If not, why not? The same basic principle of CT obfuscation can also apply to that case, applying some “doubt” or “question” to each individual detail, without ever creating a reasonable, plausible alternate explanation that addresses the totality of the evidence we have.
If you discount the interminable “what ifs” in the OJ case, and believe he did it, then why not with Oswald and JFK? I, for the record, believe the “official” view of both killings - both men acted alone.
At least OJ had a trial, demonstrating how much innocence can be bought by a millionaire.
The official view of the OJ case is surely that decided by the jury: that he’s innocent, or at the least that there is insufficient evidence of his guilt.
I would imagine there’s less reason to believe there was conspiracy to kill Nicole Simpson than a president.
That “innocence” (actually, he was found ‘not guilty’, although ultimately civilly liable) was based on a defense that nickeled and dimed each fact (I.e the chain of custody of blood obtained from OJ’s house) without denying basic facts of the case (that blood from the murder ended up at OJ’s house!). It’s a strategy perfected by JFK Cters.
[QUOTE=blindboyard]
The official view of the OJ case is surely that decided by the jury: that he’s innocent, or at the least that there is insufficient evidence of his guilt.
[/QUOTE]
So you don’t believe he’s guilty, or are you saying that, by virtue of the fact that you do believe him guilty, you don’t believe the “official story” ? If the former, do you not also consider evidence not introduced at trial - such as the fact that OJ drove down the highway with a gun pointed at his head - to be significant? If the latter, than I would suggest that the “official story” is that he is more likely to have done it, than not, but it hasn’t been established beyond a reasonable doubt. You won’t even concede that regarding JFK.
And many people, myself included, believe that the doubts raised in the OJ trial were not “reasonable”, which is exactly why I compare it to the quintessential example: the belief in the JFK conspiracy.
[QUOTE=Revtim]
I would imagine there’s less reason to believe there was conspiracy to kill Nicole Simpson than a president.
[/QUOTE]
I thought the OJ “conspiracy” was that the cops framed OJ (remember: drug dealers or some such nefarious types really killed her).
However, if the basis for believing in the JFK conspiracy is that it was “big”, then wouldn’t that also increased the chance it would be “leaked”? Why did the JFK team take it to the grave, but even Deep Throat came clean post mortem?
I don’t know for certain if he did it, and I don’t go around believing people to be murderers without decent evidence. I don’t think there was a real conspiracy to set up OJ, but a racist cop planting some evidence to set him up, maybe even thinking he’d done it, that’s plausible. There’s a reason, after all, that evidence is discredited if you can’t establish a proper chain of custody, and so on. This isn’t some technicality that allows murderers to walk free, this is something which protects people from fraudulent evidence stemming from people in positions of authority, such as corrupt or racist police.
And I don’t consider going on the run evidence of guilt. A charge of resisting arrest can’t be entered as evidence for the prosecution, because it’s meaningless.
That the official story, that Oswald acted alone and so on, is probably true but can’t be conclusively proven? No, I don’t
There’s a quite interesting theory that his son did it.
That’s not really anything to do with OJ, but the fact is that there were some leaks, the conspiracy probably wasn’t “big”, in that there were probably only a dozen people who needed to be involved and know what was going to happen, and a few others who just needed to follow orders which they would later think to be unfortunate rather than sinister, like the SS men who complained about being told not to hang onto the handles on the back of the car, who would have provided a nice bullet-shield.
With OJ there need only be one or two cops supported by the other cops being more likely to trust them than Mister Murderer.
No, it’s not. This is the typical “can’t see the forest for the tree” CT argument that skims the surface of plausibility, but doesn’t take into account any underlying facts.
Is is possible that Mark Furman would throw away a 20 year career in an attempt to frame a famous black man? Sure, it’s possible, so let’s at least examine it.
So, he get’s a call in the middle of the night and hears that there is a murder. Let’s say that he even puts 2 and 2 together, realizes that this is OJ’s ex-wife and he decides that he’s going to nail the uppity nigger.
He arrives at the scene and sees two gloves lying near the bodies. Several cops have been there already, none of which testifies to seeing two gloves, but no mind, maybe the “blue wall of silence” will allow him to pick up the glove with full assurances that they won’t rat him out. He would bet jail time on that???
And most importantly, after this action of hiding the glove on his person and trekking to OJ’s house, he plants the glove behind Kato’s place before he has located OJs whereabouts. As far as he knew, OJ could have been in New York all week filming a Hertz commercial. He could have been across town at a party all night in front of a 100 witnesses.
How is he going to explain the glove being found when nobody was at the house? Will his cop buddies over at the crime scene still stand by him when he makes up more lies to cover up an obvious situation?
And just the common sense aspect makes OJ guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Ask yourself how many nights in your entire life would the police come to your house and find blood all over you car and dripping inside your house? Ever? Maybe once in a freak accident? Did you leave it there instead of cleaning it up? Let’s say that you did.
It JUST SO HAPPENS to be the one night that your ex-wife and her friend are brutally murdered right across town? And it also JUST SO HAPPENS that on that night nobody can vouch for your whereabouts during the time frame? And it JUST SO HAPPENS that it happened on a night when you were scheduled to leave town right after the time frame of the murders so as to give you a chance to get a shower/get your story straight?
This alone is enough for me. The DNA, the shoes and everything else is gravy.
Your question is flawed. OJ was found not guilty, so he is in fact, not guilty. This has no bearing at all with whether he actually killed Nicole, it just says that a jury of his peers found that the prosecution did not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, thus found him not guilty.
The “official” view? The “official” view of OJ was a not-guilty verdict.
The position of the State of California during the trail was that he did, so that “official view” was that Simpson was a murderer. There’s more than one official view here.
I think we all know he was found not guilty by a jury of his peers. The question of whether one thinks he should have been found guilty is still a valid one, though.
I think it extraordinarily, almost stupidly obvious that Simpson killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. According to the rules he got off the criminal charges, and them’s the rules and it has to stay that way, but the fact remains the man killed those two people and there’s really no reasonable alternative explanation of the facts. Juries don’t always get it right, and I’m fine with that; the system is a pretty good one, all in all, it’s just not perfect.
The prosecutors blew it six ways from Sunday. They should have fought the glove fit test on the grounds that leather does not easily slide over latex. They should have found the freaking photos of OJ wearing the rare and expensive shoes, with all the photos available of OJ, it should have been easy to find one that would allow a shoe expert to testify that these were the same model that made the prints. They shouldn’t have overwhelmed the jury with the DNA evidence. Sometimes less is more. All that being said, I find it doubtful that this jury would have convicted with a video tape of OJ actually doing the deed.
The state doesn’t hold the view that someone is guilty; the state holds the view that there is enough evidence to warrant a trial to determine whether or not he is guilty and that both sides of the argument should be examined to the best possible standard. The state’s job is to represent one side of that argument, and to ensure measures, infrastructure, and policy are in place so that the other side can be represented competently also. But it doesn’t hold a pre-judged view of guilt or innocence.
Agreed, nobody really believes he didn’t do it; but the only official view is the verdict handed down by the court.
Not only that, but Judge Ito allowed the defense to put the LAPD, and the LA Coroner’s Office on trial.
Ito was a VERY bad judge-why did he allow such courtroom nonsense?
Not anymore, though. It’s just a nitpick anyway - Moriarty was a little careless in the OP by using “official view” in regards to OJ’s guilt, and the good pedantic folks at the SDMB called him on it.
But, just to be accurate, the “official view” of the State of California now is that Simpson is not guilty of the murders.
Could the police in the OJ case have been trying to ‘frame’ a guilty man?.. yes.
Could Oswald have been a patsy? (involved, and set up to take the fall, rather than just a “lone gunman”)… yes.
Are either likely to EVER be provable at this point, without somebody’s deathbed confession? Hell no. But they sure make for pretty entertaining discussions on slow news days…
You’re right - I goofed. I should have said “generally accepted view.” My thought (clearly wrong, as it turns out) was that there would be overwhelming agreement that OJ did it, and that the jury was misled by little forays into minutiae without ever stepping back to examine the evidence in its entirety.
I also thought, assuming this consensus, that people might be persuaded to agree that a CT only works if you want it to be true. The glamor and prestige of JFK, and the intrigue of government coverups, inspires the JFK CT crowd. For the OJ case, which is much more recent, and tawdry, the tendency to see such conspiracies would be diminished, though the same CT tactics were employed.
It appears that this was ill conceived. Mea culpa.