochrane, Jr. F Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Shapiro, Barry Sch, Robert Kardashian and Gerald Alman, as well as several other ancillary lawyers. Ones we call briefcase carriers. The jury initially was comprised of nine African-Americans, one Caucasian, one Hispanic, and two of mixed race. Of those 12 jurors, eight were women and four were men. The lawyers also picked 12 alternate jurors. Almost all of the 12 jurors were removed throughout the case for various reasons. On Wednesday, March 1st, 1995, judge Ito removed an African-American male from the panel and replaced him with a white female. On March 17th, 1995, a self-described mixed race juror was replaced by a white woman who had been divorced since 1968, believed in the accuracy of DNA evidence and said that during a 9 1 1 call, Nicole Brown Simpson seemed to need help and wasn’t taken seriously. Near the end of the trial, there were only two alternates left and the case was in danger of a mistrial for lack of jurors, although it would’ve been possible under California law to proceed with just six jurors commonly known as a six pack among lawyers. The prosecution refused.

Opening statements in the trial started on January 24th, 1995. Christopher Darden from the prosecution team addressed the jury first. He

Christopher Darden:

Killed her out of jealousy. He killed her because he couldn’t have it. Simpson is an extremely controlling and possessive man.

J. Craig Williams:

Darden told the jury that they would find out why OJ murdered his ex-wife, Ann Goldman, deputy District attorney. Marsha Clark then described the evidence against Simpson.

Marcia Clark:

There is a path of blood where there should be no blood. That trail of blood from Bundy through his own Ford Bronco and into his house in Rockingham is devastating proof of his guilt.

J. Craig Williams:

Defense counsel Johnny Cochrane Jr. Spoke following Mr. Darden and Ms. Clark. He proclaimed OJ an innocent man wrongly accused. He also chose to open with a salvo attacking the evidence.

Johnnie Cochran Jr. :

Nowhere I think will you find in this case is the problem of the evidence being contaminated, compromised and corrupted. More important than the area of DNA testing, the evidence will show is a very new and powerful technology. In the past five years, police departments and crime labs have tried to transfer this DNA test that has been used for research and medical diagnosis and apply it to crime scene samples. We expect all of you will hear in the course of the evidence, this transfer of technology has not been simple or easy and so I want to share with you in the course of my opening statement now some differences between DNA testing for medical purposes and forensic DNA testing on crime scene samples numbering as we in the graphic that all evidence passes through. First the LAPD’s hands, if it’s compromised, when it starts, it’s compromised when it comes out. If the evidence was contaminated at the scene or mishandled by the Los Angeles Police Department, it doesn’t matter what DNA test was done afterwards, how many times they’re done or which laboratories did them, the results would not be reliable. We expect the evidence to show

J. Craig Williams:

Cochrane’s refrain that the evidence was contaminated, compromised, and ultimately corrupted came to represent the defense’s initial main attack. What would at first seem polar opposite approaches by the defense team and the prosecutors is actually not that far apart. Clearly, the prosecution claimed OJ committed the murders. Defense on the other hand said the evidence didn’t prove that OJ committed the murders. Although I’m parsing as most attorneys do, the distinction is important. The defense didn’t try to blame another person, an unknown assailant commonly known as the Saudi defense S-O-D-D-I. Some other dude did it. The defense didn’t try to prove O j’s innocence, although it said OJ was innocent. Instead, the defense tried and succeeded to show that the prosecution couldn’t prove O j’s guilt in a criminal trial, let alone a murder trial. Not attempting to prove your innocence is a very daring tactic, but one that must frequently be employed given the available choices, the trial began, the prosecution introduced evidence to establish the time that murders were committed by calling Nicole’s neighbors who heard and found the barking dog as well as the neighbor who found the bodies and called police.

The defense team on cross-examination used photographs of the murder seam attempting to show that the bloody glove and other evidence were removed and tampered with O J’s lawyers pointed out at every chance they got how the investigation of the crime scene was both sloppy and incomplete as it developed in the trial itself. The defense was able to add another theory that the evidence had been planted by a racist cop for five days in early to mid-March 1995. Detective Mark Furman took the stand. He had served on the LA Police force for nearly 20 years after a stint in the Marines where he was honorably discharged as a sergeant at the time. He took the stand, he had earned 55 commendations while on the force. The defense pounded away at who they believed to be a racist complaining so much that Judge Ito required them to make an offer of proof concerning the questions they intended to ask.

Ferman on the stand an offer of proof is the attorney’s recitation of the questions that they expect to ask in front of the judge but not in front of the jury. The defense team first filed what’s commonly called a pitches motion to obtain furman’s confidential personnel records to see if he’d been disciplined for behavior that could be classified as racist. Judge IDO partially granted the defense motion and ordered the release of Furman’s personnel files on March 10th, 1995. The prosecution put Detective Furman on the stand to show that he wasn’t alone and didn’t have the opportunity to plant evidence

Marcia Clark:

At that point. Sir, had you already been to Rockingham and come back to Bundy?

Detective Fuhrman:

Yes ma’am.

Marcia Clark:

So at the point that you found the ski mask, how close had you gotten to that item?

Detective Fuhrman:

No closer than the landing where I observed the two victims. From where? The first shoe prints,

Marcia Clark:

That was the closest observation you had at that point?

Detective Fuhrman:

Yes.

Marcia Clark:

Okay. So item number 17 is based on your observation of these two items that you got to look at from the vantage point of the gate with Officer Risk and Detective Phillips and from the landing with Officer Risk and Detective Phillips?

Detective Fuhrman:

Yes ma’am.

Marcia Clark:

Alright, so you got as far as item number 17 documenting your observation of a ski mask one glove by the feet of the male victim. Had you completed your notes at that point? Were you all done?

Detective Fuhrman:

No.

Marcia Clark:

What happened to interrupt you?

Detective Fuhrman:

Well before while I was still writing my notes, detective Roberts entered, he had just arrived on scene and he came into the living room. He was directed by Detective Phillips and he said, can you update me or bring me up to speed? I did that briefly. I told him, I informed him what I had seen in the house. I took him onto the landing very quickly. Pointed out there was a glove, a cap, female victim, a menu. I showed him the shoe prints, I walked him back the path I showed him on the gate of blood, and this is at this time is when Detective Roberts and I both saw the smudge and that possible visible fingerprint.

J. Craig Williams:

F Lee Bailey cross-examined Furman on what may very well be one of the first of several turning points in the trial. Kathleen Bell, a Los Angeles real estate agent, had earlier sent a letter to Johnny Cochran detailing a conversation in which Furman claimed that he would pull over African-Americans simply if they were driving in their cars with Caucasian women along with other violently racist comments. Judge Ito allowed the letter into evidence. Bailey compared Furman’s remarks to Adolf Hitler’s a comparison that Johnny Cochrane would repeat in closing much to the discuss of his fellow defense team member Robert Shapiro, who accused Cochrane of dealing the race card from the bottom of the deck First, however, Ashley Bailey would confirm Furman’s denial that he ever knew Kathleen Bell.

F. Lee Bailey:

You say you’re sure you never met a woman named Kathleen Bell?

Detective Fuhrman:

Yes, sir.

F. Lee Bailey:

Did you ever meet a woman that looks like the lady on the Larry King show by some other name?

Detective Fuhrman:

No.

F. Lee Bailey:

In looking at that face, how long did you watch the show that night?

Detective Fuhrman:

About five minutes.

F. Lee Bailey:

Was that enough to satisfy you that you had never seen this woman before?

Detective Fuhrman:

I did not recognize her.

F. Lee Bailey:

Well, what she was discussing was fairly outrageous conduct. Is it not?

Detective Fuhrman:

Yes sir.

F. Lee Bailey:

Okay, and if you had engaged in that conduct with the woman whose image you were looking at, that’s not something you would soon forget, is it? No. Detective Furman, would you take a look at this photograph of a blonde woman and tell me whether or not that is the person that was being interviewed by Larry King when you watched the show at the request of the prosecution?

Detective Fuhrman:

Yes.

F. Lee Bailey:

And do you have no recollection of Joe faus, one of the Marines being in your company and hers in the recruiting station in 1986 or thereabouts?

Detective Fuhrman:

I do not.

F. Lee Bailey:

Or at any time in your life?

Detective Fuhrman:

I do not.

F. Lee Bailey:

Alright,

J. Craig Williams:

This all right is sloppy questioning and sloppy lawyering responding to a witness’s answer with all right or okay signals to a jury. The lawyer is confirming the witness’s testimony, which in many of these questions is not what Mr. Bailey is trying to do and is sending the wrong message. Luckily from Mr. Bailey, Furman hung himself with these answers. The defense called Ms. Bell late in their case on September 5th, 1995. She testified about the same things she had written in her letter to Johnny Cochrane, reiterating her accusations and recounting portions of the conversation she reported to have had with Furman. On September 6th, 1995, detective Furman drove a nail into the coffin of the prosecution’s case when he testified without the jury present, but now with his own lawyer in tow

Gerald Uelmen:

Detective Fuhrman was the testimony that you gave at the preliminary hearing in this case completely truthful.

Detective Fuhrman:

I wish to assert my Fifth Amendment privilege.

Gerald Uelmen:

Have you ever falsified a police report?

Detective Fuhrman:

I wish to assert my Fifth Amendment privilege.

Gerald Uelmen:

Is it your intention to assert your Fifth Amendment privilege with respect to all questions that I ask you?

Detective Fuhrman:

Yes.

Gerald Uelmen:

Detective Ferman, did you plan or manufacture any evidence in this case?

Detective Fuhrman:

I assert my Fifth Amendment privilege.

J. Craig Williams:

Furman was prosecuted for his perjurious testimony and holds the ironic distinction of being the only person convicted of a crime related to the deaths of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. Although it may be reasonable to infer that Furman planted evidence that the Rockingham estate, the prosecution introduced evidence that tended to show Simpson’s blood at Nicole’s condo alongside the bloody shoe prints leading away from the victims and on the back gate. If true, then there’s likely only one way that the blood could have gotten there unless it belonged to Simpson’s children or blood samples taken from Simpson during the investigation. As the defense argued, as the trial pressed on into April, the evidence turned to the physical things found at the scene of the crimes and the Rockingham estate. On cross-examination defense attorney Barry Sche grilled Los Angeles County criminalist Dennis Fung about the cross-contamination of Nicole Brown Simpson’s body with hairs of OJ Simpson attempting to explain away how O J’s hair ended up at the scene.

The defense team forced Fung to acknowledge that O J’s hair could have been brought into the crime scene accidentally by unfolding a blanket from inside the condo to cover Nicole’s body on the night of the murders. Simpson admittedly had been legitimately inside her home at various times and could have easily sloughed off his hair on the blanket. Fung admitted that decision had been a mistake. Not exactly the impression the prosecution wanted to leave with the jury. The prosecution offered evidence from DNA experts that an RFLP test restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis was done from a blood drop found at the condo. The RFLP test cuts a DNA molecule at a specific location, then measures base pair lengths for comparison. According to this test, the blood found at the crime scene could have come from one of 170 million sources of blood O j’s blood fit that one in 170 million chance four other blood drops were tested by the PCR method, poly Marius chain reaction.

The PCR method essentially clones the DNA sample allowing millions of copies of the DNA strand. There was a one in 5,200 match from OJ from only the fifth drop. These five drops were among the most significant evidence against Simpson because they were collected on June 13th, 1994. Prior to the time the police obtained a sample of Simpson’s blood, the defense nevertheless argued that these samples were cross-contaminated in the lab. Another blood sample found at O J’S Rockingham home that the prosecution admitted into evidence was even stronger, one in 6.8 billion. The prosecution argued that statistical DNA match made Simpson the only person on earth who matched that DNA blood sample. The defense responded to these statistics by hacking away at Criminalist trainee Andrea Mola, who collected evidence with Fung and impeaching her credibility and ability to properly gather evidence. They claimed she contaminated it as she gathered it by failing to change her latex gloves between taking samples as she failed to gather blood samples from the back gate because she didn’t see it and that she changed numbering on blood samples. The prosecution attempted to repair that damage on redirect, but her testimony had been impaled along with their theory of the case. One of the members of O J’S defense team William C. Thompson, who was a professor in the Department of Criminology Law and Society at the University of California Irvine explained the problem with Ms. Molas handling of the samples this way.

Professor William Thompson:

After they were used to collect blood at the crime scene, the Bundy swatches were sealed in plastic bags and stored in a truck. At the end of the day, they were returned to the LAPD crime laboratory and left in test tubes overnight to dry. The next morning criminalist Andrea Matola packaged the dried swatches in paper biles in a pretrial hearing about two months thereafter. Matola testified that she had placed her initials on each of the bindals. When defense experts examined the bindal containing the Bundy swatches, they made two startling discoveries. None of the bindal bore SLAs initials, but some bore what renowned criminalist and defense expert Dr. Henry Lee later characterized as wet transfer stains, the sort of stains that would be produced by contact with swatches that were wet with blood. These observations led Dr. Lee to a memorable conclusion. Something is wrong. The Bundy swatches should not have been wet when they were placed in the biles. The defense argued according to laboratory notes, the swatches had been allowed to air dry in open test tubes for 14 hours before they were placed in the biles. Dr. Lee testified that the swatches should have been completely dry within three hours. A study produced by the prosecution stated that swatch is dry within 55 minutes.

J. Craig Williams:

Thompson’s testimony was simple to understand. It was possible that the investigators had botched the investigation and the defense team could claim the samples were either planted or contaminated and quite possibly degraded or worse yet both. On June 15th, 1995, the prosecution made what many considered to be its biggest blunder of the trial. Christopher Darden orchestrated a demonstration after identifying Bloomingdale’s as the exclusive seller of the particular Aris iso toner glove found at both Nicole’s condo and O J’s Rockingham estate. Unfortunately, the prosecution’s case Darden gave the defense a refrain. We still hear today if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit. Once they proved Nicole had bought the gloves for oj, the prosecution then had OJ try on the gloves. Although OJ could have objected to the prosecution’s request for a demonstration because to do so would violate his fifth amendment right not to testify. Apparently the defense knew ahead of time what would happen perhaps having conducted their own out of court experiment.

The jury, however, would not understand the fine points of this constitutional argument, but would view O J’s demonstration as his testimony during the trial. In any event, as you will see, OJ did testify, although not under oath. Another point probably lost on the jury. Undoubtedly though the jury understood the defense’s main point well enough, the gloves did not fit to get a good fit. The prosecution should have tried to force OJ to try on a similar size of Aris iso toner, leather light gloves that were not blood soaked and without wearing latex gloves underneath, the defense likely would’ve succeeded in preventing that demonstration from the constitutional perspective and in reality fearful in any event that those gloves would have fit. Nevertheless, an all speculation aside this exchange is how it actually happened.

Christopher Darden:

Your Honor, at this time the people would ask that Mr. Simpson step forward and try on the glove recovered at Bundy as well as the glove recovered at Rockingham.

Judge Lance Ito:

Alright, do you want to do that?

Johnnie Cochran Jr. :

No objection, your honor.

Judge Lance Ito:

Alright. He can do that seated there and I think so the jury can see. I’ll ask Mr. Simpson to stand. Alright, Mr. Darden, which glove do you have?

Christopher Darden:

This is the Bundy glove, your Honor.

Judge Lance Ito:

Alright,

Christopher Darden:

And after Mr. Simpson tries on the gloves, I would ask that he be required to step back over to the jury and again show him his bare hands.

Judge Lance Ito:

Well, we’ll get to that in a second. Alright. The record should reflect that as is our practice with these gloves. Mr. Simpson will have a pair of latex gloves on while doing this,

Christopher Darden:

Your Honor, apparently Mr. Simpson seems to be having a problem putting the glove on his hand. Your Honor, I

Johnnie Cochran Jr. :

Object to

Christopher Darden:

Counsel statements.

Judge Lance Ito:

Sustained. Alright, deputy Jacks, would you just take a step back please? Thank you. Alright. The record should reflect that Mr. Simpson has both gloves on.

Christopher Darden:

May he show his hands in front of the jury so that they can see?

Judge Lance Ito:

Yes.

Christopher Darden:

Mr. Simpson is indicating that his fingers aren’t all the way into the gloves, your Honor.

Judge Lance Ito:

Alright, thank you counsel.

Christopher Darden:

Mr. Simpson told the jury that the gloves are too small.

J. Craig Williams:

Notice here another blunder. Darden could have easily moved to strike Mr. Simpson’s statements or gone further and asked the court to cross-examine him on the fit of the gloves. A point the judge most likely would’ve denied, but the jury would’ve gotten the point that Simpson statements weren’t testimony. In any event, the visual of the gloves not fitting would’ve made any attempt to remedy that problem. Moot. The jury saw and understood the gloves didn’t fit. There was no way to unring that bell.

Christopher Darden:

Your Honor, before Mr. Simpson goes back, can we ask him to replace the left glove onto his hand? Alright. Can we ask him to straighten his fingers and extend them into the glove as one normally might put a glove on?

Judge Lance Ito:

Yes,

Christopher Darden:

Your honor.

Johnnie Cochran Jr. :

Object to this statement by counsel.

Judge Lance Ito:

Alright. He appears to have pulled the gloves on. Counsel, would you please show that to the jury, Mr. Simpson, in that manner? Thank you.

J. Craig Williams:

Right then and there, the gloves became irrelevant and irreparably damaged the prosecution’s case. In the cross-examination of the prosecution’s final witness, Douglas Dietrich, who was the chief of the FBI’s hair and fibers Unit f Lee Bailey, gained admissions from Diedrich, but the police found no hair from Nicole Brown Simpson in OJ Simpson’s. Bronco Diedrich also admitted that there was no hair consistent with OJ Simpson’s hair on either glove to add insult to injury. Diedrich lastly confirmed the defense’s contentions that there were no hairs from Ronald Goldman or Nicole Brown Simpson on a sock found at Simpson’s mansion on July 6th, 1995. After presenting testimony for five months and offering 72 witnesses, the prosecution rested failing to understand two of the most basic trial requirements, keep it simple and end with a bang. Instead, the prosecution had whimpered to an end despite the warnings that the best defense to this prosecution was no defense at all. The dream team mounted an attack in July and August on prosecution, eyewitnesses testimony about the night of the murder and challenged the prosecution’s scientific evidence with experts of its own in awe. The defense would call 54 witnesses. Their DNA expert testified that the L lap PD had persistent and chronic contamination problems. The LAPD’s own fingerprint expert Gilbert Aguilar testified that none of the latent fingerprints found that the crime scene matched Simpson’s prints, but perhaps the most effective defense witness was Dr. Henry Lee.

Barry Scheck:

Dr. Lee, could you tell us what present position you hold?

Dr. Henry Lee:

Currently? I’m the chief criminalist for the state of Connecticut. Also, I’m the laboratory director for the Connecticut State Police Forensic Laboratory. However, today I come here as an independent consultant, nothing to do with my official capacity.

Barry Scheck:

Now, Dr. Lee, in terms of the side that you’re usually on in criminal cases, in terms of percentages, what percentage of the time are you called by the prosecution and what percentage of the time are you called by the defense?

Dr. Henry Lee:

Approximately 95% is for the prosecution. Less than 5% is for the defense.

J. Craig Williams:

Dr. Lee was the ideal witness for the defense. His historical testimony had been mostly for the prosecution side, so the prosecution here could not accuse him of a defense-oriented bias. Dr. Lee went on to confirm that he found bloody shoe imprints on a piece of paper at the Bundy crime scene after the police had left and determined that they did not match O J’s shoes. He also put the time of the murders closer to 11:00 PM when OJ had an alibi. And finally he condemned the evidence gathering techniques of the LAPD pointing out that the samples appeared to have been tampered with. After examining evidence found by the LAPD, Lee said he found blood transfer stains inside paper packaging, holding what were supposed to be

Dr. Henry Lee:

Dry blood samples. Somebody put the swatch in the package to cause such a transfer. Who did it? What happened? I don’t know. Only opinion I can give you under these circumstances something’s wrong.

J. Craig Williams:

In her closing prosecutor Marsha Clark, spoke for five hours. Christopher Darden spoke for about an hour and followed up with a rebuttal after Johnny Cochrane’s closing. Johnny Cochrane spoke for about five hours and defense attorney Barry Scheck briefly inserted a few words in the midst of Cochrane’s closing on one of the hot button issues in the case. However, both Clark and Cochrane spoke about Furman but attacking him in different ways. Even Darden dealt with furman’s racism. Clark tried both to vilify Furman and save him at the same time, an almost impossible task.

Marcia Clark:

Let me come back to Mark Furman for a minute, just so it’s clear. Did he lie when he testified here in this Courtroom saying that he did not use racial epithets in the last 10 years? Yes. Is he a racist? Yes. Is he the worst LAPD has to offer? Yes. But the fact that Mark Furman is a racist and lied about it on the witness stand does not mean that we haven’t proven the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and it would be a tragedy if with such overwhelming evidence. Ladies and gentlemen, as we have presented to you, you found the defendant not guilty In spite of all that, because of the racist attitudes of one police officer,

J. Craig Williams:

Cochran took it much further. Comparing Furman to Hitler.

Johnnie Cochran Jr. :

There was another man not too long ago in this world who had those same views, who wanted to burn people who had racist views and ultimately had power over people in his country. Furman wants to take all black people now and burn them and bomb them. That’s genocidal. Racism is that ethnic purity. We’re paying this man’s salary to espouse these views.

J. Craig Williams:

In his rebuttal, Darden tried to undo the damage that Cochrane had done.

Christopher Darden:

It is true that Furman is a racist, and it is also true that OJ Simpson killed these two people and we proved that he killed two people and they proved that Furman is a racist.

J. Craig Williams:

Despite predictions from the legal talking heads on TV that the jury would be out up to two months, they instead took just under four hours to reach their verdict. On October 3rd, 1995, judge Ito’s clerk read the jury’s verdict, finding OJ not guilty of all crimes charged. Television cameras focused on OJ, who many say appeared shocked at the verdict. One African-American juror pumped his fist in the air while looking at oj. In an apparent show of solidarity, the defense team celebrated Cochran also pumped his fist, but the Goldmans who were in the audience were crushed O J’s legal troubles related to the death of his ex-wife and Ron Goldman were far from over. After the not guilty verdict, the parents of both victims sued OJ in civil court for the wrongful death of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. He lost the case and had a judgment taken against him for 33 and a half million dollars, which was not discharged. Billing bankruptcy due to the award of the punitive damages, which was $25 million of the award. Punitive damages requires a finding of malice and damages arising from intentional conduct like malice cannot be discharged under United States bankruptcy laws despite O J’s acquittal. In this murder trial, he was convicted in the 2008 Las Vegas kidnapping and robbery case where the judge called him both arrogant and ignorant and sentenced him to 33 years in prison with the possibility of parole in nine years, which he was granted in 2017.

Several critical missteps occurred in this case. First, the prosecutors elected to proceed in a court not where the crime was committed, but one that would seem as more fair to oj. Second, the prosecution withdrew the death penalty and gave up a jury more likely to convict. Next Detective Mark Ferman buried the prosecution’s case by introducing the race card and allowing Johnny Cochrane to boil the case down and pit a white detective against an African-American defendant to a racially diverse jury. Cochrane took every advantage of that mistake and apparently successfully implied that Furman planted evidence. The prosecutors staged an unrehearsed demonstration requiring OJ to try on the gloves, which obviously didn’t fit. Again, allowing Cochrane to capitalize on the mistake and giving the trial its signature tagline.

Imagine instead, a flawless prosecution trial with none of these missteps. Would OJ have been convicted of murder long before he was convicted of kidnapping and robbery in Las Vegas? Put yourself on the jury. How would you decide? Thank you for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed this story. This episode is adapted from a chapter in my book, which is now available for purchase. So if you want the full story of the OJ Simpson trial and the other nine trials covered in my book, please pick up a copy and learn all the details, testimony, and juicy bits that didn’t make these episodes. You can buy copies on Amazon and from all major booksellers book. How would you decide 10 famous trials that Changed History is published by Crimson Cloak Publishing and IITs author Jay Craig Williams. Thanks. Also, go to our script writer, sound designer and sound mixer.

Nathan Todd Hunter, our producer, Kate Kenny Nutting. Lisa Kirkman, our director of partnerships, our marketing specialist, Delaney R and the publisher of my book, Carly McCracken of Crimson Cloak Publishing, granted permission for the Legal Talk Networks adaptation. Special thanks to our voiceover actors, Vincent Howard, who played the role of Johnny Cochrane Jr. CJ Jackson, who played the role of Christopher Darden. Megan Steinberg, who played the role of Marsha Clark. Andrew Wood, who played the role of Mark Furman. Adam Blockwood, who played the role of Gerald Allman. Ryan Pinkney, who played the role of William C. Thompson. Victor Lee, who played the role of Judge Lance Edo, JD Freeman, who played the role of Barry Schack and Dave Screven Young, who played the role of Dr. Henry Lee. In the next episode, we’ll go back in time some 2000 years to the city of Jerusalem to examine perhaps the most controversial trial in human history, the trial of Jesus. Thanks for the privilege of your time today. We look forward to seeing you again. I’m Craig Williams. Please stay tuned for our next episode of Indis Dispute on the Legal Talk Network.

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